A blood test instead of a mammogram-The tale of 9 biomarkers

Research emerges all the time and is updated regularly.

A blood test instead of a mammogram-The tale of 9 biomarkers

Postby Judith » Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:26 pm

Newswise — SAN DIEGO, March 28, 2012
biomarker-29547176.jpg
biomarker-29547176.jpg (21.37 KiB) Viewed 8325 times



A new blood test is twice as sensitive and can detect breast cancer recurrence a full year earlier than current blood tests, according to a scientist who reported here today at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The report was among more than 11,000 presentations on new developments in science scheduled this week at the meeting, held by the world’s largest scientific society.
Daniel Raftery, Ph.D., who reported on the test, pointed out that breast cancer survivors — 2.5 million in the U.S. alone — face about a 1-in-5 chance that the cancer will come back, or recur, within 10 years of treatment. Research shows that early detection of these recurrences and treatment can save lives. However, currently available blood tests are not very sensitive. Perhaps the best known test for a biological “marker” protein, or “biomarker,” called CA 27.29, misses many cases of recurrence and detects them late — often after symptoms, such as difficulty breathing or bone pain, surface.
“We have identified a group of nine biomarkers that signal recurrence of breast cancer,” Raftery said. “Our markers detect twice as many recurrences as the CA marker does at the same specificity. They also detect cancer recurrence earlier, about 11-12 months sooner than existing tests. They accomplish this with blood samples, rather than biopsies, with less discomfort to patients.”
To find these markers, Raftery’s team at Purdue University and Matrix-Bio, Inc., a company he founded, analyzed many hundreds of “metabolites” in the blood of breast cancer survivors. Metabolites are small molecules, biological byproducts formed as the body’s cells go about the business of life. Some are released into the bloodstream and urine. The rapidly emerging scientific field called “metabolite profiling” seeks to understand how these metabolites relate to health and disease. Groups of metabolites already have been linked to a range of diseases. Many of Raftery’s biomarkers were known to be involved in cancer. But no one knew that this group of metabolites could serve as biomarkers for breast cancer recurrence, he said.
The markers are detected with an instrument called a mass spectrometer, which is common in clinical laboratories. Raftery explained that these markers would be used in combination with results from CA 27.29 blood tests.
“We take both of those results together and roll them into the profile so that the score we generate is a combination of the CA value and our nine metabolites,” he said. “If the score indicates that the cancer probably has returned, the patient would then likely undergo imaging tests to locate the tumor.”
Raftery hopes that the new test will become available later this year. In the meantime, the researchers are conducting another clinical study with the test. He also said that, in the future, the test might be useful in the early detection of breast cancer, not just recurrences.
The scientists acknowledged partial funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.
# # #
CONTACT:
Daniel Raftery, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Ind. 47907
Phone: 765-463-5427
Email: raftery@purdue.edu
Abstract
The need for improved diagnostics in oncology is driving efforts to develop advanced methods for molecular based medicine. For example, the detection of recurrent breast cancer is limited by poorly performing CA markers that are both insensitive and late markers. Because of their sensitivity to biological status, metabolite markers may provide better diagnostic performance and earlier detection, which should result in improved therapy outcomes. We have found that combining MS and NMR methods improves the ability to perform global metabolite profiling, and has revealed a set of biomarkers that are very sensitive and specific for detecting early breast cancer recurrence. The derived metabolite profile is twice as sensitive as the CA 27.29 assay, and detects recurrence 12 months earlier. The profile has been ported to a single MS platform and validated using an independent set of ~100 patient samples. Assay performance, and an outlook of the approach will be discussed.
1. Ann Surg Oncol. 2012 Mar 24. [Epub ahead of print]
User avatar
Judith
Site Admin
 
Posts: 277
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:08 pm

Re: What about thermography?

Postby Judith » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:16 pm

Early Breast Cancer Screening & Protection From Risky Mammograms
By Esse Johnson 2013-11-12



I remember reading the quote from Leonardo DaVinci “where there is life, there is heat” on a wall somewhere in a Las Vegas Bikram’s Yoga studio. The words soon found me again in an article about “thermography,” or thermal/heat imaging, one branch of infrared imaging science.[1] In the article, Australia’s foremost expert on infrared photography, Dr. Alan Smith of the Melbourne School of Engineering, commented, “I continue to be amazed at the scope of this technology and how it is being used. I believe thermography has a role to play in industry, defence and even in medicine.”

He explains that thermography can detect injury and disease-causing inflammation, which has already been applied to thoroughbred racehorses. In 2010 a BioCytonics newsletter expounded that thermography could accurately detect a pregnancy from day 1 of conception, a far more advanced pregnancy detection than anything we’ve seen yet. It can also expose some potential birth defects to predict potentially fatal premature delivery, allowing doctors the chance for early treatment, and otherwise ill-fated preemie babies another chance at life.[2]

The prolific health news author and veteran osteopathic physician, Dr. Mercola, took some serious heat from the FDA in 2011 for promoting thermography as a “revolutionary,” non-invasive means of screening for breast cancer.[3] And he doesn’t stand alone. Another notable, Dr. Christiane Northrup, was harshly criticized after speaking on national TV from Oprah’s throne room in support of thermography for early detection of breast cancer instead of mammograms.

So why all the heat about thermography, and how can it hold a candle against the established mammography?
The Health Risks of Mammography

Many proponents of thermography and other non- or less invasive methods of breast cancer screenings believe the heat against heat-imaging is very obviously an issue of economics. Dr. Johnnie Ham MD OBGYN and former Lieutenant Colonel of the US Army Medical Corps had no problem making a blanket statement in his recent article Mammography: Are There Pros, or is it Just a Con?

