NJ Cancer Research

Every year there is an Annual Retreat on Cancer Research in New Jersey. This year's Retreat was held at the Student Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. The Retreat brings together researchers from across the state to share their study results and also includes a Public Forum portion,  focus sessions and a poster session. I'll give a short review on the Public Forum, the Keynote Speech and 3 posters related to ovarian cancer.

This year the Public Forum theme was Cancer Survivors:Advancing Care through Research.
 Public Forum. The Keynote Lecture for the Public Forum was given by Alred Neugut MD ,PhD, Columbia University . He spoke on research related to screening tests and public health issues, emphasizing the need for guidelines for tests,colonoscopy and mammography in particular,  being based on good data.

Dr Sharon Manne spoke on Couple-Focused Group Therapy for Women Diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Spousal support is the most important support a women diagnosed with breast cancer can have. Support groups are also very important but outcomes depend on the moderator. In a trial of Couple Enhanced Support Groups ( education and topic driven) vs regular support group  the participants in the support group reported less distress than those in the Enhanced Support Group.

Dr Shawna Hudson spoke on Prostate Cancer Follow-Up:Promoting Self-Care After Cancer Treatment Ends. In one study when asked when follow-up care should be provided by the primary care physician(PCP),  prostate cancer survivors responded that a return to the PCP should be later in the timeline. There is a  new NCSRC Primary Care Toolkit for breast /prostate /colon cancer .

Dr Brian Gonzalez spoke on A Vision For Personalized Care in Cancer Survivorship with a focus on the cognitive function and hot flashes in prostate cancer and the use of androgen deprivation treatment. He found that those men with a GG allele showed a worsening of their cognitive function and an increase in hot flashes when using ADT.

 Keynote Speaker - Jeffrey Engelman, MD,PhD  Harvard Medical School

Dr Engleman's talk Evolution of Resistance to Targeted Therapies focused on lung cancer - specifically those with EGFR mutations and ALK translocations. Most cancers do not have a single target. Recurrence will occur if 1) pathways are reactivated 2)the target is amplified or 3) lineage changes occur. Research on early vs late T790M mutation development showed that cells with late T790M showed the same expression profile as drug tolerant cells.

Posters

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Ovarian Cancer Treatment and Survival - E. Bandera
(800 women diagnosed with OC  between 2000-2013)
"African-American(AA)  women were more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease ( 26%), to have hypertension (73.9%) and renal disease ( 50%),  not have surgery and have an elevated post-treatment CA-125. Both AA and Hispanic women had high prevalence of obesity.
...  Our study shows that disparities in OC treatment and survival in AA persisted in a setting of equal access to care and after taking into account treatment and other clinical characteristics."

Dietary Quality and Ovarian Cancer Risk in African-American(AA)  Women - K.Pawlish
(415 OC cases and 629 age/site controls of AA decent evaluated three indexed-based dietary patterns. "Adherence to an overall healthy dietary pattern may reduce ovarian cancer risk in AA women, particularly among postmenopausal AA women"   

Identifying Gene/Protein Expression and Single -Nucleotide Polymorhism profiles (SNP ) in Tumor Samples Isolated from Patients with Ovarian Cancer - J.Sapiezynski
"A strong positive correlation between the resistance of cells and expression level of MDR1 gene was revealed. A strong correlation between resistance and the BCL2 gene was found in cells with the wild type of TOP2A genotype."


I am so pleased to see many different research groups working together on these important projects.

Dee
Every Day is a Blessing!