Patient Care Brain and Spinal Cancer Oncology Radiation
Alex Cooper relishes a challenge. Armed with a New Yorker’s moxie, an entrepreneur’s savvy, and an athlete’s determination, he has launched startups, has competed in Ironman triathlons, and offers motivational messages in blogs, videos, and social media posts as the “Iron CEO.”
Patient Care Community Brain and Spinal Cancer
Look at the racing jersey created in his memory, and you’ll see images of everything Trevor Kling loved. Bright colors. Baseball. Pineapple. Bowling. Sports cars. Board games.
Research Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer
Cancer is a sneaky disease. Find one method of treating it successfully, and it finds another way to survive.
Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer Pediatrics
May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, which makes it a perfect time to turn the spotlight on pediatric brain cancer. Brain cancer is the second most common cancer in children, after leukemia, and brain tumors are the most common solid tumors in children and adolescents, with more than 4,000 new diagnoses each year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer Cancer Pediatrics
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered a drug combination that might offer a better prognosis for children diagnosed with MYC amplified Medulloblastoma, an often deadly form of brain cancer. The research was conducted in collaboration with the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) University Hospital Dusseldorf.
Research Patient Care Brain and Spinal Cancer
Thanks in part to clinical trials overseen by researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, a wearable, portable electrical device called Optune is proving successful at treating a type of brain tumor called a glioblastoma.
Research Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer
Initially, the big picture looks severe: Pediatric brain tumors are now the number one cause of death for children diagnosed with cancer.
Though leukemia is four times more common in pediatric patients than brain tumors, about 90% of children diagnosed with leukemia will experience a cure “because we’ve done such a good job of researching leukemia, and treatments have come so far that cure rates have improved significantly,” says Rajeev Vibhakar, MD, PhD, MPH, a professor of pediatric hematology and oncology in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “We need to see that same level of support and advancement in finding cures for pediatric brain tumors.”
Research Brain and Spinal Cancer
Among the biggest obstacles in studying and treating brain tumors are the blood-brain and blood-tumor barriers (BBTB). Generally, just a small amount of drug that is injected into the blood to treat brain tumors is able to penetrate blood vessel walls and accumulate in the brain.
Brain and Spinal Cancer Clinical Research
Researchers have discovered that infiltrating gliomas, a common brain and spinal cord tumor, are shaped by their genetic evolution and microenvironment, a finding that could lead to more targeted treatments.
Research Awareness Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer
A University of Colorado (CU) Cancer Center researcher has found, through extensive data analysis, that the youngest patients with brain tumors – those ages birth to 3 months – have about half the five-year survival rate as children ages 1 to 19.
Patient Care Community Brain and Spinal Cancer
When Myles Krick started his freshman year of college in fall 2021, he couldn’t help but look back to 15 years ago, when he received the brain cancer diagnosis that made his family worry he might not live long enough to go to college.
Press Releases Pediatric Cancer Blood Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer Ovarian Cancer
Three researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Center have received grants from the V Foundation, a cancer research nonprofit founded in 1993 by college basketball coach Jimmy Valvano, who died of cancer.
Research Brain and Spinal Cancer
Looking to understand why some brain tumors with a specific mutation can start to reject drugs commonly used to treat them, CU Cancer Center member Jean Mulcahy Levy, MD, led researchers from institutions around the country — including several from the University of Colorado School of Medicine — to study samples of brain tumors before and after being treated with the drug.
Research Brain and Spinal Cancer
Dmitri Simberg, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and a CU Cancer Center member, has released the results of a new study of the effectiveness of different types of fluorescent labels used to monitor the accumulation of liposomes in tumors.
Research Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer
Three projects from University of Colorado Cancer Center researchers have received grants from the Denver-based Michele Plachy-Rubin Fund for Pilot Grants in Brain Cancer Research. Receiving $40,000 each to fund their work around brain cancer are Sujatha Venkataraman, PhD; and the teams of Philip Reigan, PhD, and Michael Graner, PhD; and Natalie Serkova, PhD, and Nicholas Foreman, MD, MBChB.
Research Brain and Spinal Cancer Cancer
Black and Hispanic children diagnosed with brain and central nervous system (CNS) cancers have worse outcomes than their white counterparts in the United States. The reasons behind this are unclear but may include socioeconomic factors and/or limited access to quality care. Now, researchers at the University of Colorado (CU) Cancer Center and Children’s Hospital Colorado on the Anschutz Medical Campus are collaborating to better understand these disparities, as well as develop ways to reduce the burden of disease in these populations.