“Breast cancer has become big business, starting with the multi-billion dollar goliath, mammography.”[4]

But it’s not just big business. It turns out the industry-standard poses serious health risks to the women who’ve trusted it.
1. Radiation Increases Cancer Risk

Dr. Mercola has written prolifically about both the inadequacies and the hazards of mammograms, but he’s only one voice joining a worldwide choir calling mammograms a big-business cash cow, and a disease-prevention failure. Earlier this year a Brazilian doctor published the article, The Breast Cancer Prevention – avoid regular mammograms! He warns that the test exposes a woman’s body to radiation “1,000 times greater than a chest x-ray,” and after five years, he continues, “it is as if the woman’s body received radiation such as the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at approximately 1600 meters (one mile) away from the epicenter!”[5]

CNN Health reported in 2011[6] on a key report, Breast Cancer and the Environment, which named mammograms as an environmental factor that increases the risk of breast cancer.[7] The Cochrane Database Review (CDR), produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, is represented by more than 100 nations and internationally respected for information integrity, not to mention poking at the industrializing of biomedical research and corruption of scientific literature. A 2009 CDR made a controversial claim concerning mammograms, asserting that women ought to be informed of both “benefits and harms” when offered the option of mammogram screening.[8] Two years later the British Medical Journal (BMJ) confirmed it with their article, Possible net harms of breast cancer screening:

“This analysis supports the [CDR] claim that the introduction of breast cancer screening might have caused net harm for up to 10 years after the start of screening.”[9]

That is, it “might” do more harm than good. Dr. Samuel Epstein, a top cancer expert who is also Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition was quoted,

“the premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation…[resulting in] a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade’s screening.”

Rather than decreasing risk, there is 20% increased risk of developing the disease by regularly undergoing mammograms, as prescribed. Scratching your head yet?
2. Breast Compression Increases Risk of Spreading Malignant Cells

Further, the mammogram invasively compresses the breast. This trauma to the breast, writes Mercola, may “rupture cysts that can disseminate invasive cancer cells.”[10] Epstein backs this concern:

Since 1928, physicians have been warned to handle “cancerous breasts with care — for fear of accidentally disseminating cells” and spreading the cancer. Nevertheless, mammography entails tight and often painful breast compression, particularly in pre-menopausal women, which could lead to distant and lethal spread of malignant cells by rupturing small blood vessels in or around small undetected breast cancers.[11] [emphasis mine]
3. Over-diagnosis Poses Unnecessary Long-Term Risks

80-85% of all breast lumps are benign, ie NON-cancerous, yet the current screening practices have led to 30% over-diagnosis and overtreatment (CDR), including unnecessary “preventive” double mastectomies, considered by not a few cancer experts to be tragic. Science News Magazine has reported that lumpectomies can actually “spur tumor growth,” and most of the time they’re unnecessary.[12]

Perhaps it would be worth it if there were no better way to detect the disease and save lives. But research shows that mammography has had almost no impact on the rate of breast cancer deaths[13],[14] and, despite resistance from the FDA and other interested parties, many say there is a better way.
Thermography & Early Pre-Cancer Treatment

In addition to self and clinical breast exams, ultrasound and MRI as options, a growing number of healthcare professionals are now offering their patients thermographic screening. This form of testing will not only reveal a tumor, but it will expose chronic inflammation in the breast before it develops into cancer. A 2008 study[15] of the method concluded that thermography has a 97% sensitivity in detecting malignant tumors. In the study, thermography detected 58 out of 60 malignancies, a stunning improvement from the reported 20% accuracy of mammograms.[16]

Gaea Powell is a Board Certified Medical Thermographer who lost her 49 year old mother to breast cancer in 1991. She explains that thermography can detect the early signs of cancer “8-10 years earlier than a mammography or physical exam.”[17] Any area in the breast with high inflammation is considered literally and figuratively a “hot spot,” and will need to be monitored. If your doctor notes suspicious activity, such as continually rising temperature/inflammation or increasing areas of inflammation, they can begin early treatment.

Powell clarifies that thermography doesn’t diagnose cancer, but she reports that with pre-cancer detection and early treatment she’s “seen results in three to five months, where [the inflammation] is eliminated…”

So with thermography, we’re no longer looking for a developed or growing cancer, but inflammation. And at this early stage the methods of treatment are no longer radiation therapy, toxic drugs or invasive surgeries but alternative and nutritional therapies such as:

lymphatic draining by massage,
optimizing vitamin D[18],[19] and vitamin K2,
balancing hormone levels,
getting plenty of omega-3s,
exercise,
stress reduction and eliminating chronic stress,
eating cancer-fighting foods and spices such as curcumin,
and dramatically reducing intake of fructose, sugar, and refined processed foods, which are known cancer breeders.

Proponents believe that when caught this early, cancer can be stopped in its tracks. And before it gains any stronghold in your cells you can reprogram your body from creating cancer, to promoting vibrant health by empowering your very own, innate, natural defenses.

For more information about thermography technology and availability, or to find a Board Certified Thermographer, check out the non-profit International Academy of Clinical Thermology (IACT).
User avatar
Judith
Site Admin
 
Posts: 277
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:08 pm


Return to Research

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests

cron

User Control Panel

Login

Who is online

In total there are 8 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 8 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 268 on Sun May 03, 2020 6:38 pm

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests