cancer

The most unexpected treatment against cancer is LED light, and it is giving good results

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Currently there are many research groups that have a very clear objective: find a cancer treatment that is effective, specific and above all safe. Something that can be really complex because of everything that cancer hides behind it, but science continues to give us good news. The last one comes from the University of Texas and the University of Porto which have developed a technique based on tin oxide nanoflakes (SnOx) and LEDs that allows cancer cells to be destroyed with precision. The current problem. The therapy par excellence today in the fight against cancer, without a doubt It’s chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The first of these has numerous problems that have been tried to be corrected, such as low specificity, that is, it attacks both cancer cells like the healthy ones. And this ultimately produces many side effects that can cause you to not continue with the treatment. This makes the goal of science to seek specificity and for the treatment to attack only cancer cells. This is something that is being tried to achieve with immunotherapy and techniques like CAR-T which ultimately is part of personalized medicine for each patient and which offers a very specific selection of the type of cell to destroy. But science has not stopped here. The discovery. One of the techniques that appears to be promising is photothermal therapy (PTT). The concept in this case is quite simple to understand: inject nanomaterials into a tumor and then heat them using light. This logically causes a localized increase in temperature, which selectively destroys the cancer cells that have been marked before. The problem until now was materials and light. Many photothermal therapies require high-powered lasers, which are expensive and can damage surrounding tissue. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Porto have found the key to changing the rules of the game. A secret ingredient. The team has developed a new photothermal agent called nanoflakes that are made of tin oxide. After all, they are tiny sheets with a thickness of less than 20 nanometers and what is really ingenious is how they were manufactured. The really ingenious thing is how they made them. They started from a cheap and abundant material such as tin disulfide, which ironically is useless for photothermal therapy. In this way, through a ‘green’ and scalable process called electrochemical exfoliation with oxidation, which only uses aqueous media, they managed to transform the inactive tin disulfide into tin oxide that was already ready to fight cancer. And the light came. Once this material was available, all that was left was to expose it to the LED irradiation low-cost that emit infrared light at 810 nm. In this case we are talking about radiation that is very safe and does not damage healthy skin as can occur with radiotherapy, and it is also extremely cheap and accessible to everyone (even developing countries). Results. To test the effectiveness, researchers have tested cells in culture. The first thing they saw was that this treatment had no effect on healthy cells, that is, it did not destroy them. But the best comes when applying it to cancer cells results in a great reduction in the different colonies. Specifically, in skin cancer there was a 92% reduction in the viability of tumor cells, while in colorectal cancer this percentage dropped to 50%, but still maintained good results. And all thanks to an increase in temperature from 37 °C to 50 °C in 30 minutes that killed cancer cells. The future. This study not only presents a more efficient material, but validates its use with safer and more economical light sources. The researchers themselves point to the potential of LED systems for applications such as skin cancer treatment, which could theoretically be self-administered at home. This would be a great advantage for patients and would reduce the burden on health systems, although there is still a lot of research ahead to see if this therapy can be viable in a range that will surely not be less than 10 years. Images | National Cancer Institute Logan Voss In Xataka | Colon cancers are increasing alarmingly among young people. We have a suspect: sedentary lifestyle

“Guided missiles” are revolutionizing cancer treatment. And they are already giving results

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Chemotherapy marked a great revolution in the treatment of different cancers despite its many problems in the nonspecificity of the ‘attack’ that caused healthy cells to also be affected by its effects. Although attempts have been made to increasingly specific chemotherapiesthe reality is that the next natural step in the evolution of the treatment It is immunotherapy, which is a field that continues to advance, giving us more and more joy in the fight against cancer. But there is a revolution that wants to go much further, and it is nothing more than taking all the good things that immunotherapy has with the high potency of chemotherapy. And this ‘cocktail’ has a name: immunoconjugates (ADC). The current problem. Traditional chemotherapies have been seen as a really aggressive treatment that generates a large number of side effects by attacking absolutely everything they encounter. This forces us to rethink the strategy. For this, it has been thought in immunotherapy Basically what it does is ‘wake up’ our natural defenses so that it can attack the tumor with its own tools. Something that It is personalized for each individual. by extracting, for example, their T lymphocytes to ‘reprogram’ them and make them fight against the tumor, which is nothing more than their own cells. But the next step requires this specificity with greater potency than the stimulated immune system can provide. And this forces us to look for new therapies that have a similar mechanism, although it goes further in the way of applying the drug to the target cells. And this is where we are in the fight against cancer. The goal of treatment. Precisely the future focuses on personalized treatments for each of the patients who have cancer in their body, without having to generalize with a drug for one type of tumor. This is achieved with treatments that are considered ‘remote-controlled missiles’ or ‘Trojan horses’ that promise greater specificity when attacking a tumor cell and leaving the body’s healthy cells ‘calm’. But always taking into account the particular characteristics of a person’s tumor. This is what is achieved with ADCs which are designed like a missile with lethal precision. Its mission is to deliver an explosive charge of chemotherapy into the tumor cell, largely ignoring healthy cells, and the results are promising in the early phases of research, demonstrating its great potential to cure more patients in the early stages. That’s how they work. The technology behind ADCs (Antibody-Drug Conjugates) is as elegant as it is powerful. It is made up of three key parts: The antibody that acts as the guidance system. A monoclonal antibody designed in a laboratory to search and fit like a key in a lock to specific proteins, a kind of “antennae” (receptors), which are found massively on the surface of tumor cells. And the point is that each tumor cell has different ‘antennas’ and that is why it is important to find the most suitable antibody. The payload, which we can assume is our ‘warhead’ which is a very powerful chemotherapy molecule and so toxic that it often cannot be administered in normal chemotherapy mode due to the large effects it has. So, here we are combining chemotherapy with immunotherapy. The linker. A mechanism that binds the antibody and the cargo so that it can travel ‘comfortably’ through the blood until it reaches its target tissue. The process is pure military strategy: the ADC travels through the body, the antibody detects its target (the cancer cell), anchors to it and the cell, deceived, absorbs it. Once inside, the linker breaks and releases the chemotherapy, annihilating the malignant cell from within and without affecting the ‘neighbors’. A before and after. At the congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO 2025) without a doubt this treatment has been on the lips of many experts. And it is logical seeing the good results that have been reported in this regard. You just have to see a recent study published in the prestigious magazine New England Journal of Medicine that confirms that this ADC such as trastuzumab deruxtecan is more effective than conventional chemotherapy in cases of metastatic HER2+ breast cancer, showing improvements from 7 to almost 10 months without tumor progression. Another treatment, sacituzumab govitecan, also has shown important results before him triple negative breast cancerwhich is one of the most aggressive and could have the worst prognosis. The result is also very promising: an improvement in survival and quality of life. The hidden side. Like all cutting-edge technology, ADCs are not without challenges. They are not harmless. One of the geniuses behind these studies, the Spanish Javier Cortés pointed out to the side effects that could occur, mainly diarrhea and lowered defense. This made him have to point out that “in general, Trojan horses give a toxicity that, in relation to traditional chemotherapy, is usually somewhat better.” But there is also another front ahead: in some patients with this treatment the tumor continues to grow. The investigation now focuses on understanding it: The tumor cell receptors may mutate and are not the appropriate target, the chemo release mechanism within the cell may fail, or the tumor may simply be resistant to that particular chemo. The future. What is being targeted right now is the possibility of mixing ADCs with immunotherapy or even combining several ADCs with each other. But where things get more interesting is the possibility of loading these ‘Trojan horses’ with radioligands, that is, rradioactive dioisotopes to apply radiotherapy very selective on cancer cells. In this way, a wide range of possibilities open up for the treatment of cancer. Images | Angiola Harry National Cancer Institute In Xataka | Colon cancers are increasing alarmingly among young people. We have a suspect: sedentary lifestyle

