HEADLINES


Cancer News

SEEDS OF HOPE: UF HEALTH NOW USING PRECISION RADIATION PROCEDURE FOR EYE CANCER

For patients with eye cancer, University of Florida Health ophthalmology specialist Gibran S. Khurshid, M.D., is sowing seeds of hope.

In Khurshid’s case, those seeds are tiny particles of radioactive iodine. Attached to a gold implant about the size of a contact lens, the “seeds” deliver tightly focused radiation to eye cancer, oruveal melanoma. Khurshid, an associate professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of ophthalmology, began doing the procedures earlier this year.

SEEDS OF HOPE

NEW STUDY ASSOCIATES DENSE BREASTS IN OLDER WOMEN WITH HEIGHTENED BREAST CANCER RISK

A large study led by a UF Health population scientist examined data from more than 193,000 women age 65 and older and found a positive association between breast density and breast cancer risk.

The study fills a gap of information with possible implications on the decision-making of older women considering a breast cancer screening mammography, said the study’s senior author, Dejana Braithwaite, Ph.D., the associate director of population sciences at the UF Health Cancer Center.

BREAST CANCER

UF HEALTH RESEARCHERS USE BIG DATA TO IMPROVE CARE FOR PEOPLE WITH RARE DISEASES

Researchers at University of Florida Health and the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network are using big data analytics to scale up research and boost care and treatment options for people affected by three potentially debilitating rare diseases.

Study teams at UF Health will conduct research on preserving kidney function in children with chronic kidney disease and treating rare neuroendocrine cancers in adults.

researchers

DR. JATINDER LAMBA AWARDED $1.9 MILLION GRANT TO CONTINUE ACUTE MYELOID LEUKEMIA STUDY

The National Cancer Institute has awarded Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., M.Sc., a professor of pharmacotherapy and translational research in the University of Florida College of Pharmacy and a member of the UF Health Cancer Center, a five-year, $1.9 million grant titled, “Genomics of AML Prognosis,” to continue research on Acute Myeloid Leukemia, or AML, that began in 2008.

Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., M.Sc.

STUDY OFFERS HOPE FOR AN ERA OF SAFER CHEMOTHERAPY IN BREAST CANCER

Breast cancer is the deadliest and most common type of cancer in women. The treatment options often require administration of anti-cancer drugs in high doses, as the cells develop resistance towards chemotherapy, leading to painful side effects in patients.

Recently, researchers have identified that reducing the level of a protein called DSS1 can increase patients’ responsiveness to chemotherapy, therefore lowering the doses of the drug as well as the chances of side effects in patients.

study

STUDY: MINORITY GROUP REMAIN CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT FROM PANCREATIC CANCER CLINICAL TRIALS

According to a study published in Gastroenterology by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center and University of Florida Health, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian Americans remain conspicuously absent from pancreatic cancer clinical trials aimed at testing the most recent treatment advances for this deadly disease.

“We’re just now making it a requirement to report, but there’s no true requirement as far as who needs to be included in clinical trials. I find that shocking,” said Kelly Herremans, M.D., study lead author and surgical resident in the UF College of Medicine.

pancreatic cancer

LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF COVID-19 AND CANCER CREATE POPULATION OF ‘DUAL SURVIVORS’

Merry Jennifer Markham, M.D., expresses concern for cancer patients and survivors effects from COVID-19 in an interview with Healio.

“Before the delta variant was really running rampant, I was advising my patients who are vaccinated against COVID-19 that it’s probably okay to dine in a restaurant, as long as they are just cautious in general,” Markham said. “Now, especially for the unvaccinated cancer survivors, the risk is so great that my guidance for patients is to treat it as if we were at the very beginning of the pandemic.”

Markham

Announcements

NEW AI WORKING GROUP

We are excited to announce a new working group: the Cancer AI Working Group, which is co-led by the Biostatistics and Quantitative Sciences Shared Resource in the Division of Quantitative Sciences and the Cancer Informatics Shared Resource.

The mission of the Cancer AI Working Group is to develop collaborative research, expertise and network capacity in artificial intelligence (AI) at the UF Health Cancer Center.

AI

MAKING STRIDES AGAINST BREAST CANCER

 Join the fight against breast cancer in Gainesville! Sign up for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Join your community in taking up the fight to fund the future of breast cancer research and programs. Leading up to October, raise funds digitally and easily to reach a suggested personal goal of $100 or more.
Contact: Kyle Stone | kyle.stone@cancer.org | (727) 537-0944
When: Saturday, October 23 | 8 a.m.
Where: Celebration Pointe | Gainesville, FL

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