Top Canadian Research Stories of 2015: Teaching an old dog new tricks


Every day cancer scientists around the globe make progress in our understanding of the basis of cancer, how to prevent the disease, and how to treat the disease.  Canada plays an important part in this progress. 

The Canadian Cancer Society recently released its top Canadian Cancer Society funded research stories of 2015.  The projects range from new tools to study cancer, new understanding of biological basis disease to new tools to diagnose and treat cancer to quality of life issues for cancer patients. Check out all their stories here!

All of the 10 stories are amazing and intriguing.  But today I will highlight one from our own backyard at the NCIC Cancer Clinical Trials Group in Kingston, Ontario.

As a scientist, I think of cancer research in terms of novel treatments and improving patient survival.  But there’s another area of cancer research that physicians and cancer patients care a lot about: cancer pain.  As a patient, having to undergo radical therapy and alter your lifestyle is hard enough.  Understanding pain associated with cancer and managing symptoms is just as an essential component of cancer research.


Dr. Edward Chow and the NCIC Clinical Trials Group recently completed a phase 3 clinical trial assessing how the well-established drug dexamethasone might be used to alleviate bone pain after radiotherapy in cancer patients suffering from bone metastases.  

Metastasis is a common complication of advanced cancer.  Cancer cells from the primary tumor move to distant sites in the body.  One such site is the bone.  The resulting bone lesion is often quite painful for the patients.  Currently, radiotherapy is used to treat the metastases and the pain.  However, an estimated 30-40% of patients report experiencing “pain flares”, defined as a temporary worsening of the pain in the treated site. 

Dexamethasone that has been in use since the 1960’s is a steroid that has anti-inflammatory properties.  It is used for the treatment of arthritis.  Some previous studies have suggested it may also have a use in the treatment of cancer pain.  The current study is the largest study to date that assessed how dexamethasone may be used to reduce bone pain in response to radiation.

In this study, 298 patients from across Canada were enrolled:  half of them randomly allocated to receive dexamethasone and the other half allocated to receive a placebo.  The difference in pain flare incidence was 8.9%, with lower pain flares in the dexamethasone treated patients.  Additionally, these patients also experienced less nausea, reduced functional interference, and increased appetite.  In other words, dexamethasone is efficacious in the preventative treatment of radiation-induced pain flare.    Dexamethasone, an old dog, can learn new tricks and may have a new arena to play in: cancer care.   This “old-ish” cancer scientist learned a new, and important, aspect of cancer research. 

1 comment:

  1. I want to share with you all on how Dr Itua saves my life with his powerful Herbal medicines, I was diagnosed of Oral/Ovarian Cancer which i suffered from for 5 years with no positive treatment until when My son came to me in the hospital when i was laying down on my dying bed waiting for god to call out my name to join him in heaven.
    My son was so excited that very day he came across Dr Itua on Blogspot, we decided to give him a try although we Americans are so scared to trust Africans but i really have no choice that time to choose life in between so we gave a try to Dr Itua Herbal medicines, god wiling he was a good man with a god gift. Dr Itua send us the herbal medicine it was three bottles. I take it for three weeks instructor and this herbal medicines heal me, cure my Oral/Ovarian Cancer completely I have been living for 9 months now with healthy life no more symptoms.
    I'm sponsoring Dr Itua in LA Advert on Cancer patent seminar which my son will be participating too and other patent Dr Itua has cured from all kind of human disease, also if you are sick from disease like,Epilepsy,Breast Cancer,Prostate Cancer,Throat cancer,Thyroid Cancer,​Uterine cancer,Fibroid,Angiopathy, Ataxia,Arthritis,Brain cancer,Hiv,. Vaginal cancer,Herpes,Colo-Rectal Cancer,Chronic Disease.Amyotrophic Lateral Scoliosis,Brain Tumor,Fibromyalgia,Fluoroquinolone Toxicity,​Multiple myeloma,Tach Diseases,Leukemia,Liver cancer,
    ​Esophageal cancer,​Gallbladder cancer,,Bladder cancer,Gestational trophoblastic disease,Head and neck cancer,​Hodgkin lymphoma
    ​Intestinal cancer,Kidney cancer,Hpv,Lung cancer,Adrenal cancer.Bile duct cancer,Bone cancer,Melanoma,Mesothelioma,​Neuroendocrine tumors
    Non-Hodgkin lymphoma,Cervical Cancer,​Oral cancer,Hepatitis,Skin cancer,Soft tissue sarcoma,Spinal cancer,Stomach cancer
    ​Testicular cancer,
    Syndrome Fibrodysplasia Ossificans ProgresSclerosis,Alzheimer's disease,Chronic Diarrhea,Copd,Parkinson,Als,Adrenocortical carcinoma Infectious mononucleosis,​Vulvar cancer,Ovarian cancer,,​Sinus cancer, Here Is The Wonderful Healer Contact. Name_ Doctor Itua, Email Contact: drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com, Phone/WhatsApp: +2348149277967

    ReplyDelete