A study has just correlated them with a higher risk of cancer

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When we plan to lose weight, one of the first things we do is declare war on carbohydrates in the diet, reducing them as much as possible. All of this is conditioned on many occasions by the ‘advice’ that is seen on social networks in blogs, and which may have severe conditions as it was collected. in a published article in Nature Microbiology which suggests that this type of diet may end up increasing the risk of suffering from colorectal cancer. The study. Researchers conditioned by the increase in the number of people who decide to give up carbohydrates Because they relate it to weight gain, he wanted to test what was happening in a series of mice. In this way, an investigation was created with three different diets: a normal diet, one low in carbohydrates and another Western-style diet with a large amount of fat and carbohydrates. The result. After exposing the mice to these conditions, they analyzed their microbiota discovering a particular strain of E. coli bacteria, which was producing a toxin that damaged DNA called colibactin. A toxin that, in combination with a diet low in carbohydrates and soluble fiber, promotes the growth of polyps in the colon, which may be the first step to cancer. As recognized by the researcher himself, Alberto Martín, professor of immunology at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto, at first it was thought that colorectal cancer was caused by a combination of different factors like diet or genetics. But now a door is opening that means that a specific diet can lead to our bacteria enhancing the appearance of cancer. Because. Researchers found that a diet deficient in fiber increases inflammation of the intestine and alters the microbial community that reside here, that offer us many benefits and about which we are beginning to know more and more. Specifically, they focused on E. Coli that produces colibactin as we have discussed before, but what is really important here is that the mice fed a low-carbohydrate diet had a thinner layer of mucus that separates the intestinal microbes from the epithelial cells of the colon. A priori, this mucus barrier that we have in the digestive system acts as a layer of protection that allows bacteria not to come into direct contact with epithelial cells. But if this shield is thinner due to this poor diet, more colibactin can reach the colon cells directly and act as an epigenetic mechanism that alters their structure and drives the deregulation of the factors that control their cell cycle. But the researchers wanted to go a little further, by analyzing the effects on mice that had genetic mutations in their cells in the pathway responsible for repair damage that occurs in DNA. In this case the effect was very clear: the repair of these damages was not favored. This means that all the failures that are generated daily in our cells are not repaired or that the cell simply cannot enter apoptosis (programmed cell death) through these pathways. Something that adds ‘papers’ to have a cancer cell that gets out of control. Lynch syndrome. A genetic health problem which makes the patient have a greater chance of suffering from certain types of cancer, including colorectal cancer. All this due to mutations in genes that repair DNA, such as MLH1 and MSH2, among others. In this way, if a carbohydrate-deficient diet is added to these people who already have a higher probability of suffering from colon cancer, the effect of colibactin will increase these probabilities. That is why the findings made by researchers suggest that people with Lynch syndrome who harbor these colibactin-producing bacteria should avoid stopping carbohydrates so as not to increase the risk. They even suggest that they can take specific antibiotics for these colibactin-producing bacteria to further reduce the risk. Probiotics. With taking antibiotics, I’m sure that on more than one occasion you have been recommended to take probiotics in order to maintain the intestinal microbiota before the treatment. In this case, research suggests that a strain of E. coli called Nissle that produces colibactin is found in these probiotics, which makes us ask many questions about its effect on cancer. In this way, his laboratory is investigating whether long-term use of this probiotic is safe for people with Lynch syndrome or for those who follow a low-carbohydrate diet. The antidote. Given all this, the question is obligatory: how can I avoid this if I have to consume few carbohydrates? To this end, the study has been able to see a correlation between the increase in soluble fiber in the diet with a decrease in the levels of colibactin-producing E. Coli. This is something that translates into less interaction with DNA repair mechanisms and therefore a lower probability of suffering from cancer. “We supplemented fiber and saw that it reduced the effects of the low-carbohydrate diet (…) Now we are trying to find out which sources of fiber are most beneficial,” says Bhupesh Thakur, postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the study. A treatment. The goal right now is to try to counteract the increased risk of cancer due to this bacterial toxin. To this end, the use of inulin is being investigated, which has been seen to reduce the amount of E. coli, which produces colibactin, and improves intestinal health in high-risk people. A treatment that, as it could not be otherwise, is focused on the fiber itself, which will become the best ally in these situations. Images | engin akyurt National Cancer Institute In Xataka | Intermittent fasting is the fad diet. At least among scientists who study its effects on the microbiome

In the last 20 years, colorectal cancer has doubled among young people and we didn’t know why. Now we have a track

