Stem cell treatment for GLIOBLASTOMA

●Glioblastoma is a highly vascular tumor, it is also most common primary brain tumor.

●Human stem cells which are made from human skin cells can help treating human brain cancer as published in Science Translational Medicine.

●Firstly mouse skin cells were converted into stem cell that killed huma brain cancer cells, effectively increasing time of survival 160 to 220 percent, depending on the tumor type.

●Now the same is done with human stem cells and the results were not only better but quicker and could help whose median survival is less than 18 months and chance of surviving beyond two years is 30 percent.

●“Speed is essential,” says Shawn Hingtgen. “It used to take weeks to convert human skin cells to stem cells. But brain cancer patients don’t have weeks and months to wait for us to generate these therapies. The new process we developed to create these stem cells is fast enough and simple enough to be used to treat a patient.”

Image: Globocan

●The key to Hingtgen’s treatment is “skin flipping,” a technology for creating neural stem cells from skin cells that won a Nobel Prize in 2012. 

●The first step is to harvest fibroblasts—skin cells responsible for producing collagen and connective tissue—from the patient and reprogram those cells to become what are called induced neural stem cells.

●Then these stem cells are engineered to carry therapeutic agents that the cells can launch at the tumor to kill it.

●Hingtgen’s stem cells can carry a protein that activates an inert substance called a prodrug that is given to the patient. The cells can then generate a small halo of drug that is located just around the stem cell, rather than it being circulated throughout the patient’s body, reducing unwanted side effects.

●“We’re one to two years away from clinical trials, but for the first time, we showed that our strategy for treating glioblastoma works with human stem cells and human cancers,” Hingtgen says. “This is a big step toward a real treatment—and making a real difference.”

Credit and source: weforum.org

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Fight against cancer: IBM Watson plays doctor at Manipal Hospitals (India)

IBM Watson is a cognitive computing system which has been particularly designed to support the oncology community. This is a great module that allows physicians to consider treatment options with their patients. With its core capabilities—reading natural language, evaluating cases with evolving machine-learned models, finding and providing supporting evidence from a wide variety of sources, and rapidly processing large volumes of data—cognitive computing is being used in oncology to transform healthcare and help address some of the challenges oncologists are facing.

Cancer is fast turning into an epidemic in India.According to a study by The National Cancer Institute (NCI), every 13th new cancer patient in the world is an Indian. In 2016, the total number of new cancer cases is anticipated to be around 14.5 lakh and that figure is likely to reach nearly 17.3 lakh in 2020, as per a study by The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The good news is that the paramount importance of technology, especially cognitive, is being recognised by healthcare institutes. Manipal Hospitals has adopted IBM Watson for Oncology, a cognitive computing platform, to help physicians identify options for individualised, evidence-based cancer care across India. This is the first deployment of Watson’s cognitive computing platform in the country.

Researchers are using cognitive computing to find personalised cancer treatments for patients. Humans and machines are forging a new age of understanding. Clinicians and analysts are training cognitive computing system to interpret cancer patients’ clinical information and identify individualised, evidence-based treatment options that leverage decades of experience and research by top oncologists, across the globe.

A ray of hope

Watson can understand the case and highlight a list of potential treatments with a percentage rank of certitude. The doctor then reviews the list and makes the final treatment decision in consult with the patient.

Watson for Oncology will be able to have information to allow them to explore treatment options, and gather evidence specific to a patients’ individual health needs. Watson ranks identified treatment options and provides links to supporting evidence for each option to help oncologists as they consider treatment options for their patient.

Watson for Oncology draws from an impressive corpus of information, and, to date, more than 300 medical journals, more than 200 textbooks, and nearly 15 million pages of text. The cognitive computing platform also supplies for consideration supporting evidence in the form of administration information, as well as information regarding the different drug options. Watson’s machine learning capability means it is continuously learning over time,and doctors have access to peer reviewed studies, clinical guidelines and expert perspectives.

Imagine, cancer patients—irrespective of their financial backgrounds—receiving personalised treatment in a country which is starved of oncologists, cancer-specialised hospitals, and is home to 2.5 million cancer patients, with 1 million new cases being added every year and a chance of the disease rising five-fold by 2025. These terrifying numbers emphasize the pressing need for, among other things, cognitive computing in redefining healthcare.

Without doubt, valuable lessons can be learned from use of cognitive computing by healthcare institutes and replicated elsewhere across the country.

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Vertebral hemangioma treated using ABSOLUTE ALCOHOL in AIIMS

Dr P S Chandra, a professor of neurosurgery at AIIMS has done something very few people manage to do in life- saving the life of someone who was said couldn’t be saved. And he did this with the help of some alcohol- ‘absolute alcohol’, that is.
The 28 year old pregnant woman whom the doctor treated was paralyzed below the waist for many months. The reason- a rare type of spinal tumor. Dr Chandra pumped in a measured volume of absolute alcohol which is a neuro-toxic drug into the turmor. This helped destroy the lump.

Said to be ‘Beyond cure’, but the doctor went beyond that

The MRI, as per the doctor, suggested the problem as spine tumor. Many opined that the cancerous tumor didn’t have any cure. The patient was brought to AIIMS where the doctors diagnosed the issue as vertebral haemangioma. It’s a slow-growing vertebral tumour that’s not malignant. However, according to Dr Chandra the greatest challenge with the disease is that the surgery is rather vascular and if touched by a doctor during surgery, it bleeds heavily.

The usual practice in such a scenario is to perform ‘intra-arterial embolization’ by which certain glue is injected into the tumour. This is done prior to the surgery and is time consuming- taking some 4 to 6 hours. Also, the cost comes to about 3 to 4 lakhs. On the other hand, absolute alcohol costs just a few hundred rupees.

Absolute alcohol is 99% ethanol. It destroys the tumour by drawing water from the cells. This dehydrates the cells which causes the structure of the cellular proteins to be altered. Over time, this would lead to new bone formation which in turn helps the spine heal. Not just that, it’s also an embolization agent that curbs blood supply towards the tumour.

Post surgery, the patient started feeling relief in her legs. A couple of months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby. It’s been reported that she could now walk and even workout at the gym.

Many term the doctor’s idea of using absolute alcohol to tackle the tumour unique.

Image credits: dailymail.co.uk
Post credit: Daily rounds

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