Credit: Michigan Medicine
ANN ARBOR, Michigan Income level, employment, housing location, medical insurance, education, tobacco and alcohol use, diet and obesity, access to medical care. These are some of the factors causing worse cancer outcomes in people who are Black.
The same factors are also causing worse outcomes from COVID-19 in this population. The similarities between COVID-19 issues and cancer disparities is uncanny, says John M. Carethers, M.D., John G. Searle Professor and Chair of Internal Medicine at Michigan Medicine. In cancer we are seeing in slow motion what has been observed rapidly with COVID - that the same conditions in our society put specific groups at risk for both. If we can fundamentally change socioeconomic inequality, we theoretically could reduce disparities in both diseases, says Carethers, who is a member of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.
Prostate cancer regulator plays role in COVID-19, providing a promising treatment lead
ANN ARBOR, Michigan By taking a lesson from prostate cancer, researchers now have a promising lead on a treatment for COVID-19.
Two proteins, ACE2 and TMPRSS2, help the coronavirus gain entry and replicate within cells. TMPRSS2 is well-known to Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D. His lab discovered that TMPRSS2 fuses with the ETS gene to drive more than half of all prostate cancers. They also knew that TMPRSS2 was regulated by the androgen receptor.
So when cancer research shut down in the spring, Chinnaiyan s lab turned its attention to the coronavirus. With a grant from the National Cancer Institute, the team used its existing knowledge and resources to determine how TMPRSS2 was regulated in the lungs.
Concern about loved ones might motivate people to mask up and get vaccine
ANN ARBOR, Michigan While many people have listened to messaging about wearing a mask and following social distancing guidelines to limit the spread of COVID-19, resistance remains. A new study finds that appealing to people s concerns for their loved ones could overcome this resistance. And it may have implications for encouraging people to get the new vaccine.
In a recent survey, people who said social distancing and COVID-safety guidelines violated their personal freedoms responded more positively to these ideas when they felt a loved one might be at risk of severe illness for COVID-19.
Landmark study finds how often cancer patients develop osteonecrosis of the jaw
A landmark study by researchers from the SWOG Cancer Research Network, a cancer clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has found that 2.8 percent of patients on average develop osteonecrosis of the jaw, or ONJ, within three years of starting a common treatment for cancer that has spread to the bone.
Appearing in
JAMA Oncology, the findings are important because the treatment, zoledronic acid, is prescribed to tens of thousands of patients whose cancer has spread to the bone. Almost all forms of cancer can spread, or metastasize, to bone but the most common are lung, breast, and prostate cancers and multiple myeloma. Zoledronic acid can protect bone, but is associated with a risk of ONJ, which causes exposed bone in the jaw that does not heal. This causes inflammation and pain in the mouth, and people with ONJ may have troub
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ANN ARBOR, Michigan While many people have listened to messaging about wearing a mask and following social distancing guidelines to limit the spread of COVID-19, resistance remains. A new study finds that appealing to people s concerns for their loved ones could overcome this resistance. And it may have implications for encouraging people to get the new vaccine.
In a recent survey, people who said social distancing and COVID-safety guidelines violated their personal freedoms responded more positively to these ideas when they felt a loved one might be at risk of severe illness for COVID-19. Emphasizing the benefits of being a protector for others (instead of yourself) looks to be more effective in promoting greater adherence to recommended practices, says study author Lawrence An, M.D., associate professor of general medicine at Michigan Medicine and co-director of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center s Center for Health Communications Research.