Cancerkin's News Update.....
Farewells at Cancerkin...
It has been an eventful week for the Cancerkin Team. On Tuesday we said goodbye to East London Project Manager Asini Wijiwardane. Asini joined Cancerkin as our first intern in 2009 and has been working on the project ever since, setting up complementary therapy sessions at St Josephs and then Bromley By Bow, recruiting Experienced Patients and training breast awareness ambassadors. It is thanks to her hard work and dedication that the project has made such encouraging progress. She leaves us to become Health Campaigns Project Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, while the project is left in the very capable hands of our new Project Manager, Cherry Cheung.
On Thursday, Cancerkin said farewell once more to Finance and Research Officer Guy Mollett. Guy has been working at Cancerkin during his gap year and is about to head off on his travels around the Galapagos Islands and Central America. He will then go on to study Medicine at Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth. Our new Finance Officer Shushan Tewolde-Berhan will be taking over the role.
Cancerkin annual lecture: ‘The Elephant in the Room’
Cancerkin’s annual lecture will be given this year by Professor Jonathan Waxman, MD FRCP Professor of Oncology and Consultant Physician at Imperial College London, in the Atrium at the Royal Free Hospital on Tuesday 27 March 2012. The lecture is being held this year in celebration of our 25th anniversary.
Professor Waxman is a clinician who has helped develop new treatments for cancer that are now part of standard practice. He is the founder and Life President of The Prostate Cancer Charity, and has published a huge number of research papers, chapters and books on cancer, as well as a novel and a law book. He is also a prominent campaigner and fundraiser for work into cancer research and care.
His lecture will be based around his new book 'The Elephant in the Room', a collection of stories about cancer patients and their doctors, which provides an insight into how cancer is cared for. The lecture will begin at 6.30pm and admission is free of charge. If you would like to attend, please contact Laura on l.smith@cancerkin.org.uk.
Thank you...
This week, Katie Walker, lead clinical dietician at the Royal Free Hospital, gave a fascinating talk at our patient support group. Katie discussed research into how diet and nutrition may affect our health and highlighted the importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced diet. We thank Katie for sharing her expertise with us in what was a hugely informative session.
In the News.....
Possible vaccine to treat breast cancer...
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in the US have developed a vaccine, made up of a patients own cells, that could be used to treat breast cancer. In a small initial trial of the vaccine, scientists enrolled 27 women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the most common form of non-invasive breast cancer. Using a technique similar to blood donation, specialised white blood cells were taken from each patient. They were then manipulated in a laboratory so that the immune system would recognise cancer cells as foreign and would therefore attack them. Patients were then injected with the personalised vaccine in four weekly doses, followed by surgery to remove the remaining cancer cells.
The study, published in the Journal of Immunotherapy, compared pre- and post-vaccination samples to monitor the effect of the vaccine. Researchers found that after treatment, twenty percent (five) patients had no disease visible. This suggested that their immune system had killed the cancer. They found that damaging proteins were eliminated in eleven patients and reduced by twenty percent or more in another two. They also found that certain patients maintained their immune responses for over four years, indicating a degree of protection from recurrence.
Study leader Dr Brian Czerniecki said: "Here we are going after HER2/neu, which is critical for survival of early breast cancers. If we knock it out with the immune response, we cripple the tumour cells. […] We are continuing to see this pattern in our second, ongoing trial." The team is continuing to enroll patients into a larger study and is designing another study to test the approach in women with early invasive breast cancer.
To read more, please click here.
Benefits of exercise confirmed...
Much has been written about the benefits of exercise for cancer patients and it is a topic we frequently discuss here in On the pulse. New analysis of 34 different studies on exercise and cancer patients has found that, when appropriate, physical activity can improve a patient’s health and quality of life after they finish their treatment.
The report, published by scientists at the University of Hong Kong, looked at data from trials investigating the effects of exercise on adults who had been treated for breast, prostate, gynaecological, bowel, gastric or lung cancer. The studies looked at the effects of different kinds of physical activity – aerobic exercise like walking or jogging, resistance training such as using elastic resistance bands and strength training, such as weights. In women who had undergone breast cancer treatment, scientists found an improvement in body mass index, body weight, physical functions, psychological outcomes like fatigue and depression and quality of life. They also found that doing different kinds of exercise, such as aerobic and resistance activities, was significantly more effective than doing aerobic exercise alone.
Martin Ledwick, head information nurse at Cancer Research UK, said of the results: "This study provides us with further evidence that exercise may help to improve the quality of life of some cancer patients. But it's important to remember that cancer can be diagnosed at any stage and there are many different types of cancer. Each patient's individual condition, state of health and needs should be taken into account before prescribing exercise and many patients will need to seek advice from their doctor, physiotherapist or specialist nurse before embarking on an exercise programme.”
To read more about the report, please click here.
Laura Smith
