TUMORS THAT GLOW IN THE DARK

V

Linda in Wrangell, Alaska
The little town that God almost forgot

I’m no physician, that’s for sure, but I am fairly certain that the standard counter attack after a woman is diagnosed with ovarian cancer involves what is called debulking surgery – your trusted doc goes in with a scalpel and cuts out as much cancerous tissue as he or she can find.  (Sometimes this is preceded by what is known as “neoadjuvant chemo therapy”, the purpose of which seems largely to be to reduce the tumor burden to manageable proportions.)  But sometimes – commonly I fear – the surgeon, being after all human – misses a chunk of the stuff.  Well, to reduce this risk medical science has developed a drug that makes solid tumor masses glow in the dark, as it were.  This can’t help but help, so hooray for those people in the white coats!  If you have occasion to face such a dilemma, be damned sure your oncologist is in the know.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-new-imaging-drug-help-identify-ovarian-cancer-lesions

 

 

AN EASY WAY TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF

                          Linda, a baby, and a cat

                        I can identify the cat, but not the baby.  Carolyn?

I know I have already posted once today, but this is too good to wait – especially with Black Friday at hand.

Did you know that you can finagle Amazon around so that every time you use it, a small donation is made to a charity of your choice?  Well, I certainly didn’t know that– but now, I am “woke”!  (Probably not a valid use of that neologism but, what the hell, I’m an old codger.)

Anyway, just google “smile.amazon.com” and follow the ensuing instructions.  No hassle; I did it in 30 seconds.  All you have to do is choose a charity.  I suggest Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, or the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.  There are maybe 10,000 other causes to choose from; but try to avoid things like, say, the Donald Trump re-election fund.

Come on – do it!  It is useful, easy, and will even make you feel virtuous this dreary Thanksgiving day.

 

MUTATIONS AND CANCER: a simple summary

                                           

                                  San Francisco Days

 Thanksgiving Day & not a time to labor over a blog, but – before I forget – here is a useful summary from Fred Hutch concerning the role of inherited genetic mutations in all kinds of cancer, but especially breast and ovarian.  I had the Devil’s own time getting the thing to appear, and so may you – but don’t give up!  Read it sometime.

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2021/11/beyond-brca-breast-cancer-risk-genetics.html?utm_campaign=hutchnews_nov21&team=content&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&creator=fh 

A BIO-MEDICAL THANKSGIVING GREETING

                     LINDA IN SCOTLAND, I THINK

                                      Or was it Norway?

Everyone seems to be wishing everyone else a happy, safe and amply gratifying Thanksgiving.  Rather than do that, I am going to refer you to the posting of my second favorite MD, Dr. Francis Collins of the NIH.  Of Dr. Collins I previously have written that he is incapable of writing a dull paragraph.  Well, his latest Blog (below) is certainly neither dull nor overly technical.  In it he gives Thanks for many of the latest advances in bio-medical research – and sneaks in layperson’s descriptions of what they are all about.  Good stuff.  Read it.

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/11/23/feeling-grateful-this-thanksgiving-for-biomedical-research/ 

SEER

 From front to back:  Whiskers, a tiny bit of soft fluff; Murphy, my Ancient Enemy, the Prince of Darkness; Linda, my much adored and badly miss wife/

Do you think cancer can be fun?  Well, hell no!  I hate it as much as anyone (probably a lot more  having watched Linda die of OVCA), but I admit to amusing myself from time to time, playing with the following set of official NIH statistics.  The program is known as SEER, which codes for Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program, and you can access it using this web address.

https://seer.cancer.gov/

There is virtually no end to the variety of cancer statistics one can conjure up using this resource – although a modest amount of patience and determination may be required.  For instance, with the web site up and running, click on “Start Exploring”, then use the ensuing plot to ask for long term trends in ovarian cancer.  If you do this correctly you should obtain a graph showing several surprising things:  (1) since the year 2000 the incidence of ovarian cancer has declined all fractionally among white women, but not for their black counterparts. (2) Throughout that period white women have been more afflicted by OVCA, although of late the curves appear to merge.  A little more fiddling will provide you with a graph showing that, from 1975 to present, OVCA incidence has declined fractionally; I find that curious, don’t you? 

Also somewhat surprising is the “incidence of prostate cancer” graph; there, black Americans are shown to be less fortunate than the rest of society.

I will stop here.  There is virtually no end to the time you can waste using the SEER program.  Grim stuff, yes, but important!

MORE ON THE NEW SWEDISH CANCER INSTITUTE

                             A PUB DINNER, LONDON    

Some of the verbal flak accompanying the creation of the (Paul Allen funded) new Swedish Cancer Institute* involved an effort to prevent cancer as well as cure it.  To my way of thinking, that’s a very long shot.  Cancer occurs when something genetic goes haywire, which mostly happens when something goes wrong with the (very complicated) cellular reproduction process.  I don’t see how we can influence such a basic biological mechanism,  for good.  For bad, we have no trouble – think smoking, for instance.

But the other stated goals of the new Institute – early detection and treatment - are humanly attainable, I think.  I tried to help out with an early detection of ovarian cancer program a few years ago, at Fred Hutch.  Sad to say, we didn’t accomplish our main goal, although not for lack of trying.  The effort then seemed to be to establish a correlation between the prevalence of OVCA and certain bio-objects in the blood; I think they may have been proteins, but as I am a dumb geologist and not a dabbler in occult bio-science I was never sure.  Should have worked, but largely didn’t.  Too bad.

Anyway, one PI on that project was Dr. Charles Drescher, M.D. Chuck, as we called him, is one of America’s top gynecological oncologists.  He also will be affiliated with the new Swedish Cancer Institutes.  That is very good news; Chuck is the real deal.  If you need help, look him up.

https://schedule.swedish.org/directory/gynecologic-oncology/1101-madison-street-157927-787309 

*That’s Swedish, as in the Seattle hospital, not the country

          Linda and Murphy, the Prince of Darkness

                   Probably on our first wedding annivesery

Okay, here is one I hope nobody needs, but everybody ought to be exposed to.  U.S. News provides us with a laypersons account of the behavior of the PARP inhibitor Lynparza, commercial-speak for olaparib.  You already know all about olaparib, how it works, how effective it is, etc., etc., if you have been paying attention to this blog.  Olaporib will not cure ovarian cancer, but it may greatly enhance what the medical folks term PFS – progression-free survival.  In other words, olaparib may keep you well and enjoying life for an important and valuable stretch of time!  If the stuff had been available in 2010 Linda probably would still be now, eleven years later - but we could well have had a few more happy and joyful years together.  That would have been an indescribably great blessing.

So, yes – you know about PARPi and maintenance therapy already.  Just make sure your oncologist does too!  And if you are suspicious, switch docs immediately, without compunction!

By the way, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has left $25m to Swedish Hospital to found a cancer clinic, which is now up and running.  That makes two recommended ( by me!) places for you to consult if, God forfend!, you are diagnosed with any kind of cancer.  The other, of course, is the SCCA 0 Seattle Cancer Care Alliance: U.W. Medical, Seattle Childrens’ Hospital, and Fred Hutch

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-03-25/drug-boosts-survival-for-women-with-advanced-ovarian-cancer

A NEW APPROACH TO CANCER CURE?

                                           Linda and Butch

                                                 Color coordination

 

Next to Saul Rivkin, my favorite human on the medical side of things is Francis Collins.  Not only did Dr. Collins co-spearhead the task of deciphering the human genome, he went on to become the director of NIH and the occasional author of lucid, informative blogs aimed at the likes of you and me.  Here is one such.  To benefit from it you will need to know what mRNA is and what it does.  Faithful readers (all 11 of you) will need no refresher research; the rest of you should consult Dr. Google.  I am not going to try to consolidate and simplify Dr. Collins’ article; you really should read it, and mull it over, for yourself.  Anyway- while I have energy remaining I want to allow you to share my latest humiliation, by means of a Frivolities blog.  Read Dr. Collins’ essay.  Now

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/11/12/teaching-the-immune-system-to-attack-cancer-with-greater-precision/

MORE ON DIET AND OVARIAN CANCER

                                Linda in Cuzco, Peru

Can eating right “immunize” you from ovarian cancer?  Emphatically, no!  OVCA is rooted in genetic problems.  About 1/6 of all sufferers have a genetic defect that they were born with, most often a malfunction of one or other of the BRCA genes.  Having this defect does not guarantee contracting  OVCA, but it greatly enhances the probability.  The remaining cases are the result of errors made during cell reproduction.  Bad luck, that is.  Such “copy errors” are extraordinarily rare, and in most cases harmless – but in some cases may be devastating.  Again, bad luck!

So what, then, are we to make of the study (below) that purports to show that diet can influence the likelihood of contracting OVCA?  Well, danged if I know.  Maybe people who eat “right” also tend to have stronger or more effective immune systems.  In that case the (very slight) correlation between OVCA resistance found does not entail cause-and-effect.  That’s my guess.

But, what the heck:  eat right, anyway.  It can’t hurt.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ovarian-cancer-and-diet 

 

SOME NEW STUFF, SOME OLD STUFF

                        LINDA AT A QUILTING RETREAT

                   Cancer could take her hair, but not her smile

Okay, here is a link to a bunch of short videos concerning various aspects of ovarian cancer research.  To get the most out of them, though, you may need to review such topics as PARP inhibitors, check point inhibitors, platinum sensitivity, and maybe even angiogenesis.  You know all that stuff, right?  Well, there’s always Dr. Google…..  I have written about them, too, from time to time.

https://www.onclive.com/clinical/ovarian-cancer