Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0178874 (tumor progression)
 40,807 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Recent studies suggest health benefits including protection from cancer after eating fermented foods such as probiotic yogurt, though the mechanisms are not well understood. Here we tested mechanistic hypotheses using two different animal models: the first model studied development of mammary cancer when eating a Westernized diet, and the second studied animals with a genetic predilection to breast cancer. For the first model, outbred Swiss mice were fed a Westernized chow putting them at increased risk for development of mammary tumors. In this Westernized diet model, mammary carcinogenesis was inhibited by routine exposure to Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC-PTA-6475 in drinking water. The second model was FVB strain erbB2 (HER2) mutant mice, genetically susceptible to mammary tumors mimicking breast cancers in humans, being fed a regular (non-Westernized) chow diet. We found that oral supplement with these purified lactic acid bacteria alone was sufficient to inhibit features of mammary neoplasia in both models. The protective mechanism was determined to be microbially-triggered CD4+CD25+ lymphocytes. When isolated and transplanted into other subjects, these L. reuteri-stimulated lymphocytes were sufficient to convey transplantable anti-cancer protection in the cell recipient animals. These data demonstrate that host immune responses to environmental microbes significantly impact and inhibit cancer progression in distal tissues such as mammary glands, even in genetically susceptible mice. This leads us to conclude that consuming fermentative microbes such as L. reuteri may offer a tractable public health approach to help counteract the accumulated dietary and genetic carcinogenic events integral in the Westernized diet and lifestyle.
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PMID:Beneficial bacteria stimulate host immune cells to counteract dietary and genetic predisposition to mammary cancer in mice. 2438 58

Acoustic Neuromas (AN) are benign tumors of the vestibulocochlear nerve with symptomatology that includes unilateral sensorineural hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness, facial and/or trigeminal neuropathy. There are different treatment options of AN: watchful waiting, microsurgical resection, stereotactic radiation and the choice depends by many variables such age, health and hearing of patients as size, location and growing status of tumor. The objective of this retrospective study is to better understand the differences in demographic, hearing status, symptoms, tumor characteristics in patients affected by AN presenting at our clinic and analyze the factors that influence the therapeutic choice. One-hundred three patients affected by AN were included in the study. All subjects underwent a detailed clinical interview and audio-vestibular examination, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Tumor status, growing or stable was estimated comparing new size to any previous MRI with at least a 6-month interval. Descriptive statistics were used for clinical and demographic features of patients. Therapeutic choices related to subjective symptoms were assessed with the chi-square test. Treatment options in our sample included watchful waiting, surgical resection and stereotactic radiosurgery. Overall, 17 patients (16.5%) pursued surgical resection via the retrosigmoid approach, 3 patients (2.9%) were treated with gamma knife stereotactic radiosurgery and 83 patients (80.6%) underwent watchful waiting. The decision-making process for AN treatment was based on size of tumor, age, and hearing loss; a statistically significant difference was found at Z test about size of tumor and PTA of patients that underwent retrosigmoid surgery. No statistically significant difference was found at chi-square test between the type of treatment and symptoms (p=0.719). The analysis of the data showed that the main elements taken into consideration for surgery were the size of tumor (p<0.000004) and, secondly, the PTA threshold; the latter may be due to the fact that patients with bigger tumors had greater hearing impairment (p<0.001). Disease progression influenced the therapeutic decision making with a positive correlation between tumor progression and surgery (p<0.001). In our sample, active surveillance was the most adopted option for small tumor, slow growth and old age. Microsurgical resection was the preferred treatment in patients with large tumors, hearing deterioration and rapid growth. Stereotactic radiation has been proposed in a few cases of elderly patients with slow growing tumor and mild hearing loss.
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PMID:What factors influence treatment decision making in acoustic neuroma? Our experience on 103 cases. 3320 94