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Cancer Research News
Naykky Singh Ospina, M.D.,UF College of Medicine uses ultrasound to examine a patient's thyroids.
Study: Informed consent process in patients undergoing thyroid biopsy needs improvement
A patient’s informed consent can be surprisingly uninformed when it comes to a common cancer biopsy, a study led by a University of Florida Health researcher has shown.
That finding may have important implications for what researchers view as a seeming epidemic of thyroid cancers that scientists believe isn’t everything it seems.
A survey of patients undergoing a thyroid biopsy found a high proportion remained unaware of crucial information about the procedure, including their risk of thyroid cancer or that the test might be inconclusive, even after signing an informed consent document. Informed consent is a patient’s acknowledgment that a doctor has fully explained a procedure or surgery and that the patient understands its risks and benefits. READ MORE
Is an anesthesiologist needed for routine colonoscopies? Maybe not.
Joshua W. Sappenfield, M.D.
For many Americans, the prospect of a colonoscopy is unnerving and patients often find comfort knowing sedation will make the procedure as simple as a brief nap.
Around the world, however, up to 80 percent of routine colonoscopies are done without any sedation at all. So, is an anesthesiologist really necessary in the U.S. for healthy people?
One may be forgiven for assuming two University of Florida Health anesthesiologists would answer in the affirmative when they were asked by the journal Current Opinion in Anesthesiology to review the scientific literature and tackle this question. READ MORE
Glioblastoma topples an American hero, but researchers will continue the fight
Sen. John McCain withstood beatings and torture as a prisoner of war, but he was confronted with an enemy in July 2017 that he was ultimately unable to overcome. An aggressive and deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma, or GBM, took McCain’s life on Aug. 25, 2018.
The man noted for his unstoppable resilience, pervasive optimism and uncompromising personal ethos was not able to conjoin forces with the marvels of modern medicine and defeat the insidious enemy of brain cancer.
Why is GBM so deadly? Why have so many individuals, with presumably all the physical and financial resources that can be amassed readily available to them, been unable to conquer this dreadful enemy? READ MORE
Approval of first ‘RNA interference’ drug – why the excitement
Small interfering RNA sounds like something from a science fiction novel rather than a revolutionary type of medicine. But this odd-sounding new drug offers a novel strategy for treating disease by targeting the root cause rather than just the symptoms. This is an exciting approach because it enhances the effectiveness of the treatment and reduces side effects.
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the very first therapeutic small interfering RNA (siRNA), Onpattro (patisiran), to treat nerve damage caused by a rare disease called hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (hATTR). Hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis affects about 50,000 people worldwide. READ MORE
Announcements
Patient-derived xenografts: opportunities for collaboration
Jose G. Trevino’s lab has a robust PDX resource here at UF with patient-derived tumors from multiple organ systems. This is a continuously renewable resource with our patient population and they are ready to start expanding the program to help other investigators who might find the use of PDX helpful.
Commercially available established cell lines are not representative of our current patient population with cancer. Whether it is because of the antiquity or the lack of the incredibly important tumor microenvironment, established cell lines are losing their impact in most if not all research funding organizations. Dr. Trevino proposes the use of patient-derived tumors to increase the impact, significance and innovation of research proposals.
Trevino’s lab currently has viable pancreatic, bladder, renal, breast and a variety of other tumors derived from surgically resected patients. They have performed more than 150 implantations of PDXs developed from surgically resected specimens. They also have significant expertise in patient-derived primary cell culture and 3D spheroid models.
They hope investigators will take advantage of this incredible continuing resource. They are establishing tumor models in a variety of cancer types and want to collaborate with groups interested in expanding their research. Trevino’s lab will be happy to discuss how their resources can advance the field of cancer research at the University of Florida:
Jose G. Trevino, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Surgery
University of Florida
Phone: (352) 265-0761
E-mail: jose.trevino@surgery.ufl.edu
Need to Update Your Professional Portrait?
UF Health Creative Services offers open studio hours at Communicore C2-20 every month. Simply stop by during one of the time slots listed on the bottom of their webpage — there’s no need to sign up beforehand, and it only takes five minutes! Here are some of the upcoming sessions:
10/02 9-10 a.m.
10/04 3-4 p.m.
10/15 9-10 a.m.
10/17 3-4 p.m.
10/30 9-10 a.m.
11/01 3-4 p.m.
11/14 3-4 p.m.