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In the last 20 years, the incidence of colorectal cancer has doubled in young adults and that has fired all alarms. Above all, because while this type of tumor shoots, we have no idea why. Now, a study headed by Spanish researchers has found a suspect: it is called colibactin and a bacterial toxin produced by some strains of Escherichia coli. The colorectal epidemic. The term is “epidemic”, yes. As Manuel Anse explainedthe alarm jumped in the US in the late 2000s: while colorectal cancer decreased in people over 70, growth rates in children under 50 grew at a rate of 1.5%. In Europe, the data suggests that it has arrived to grow to the rhythm of 8% Between twenty -year -old. It was a huge public health problem. But, above all, it was a mystery. What could be behind all this? The first track. In 2020, a research team from the Netherlands discovered that certain strains of Escherichia coli They produced colibactin and that toxin could produce cancer mutations In the children’s DNA. It was an interesting, promising way; But there were too many conditional in the idea. Those conditionals are those who have tried to eliminate the investigation that It has just been published in Nature. What have they done? They have analyzed the DNA of almost a thousand tumors of this type of 11 different countries (and three continents). Not only that: they have examined varieties, typologies and demographic features. And what they have found is more than interesting. To begin with, there are two genetic brands related to the toxin in question that are 3.3 times more common in tumors of young people (compared to those of people over 70 years old). To continue, “they are especially prevalent in countries with a high incidence of colorectal cancer in young people.” What does this mean? “Mutational firms are a kind of historical record in the genome; they point out that exposure to colibactin in early stages of life promotes colorectal cancer of early appearance,” Ludmil Alexandrov explainedfrom the University of California in San Diego. Everything seems to indicate that the harmful effects of this toxin begin soon (in the first 10 years of life). That is, “if someone acquires one of these driving mutations at 10 years, decades could be advanced in the development of colorectal cancer and suffering from age 40 instead of 60, “explained Alexandrov. It is great news. No, it’s excellent news. Insufficient, preliminary and still precarious: but if we are clear, it is that to contain the epidemic we must understand where it comes from. And, for now, it seems that it comes from the modern world. “In the most industrialized countries there is an increase in cases of infection with this strain of Escherichia coliwhich leads us to think about changes in lifestyle “, Díaz Gay says in the country. How can we use it in our favor? We do not know, but we will discover it. Image | JC Gellidon | National Cancer Institute In Xataka | We have found a cure for more aggressive colon cancer: this is how the drug is referred to

The Chinese company Alibaba has an AI to detect pancreatic cancer. It is so good that the US has accelerated its approval

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The applications of the artificial intelligence (AI) They go far beyond what models such as Chatgpt, Deepseek or Dall-E offer us, among many others. These services are already part of the day -to -day life of many people, but AI is present in many other areas in which is already making a differencesuch as The design of new materialsthe development of drugs or medical diagnosis. The innovation in which we are about to investigate belongs to this last scenario of use. And it is that the Damo Academy, which is the branch dedicated to the investigation of the gigantic Chinese company Alibaba, has developed an AI tool that is capable of detecting in an early phase and in asymptomatic patients one of the types of cancer with the worst prognosis: that of pancreas. The figures of this disease are shocking. Is The seventh cause of cancer death globally even though the twelfth type of this most frequent evil. And survival after diagnosis, unfortunately, does not exceed 10%. The FDA is accelerating the approval of this Alibaba technology When the protagonist is the health of the people it is encouraging to verify that two superpowers faced with The virulence with which they are Currently USA and China are able to leave their differences aside. The first contact with AI developed by the Damo Academy to identify pancreas cancer in November 2023 thanks to an article published in the Medicine magazine Nature Medicine. Some treatments have taken between 10 and 12 years to be approved by the relevant agencies The approval of an innovation of these characteristics by the European Medicines Agency, known as EMA for its English denomination (European Medicines Agency), or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) of the USA, requires investing a lot of time. Some treatments have taken between 10 and 12 years to be approved if we count the time elapsed from the moment the initial idea arose until it received the final blessing from these agencies. However, this alibaba presumably will be able to be used with patients in much less time. And is that, according to SCMPthe FDA has initiated the process of accelerated review and approval of Panda (Pancreatic Cancer Detection with Artificial Intelligence), which is what is the name of the model developed by Alibaba. This deep learning model It has been trained with computerized abdominal tomographies without contrast of 3,208 patients with pancreatic cancer. And, according to preliminary tests, it is 34.1% more sensitive than radiologists when identifying this disease. Alibaba has already used Panda to examine 40,000 people in a hospital in NOBO (China), and identified six cases of early pancreatic cancer. Two of them were overlooked by radiologists during routine exams. Image | MART PRODUCTION More information | Nature Medicine | SCMP In Xataka | We did not know why some superbacteria were resistant to antibiotics. This AI has found it in two days

We have just discovered that food can also affect the risk of developing lung cancer

