Pulmonary valve stenosis - Symptoms & causes

Lung Cancer Drug Already Available On NHS Could Cut Bladder Deaths

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A lung cancer drug already available on the NHS has been proven to cut bladder cancer deaths and reduce the risk of the disease returning by a third.

The "game-changing" results of the trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that patients treated with an immunotherapy drug called durvalumab were about 10 per cent more likely to survive for at least two years compared to those receiving standard care.

Patients taking the drug were also 32 per cent less likely to experience cancer recurrence or progression during the study period.

Experts from the University of Sheffield and Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London recruited 1,063 patients with advanced but operable bladder cancer that had progressed into the muscle wall.

Half of the participants were given the standard treatment of chemotherapy and surgery, while the other half were given durvalumab, also known by brand name Imfinzi, in addition.

The proportion of people still alive after two years was 82.2 per cent among those who had taken durvalumab and 75.2 per cent in the control group who had received standard NHS care.

Durvalumab is already licensed for use on the NHS to treat advanced non-small cell lung cancer, but is also being studied in other cancers.

'Major breakthrough'

James Catto, professor of urology at the University of Sheffield and honorary consultant urological surgeon, who co-led the study, said: "This is a major breakthrough in the treatment of bladder cancer.

"For many years, survival rates for advanced bladder cancer have remained stagnant, but our findings offer hope to thousands of patients who face this devastating diagnosis.

"Patients treated with durvalumab before and after surgery had both significantly higher survival rates and lower risks of the cancer returning and didn't face any additional serious side effects.

"This is important for patients undergoing chemotherapy and its numerous and often debilitating side effects.

"Our hope is that this treatment can be made available for NHS patients as soon as possible following regulatory approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and that it becomes the new standard of care.

"Recent research suggests that cases of bladder cancer will increase by 50 per cent over the next two decades, but yet the level of awareness about bladder cancer in the UK remains low."

Survival rates

At the moment, around half of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer experience recurrence within three years.

Survival rates depend on how far the cancer has spread through the muscle wall, but Cancer Research UK says only about 40 to 45 per cent can expect to survive for five years based on current treatments.

Bladder cancer is diagnosed in about 10,500 people each year and is three times more common in men than women but can affect both.

Symptoms most commonly include blood in the urine or needing to go to the toilet frequently or urgently.

Syed Hussain, professor and honorary consultant of medical oncology at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and principal investigator of the trial, said the "magnitude of survival benefit seen will certainly be a game changer".

He added: "These are exciting times in the management of muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

"We had not seen any additional survival benefit in previous trials investigating additional treatments in combination with standard of care cisplatin-based chemotherapy before surgery.

"By bringing these exciting new treatments earlier in the disease pathway we will continue to see more patients being cured of muscle-invasive bladder cancer."

Lead author of the study, Thomas Powles, professor of genitourinary oncology at Queen Mary University of London's Barts Cancer Institute, said the trial "showed for the first time that the addition of immunotherapy to chemotherapy increases the rate of overall survival. This is a major step forward for these patients".

Ian Flower, 63, from Sheffield took part in the trial, which was run at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, after being diagnosed with operable bladder cancer.

"I was happy to help with the trial, not just for myself but in the hope that it could help other patients," he said.

"It is nice to hear the trial received positive results and I hope it can become available for other patients."

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Shocking! California Man Dies From Unusual Lung Cancer Spread By Another Person: Is Cancer Contagious?

Is Cancer Contagious? California Man Dies from Rare Person-to-Person Lung Cancer Transmission. Read on to know how cancer transmits from one individual to another! California Man Dies From Unusual Lung Cancer Spread by Another Person: Is Cancer Contagious?

California News: In a rare medical case, a California man has tragically died from lung cancer that is believed to have been transmitted from another individual. This type of cancer transmission, known as "cancer metastasis from person to person," is incredibly uncommon, with only a handful of similar cases documented in medical history.

According to reports, the 41-year-old California man had chronic liver disease and had undergone a liver transplant recently. Records say that his donor who died in 2001 (a 63-year-old man) was suffering from undetected lung cancer.

"The donor died in 2001 after suffering a stroke and had no known history of cancer. So, the transplant process was carried out without any second thought. However, after the transplant was done, an autopsy report revealed that the donor was suffering from metastatic pulmonary adenocarcinoma -- a rare type of lung cancer that is hard to detect," the doctors were quoted as saying. They further added that the cancer was so small that it didn't show up in standard pre-transplant imaging.

What Symptoms of Lung Cancer Did The Man Suffer From?

While most of the time lung cancers go undetected due to the lack of clear signs, the California man developed certain symptoms that indicated something was going terribly wrong inside his lungs. "After a few months from the liver transplant, the man developed abdominal pain, vomiting, and a feeling of fullness. When we ran a few tests on the man, we could detect the development of the metastatic pulmonary adenocarcinoma - the same type of cancer."

Talking about the man's gradual health deterioration, the doctors said that a few months after the detection, he developed fluid buildup and a blood clot in his legs. "Though he was immediately admitted to the hospital for treatment, he died within 24 hours."

What Is Cancer Metastasis From One Person To Another?

Cancer metastasis from person to person is an exceptionally rare phenomenon where cancer cells spread from one person to another. This unusual occurrence only happens during organ transplantation, where cancer cells may be transferred from a donor to a recipient. It can also happen in very rare cases during surgical procedures, although such events are extremely unusual. The transmission of cancer between individuals through casual contact or other means is not a recognized form of cancer spread.

Follow TheHealthSite.Com for more such health news from around the world.

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Innovative Biopsy Technique Leads To Early Lung Cancer Detection And Recovery

Twelve years after losing her husband David to lung cancer, Bev Brookshire faced her own health scare. When she began to experience shortness of breath and wheezing, a CT scan at Washington state-based MultiCare revealed a nodule on her lung. And when the usual approach to evaluate further wasn't possible due to a health condition, doctors got creative.

"Bev has significant kyphoscoliosis (curvature of the spine that's both sideways and forward/backward), which made the biopsy challenging," MultiCare Interventional Pulmonologist Abhishek Biswas, M.D., explained in a MultiCare blog post. "The only way to do the biopsy was with robotic-navigation bronchoscopy with cone-beam, real-time imaging."

Bronchoscopy, or transbronchial biopsy, is a minimally invasive procedure where a thin tube is guided down the throat to the lungs. Using this unique method, Brookshire's care team was able to determine that she had stage 1 non-small cell lung cancer and acted quickly to get her into treatment. Following a successful surgery, Brookshire recovered quickly and enjoyed an Alaskan cruise with her daughter two weeks later. Since then, she hasn't had to undergo radiation or chemotherapy and her last CT scan was clear. And now she's a major proponent of early CT scans.

"I tell everybody I know, 'If you're a smoker or former smoker, get a CT scan,'" Brookshire said. "Better safe than sorry."

Resources on the Role of Hospitals

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