Brain and Spinal Cancer Child & Adolescent
The pediatric brain cancer known as diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is almost uniformly fatal. In part, this is due to where and how it grows, forming as a diffuse net of cells in a part of the brainstem called the pons, which controls essential functions like breathing and swallowing. Another factor that makes DIPG especially dangerous is a lack of treatments – currently, there are no targeted therapies or immunotherapies proven effective to treat the condition, and the many chemotherapy clinical trials seeking to treat DIPG have been uniformly unsuccessful.
Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer Diversity
Cancer researchers have known for years that Black and Hispanic patients have worse outcomes than their non-Hispanic White peers. At least when it comes to adults. But few studies have explored these same disparities in pediatric patients, and fewer still have looked for racial/ethnic differences in treatment outcomes in pediatric brain cancer patients.
Research Brain and Spinal Cancer
Cancers used to be defined by where they grow in the body – lung cancer, skin cancer, brain cancer, etc. But work in recent decades has shown that cancers sharing specific genetic changes may have more in common than cancers that happen to grow in an area of the body. For example, lung cancers, skin cancers, and brain cancers may all be caused by mutation in a gene called BRAF. And drugs targeting BRAF have changed the treatment landscape for melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, and are also in use against lung cancers and brain cancers with BRAF mutations.
Philanthropy Brain and Spinal Cancer
The technique known as RNA sequencing lets researchers discover which genes are turned on and off in a sample of tissue. In cancer, RNA-seq (as it’s known) is used to find the faulty genes driving the disease. But not all cells within a tumor are the same. Some may have one set of genetic drivers, while other, next-door cancer cells depend on completely different genetic changes. Even the types of cells within tumor tissue may differ, with cancer stem cells intermixed with regular cancer cells intermixed with healthy cells and immune system cells. What this means is that RNA-seq has traditionally been like taking a picture of the rainforest from 10,000 feet: You see a lot of green trees, but many things remain hidden beneath the canopy.
Research Honors Brain and Spinal Cancer
Jean Mulcahy-Levy, MD, has spent a decade researching how, why and when cells eat themselves. Healthy cells use this process, called autophagy, to recycle unneeded bits of themselves, often to survive periods of stress. Unfortunately, cancer cells use autophagy as well and for similar reasons – autophagy can help cancer cells survive the stress of drugs designed to kill them.
Patient Care Brain and Spinal Cancer
Tim Reagan saved Brady’s life, adopting the high-energy rescue dog from a shelter. Within a year, Brady returned the favor.
Patient Care Brain and Spinal Cancer Clinical Trials
Bob Rupp is a drummer. He works with the best musicians in the world and he’s celebrated for his contributions to the music scene in the Metro Area. There is even a day in his honor in the City and County of Denver.
Research Community Brain and Spinal Cancer Cancer
After her brain cancer became resistant to chemotherapy and then to targeted treatments, 26-year-old Lisa Rosendahl’s doctors gave her only a few months to live. Now a paper published January 17 in the journal eLife describes a new drug combination that has stabilized Rosendahl’s disease and increased both the quantity and quality of her life: Adding the anti-malaria drug chloroquine to her treatment stopped an essential process that Rosendahl’s cancer cells had been using to resist therapy, re-sensitizing her cancer to the targeted treatment that had previously stopped working. Along with Rosendahl, two other brain cancer patients were treated with the combination and both showed similar, dramatic improvement.
Community Pediatric Cancer Brain and Spinal Cancer
When Matthew Murray started experiencing some double vision after school during baseball practice his mother took him to be checked out by an eye doctor. They were told not to be too concerned unless his double vision became constant. Less than two weeks later during a double-header game, Matthew’s double vision would not go away.
One morning at 3 am and fairly early in his neurosurgery career at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Dr. Kevin Lillehei got a phone call from Moscow. A mother was frantic about her daughter’s brain tumor. The doctors there had told her that the tumor was malignant and nothing further could be done. She wanted to know if Dr. Lillehei (pronounced Lily-hi) would see her daughter, Darya.
Gripped
March 27, 2024
Just 18 months after his leukemia diagnosis and on the brink of a bone marrow transplant, Chen defied the odds with an inspiring ascent. Reflecting on his journey, Chen's resilience shines through as he remains optimistic and determined for the future.
EurekAlert
March 06, 2024
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus found that drugs like botox may slow head and neck cancer progression by targeting nerve interactions in tumor environments, impacting immune responses. This study could lead to new treatments for patients intolerant to traditional therapies.
Mile High Magazine
February 25, 2024
Christopher Lieu, MD speaks on March being Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and the importance of screening.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
February 21, 2024
In 2024, the network will launch a pilot study, known as the Vanguard Study on Multi-Cancer Detection, to address the feasibility of using multi-cancer detection (MCD) tests in future randomized controlled trials.
Mark Harden