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We know well that certain ways of life can affect our risk of suffering certain types of cancer. A clear case is that of the relationship between smoking and respiratory system tumors, especially lung. We also know that our diet It can affect to the probability that we develop cancers such as liver or colorectal. However, relationships can be somewhat more complex. Diet and lung cancer. A new study has linked The diet with the risk of lung cancer, a relationship that until now had remained, if it does not hide, at least in the shadow of other better known and explored connections. Adenocarcinoma and glycogen. The study focuses on the Pulmonary adenocarcinomaa tumor at the origin of 40% of cases of globally diagnosed lung cancer, explains the team responsible for the study. It is the cancer that causes more deaths in the United States, but it is also the most common lung cancer among people who have ever smoked. The new study focuses on glycogen accumulation. Glycogen is a polysaccharide, a sugar composed of simple sugars or monosaccharides, in this case a glucose chain. This sugar is used by our body as an energy reserve. The role of glycogen. The accumulations of Glycogen They had been observed in some types of cancers as well as in other diseases. Now, the team responsible for the new study, studied through computational and laboratory models how this complex sugar acts as “oncogenic metabolite.” As they explain, the greater the accumulation of the polysaccharide in cancer cells, greater and more dangerous will be tumor growth. In mice. The analysis in animal models (in mice) served to validate the theoretical results. The team found that, by feeding the mice with a diet that they catalog as “western”, capable of facilitating a greater presence of blood glycogen, cancer in the animals of the animals grew. In contrast, when glycogen levels fell, tumor growth was reduced. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Nature Metabolism. Diet and cancer risk. The team responsible for the study emphasizes that, although it is one of the first times (if not the first time) that lung cancer is linked to the diet, there are already numerous occasions when the diet has been put in the center of the strategies for cancer prevention. The diet is also an important pillar in treatments against this disease. “In the long term, our approach to cancer prevention should reflect the success of the antitabaco campaign (putting a greater emphasis on public awareness and policy -based strategies that promote healthier dietary choices as a fundamental component for disease prevention,” explained in a press release Ramon Sun, who led the team responsible for the study. Route for treatment. The good news is that the finding can open a way to improve treatments against this type of cancer. And we count at our disposal of drugs capable of controlling the level of glycogen in our body. Without the need to resort to pharmacological treatments, the study also allows highlighting the importance of a balanced diet in our health. In Xataka | Quantum computers begin to make a difference in a crucial field: the development of cancer vaccines Image | ROD Long

Today’s horoscope for Cancer for January 23, 2025

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You’ll elevate your ability to express yourself to the next level. Manifest your romantic desires, connect with others from the depths and do not be intimidated by new experiences and knowledge that will make your life a true celebration. A wise heart beats within you. Love horoscope for Cancer You feel romantic, enthusiastic about love and if you are already in a relationship you are extremely affectionate with your partner. Any existing disagreements are resolved in a way that strengthens your connection. Singles can breathe a sigh of relief, there is a real promise that you will meet someone special soon. Money horoscope for Cancer Regarding finances, you may have some unpleasant experiences today and you will be forced to be aware of your own weakness. Be strong when others make you see yourself in the mirror, it could be a positive learning experience. It will help you prepare for large scale project. Avoid large investments for the moment. Sex horoscope for Cancer You are not into the fashion of eccentric or erotic positions. You and your partner are happy to be attuned to the same lovemaking instincts. You constantly discover new and exciting facets with each delicious caress. Close your eyes and just feel.

Today’s horoscope for Cancer for January 22, 2025

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In matters of the heart, you will delve deeper and investigate your motivations, guided by intense emotions that will lead you to question your identity. If you have children, you will transform your approach towards them, offering them valuable tools to face life with resilience. Love horoscope for Cancer You charm everyone with the warmth of your smile, radiating positive energy and natural affection towards those you love. The kindness you show makes you attractive to others, which makes it easy to nurture existing relationships or, if you are single, make a good impression on someone you are interested in and ask them out on a date. Money horoscope for Cancer Since you can’t know what the future holds and since things can change quickly, be prepared to be flexible even in financial matters. If you make a major investment or purchase at this time you may suffer some unpleasant consequences. If you are given this advice, remain skeptical and take time to consider it as the information you are given may not be the best. Sex horoscope for Cancer Don’t expect any earth-devastating development. If it refers to sex, enjoy your lovemaking as always. You get straight to the point and do it without too much foreplay, erotic clothing or sexual talk. Standard pleasure principles will be fine for a while, but be careful not to bore your partner unnecessarily.

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