image by: Carol Browne

HWN Suggests

Purebred dogs are helping us cure cancer

The idea of a dog helping to find a cure for cancer probably conjures images of golden retrievers sniffing blood samples and sitting dutifully in front of the cancerous specimen. But though their noses are valuable, there’s something much more useful hidden inside purebred pups: their own tumors.

Roughly a quarter of all purebred dogs die of cancer, and 45 percent of those who live past the age of 10 succumb to one variety or another. Modern chemotherapies have allowed some of these dogs to get treatment, just like a human would. Those therapies work so well because canine cancers are so close to human tumors.

“For the most part, dogs get everything we do,” says…

read full article

Featured

 Osteosarcoma: Accelerating Progress Makes for a Hopeful Future

Patients who develop osteosarcoma in 2017 receive treatment that remains essentially unchanged since the 1970s. Outcomes likewise remain largely unimproved. Large, collaborative, multinational efforts to improve therapy have evaluated strategies leveraging both cytotoxic intensification and immunomodulatory agents. While these have confirmed our capacity to conduct such trials, results have proved largely disappointing. This has motivated efforts to focus on the basic biology of osteosarcoma, where understanding remains poor but has improved significantly.

 The Patient Had Bone Cancer. The Diagnosis Arrived 240 Million Years Too Late.

The fossil of an ancient animal teaches a sad lesson: Cancer has been around for a very, very long time.

Articles of Interest

Harvard/Bone Cancer Files

The documents that sparked national headlines and a year-long investigation into scientific misconduct by the Harvard dental professor who led NIH's ongoing study of fluoride and bone cancer. Plus, new documents obtained from under the Freedom of Information Act.

How man’s best friend is helping cancer treatment

For example, a bone cancer known as osteosarcoma is so similar between dogs and people that intensive research in canine osteosarcoma has led to several breakthroughs in treating osteosarcoma in children.

Osteosarcoma, Bone Cancer That Claimed Terry Fox, Now Highly Curable

For many Canadians, the heroic runner's name has become synonymous with osteosarcoma, the most common form of primary bone cancer to affect children and teens, and one that also occurs rarely in older adults. "And that's always a good and bad analogy because they know who he is but that he had his leg cut off and died — and that's not the typical scenario now," says Dr. Jay Wunder, an orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai in Toronto who specializes in sarcomas.

Resources

The Terry Fox Foundation

To maintain the vision and principles of Terry Fox while raising money for cancer research through the annual Terry Fox Run, National School Run Day, as well as via memoriam donations and planned gifts.

A blog about beating Ewing's Sarcoma, life with Cancer and my odd odd self

I was recently diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma. It is a very treatable and potentially curable cancer. However, it is very rare (only 400 new cases in the US annually) and 99% of the time it happens in people under 20. In this blog, I hope you will get to learn a little about cancer, a little about me and a lot about life.

Bone and Cancer Foundation

Welcome to the Bone and Cancer Foundation, a new information resource for patients and health professionals concerned with the care and treatment of cancer involving bone.

Bone Cancer Research Trust

The Bone Cancer Research Trust is the charity that offers hope to people affected by primary bone cancer.

Sarcoma and Bone Cancer Research Foundation Association

Provides information on these rare diseases and support for those that are living with these diseases in addition to information on new treatment trials.

Cancer Research UK

This section tells you about symptoms and causes of bone cancer, treatment, living with bone cancer, and current research.

Cancer Tutor

Treating bone cancer, or cancer that has spread to the bones, is a very difficult task. First of all, the bone cancer itself must be dealt with. Secondly, with bone cancer the bones become very brittle and it is critical to keep the bones strong.

Cancer.Net

Primary bone cancer accounts for less than 0.2% of all cancers. In adults, chondrosarcoma makes up more than 40% of primary bone cancers, followed osteosarcoma (28%), chordoma (10%), Ewing family of tumors (8%), and MFH/fibrosarcoma (4%). The remaining types of bone cancers are rare. In teens and children, osteosarcoma and Ewing family of tumors are more common.

Cancer.org

What's New in Bone Cancer Research and Treatment?

CancerIndex

The most common types of primary bone tumour are osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma, both of which are most frequently diagnosed in children and young adults.

eMedTV

The most common form of bone cancer is osteosarcoma, which develops in the new tissue of growing bones. Osteosarcoma is commonly diagnosed in people between the ages of 10 and 25.

Macmillan Cancer Support

Information on primary bone cancer, including how it is diagnosed, treatments you might have, possible side effects and how to get further support.

MedicineNet

True bone cancer affects over 2,000 people in the United States each year. It is found most often in the bones of the arms and legs, but it can occur in any bone.

National Cancer Institute

Primary bone cancer is cancer that forms in cells of the bone. Some types of primary bone cancer are osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, malignant fibrous histiocytoma, and chondrosarcoma. Secondary bone cancer is cancer that spreads to the bone from another part of the body (such as the prostate, breast, or lung).

Sunbeam Foundation

Together we are building a unique community of sunshine, hope, and music. Our purpose is to identify and support cutting-edge research aimed at finding a cure for Ewing's Sarcoma and other forms of pediatric bone cancer. In targeting such rare and underfunded childhood and adolescent diseases, our contributions can transform the field and have a significant impact on the lives and life chances of affected children and their loved ones.