http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. When tumours metastasise, they can block lymphatic vessels, as researchers from ETH Zurich have discovered using a new method. The lymphatic fluid subsequently has to find a new path through the tissue. Such "detours" could well be the reason why metastasis misdiagnoses can occur in hospitals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-lymphatic-fluid-detour.html Medical research Mon, 20 May 2013 07:18:59 EST news288253128 Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center report that cancers physically alter cells in the lymphatic system – a network of vessels that transports and stores immune cells throughout the body – to promote the spread of disease, a process called metastasis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-tumor-activated-protein-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 13 May 2013 17:24:38 EST news287684667 Reverse cholesterol transport is a process in which accumulated cholesterol is removed from tissues, including the artery wall, and transported back to the liver for excretion. Little is known about how cholesterol is removed from peripheral tissues, but a better understanding of these mechanisms could help in the development of therapies that treat atherosclerosis and other cholesterol-related disorders. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-lymphatic-vasculature-cholesterol.html Medical research Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:25:27 EST news283433121 (Medical Xpress)—A group of researchers in Austria and Switzerland has for the first time proven that immune cells migrate along chemical concentration gradients. This process has long been assumed but never demonstrated experimentally in living tissues. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-immune-cells-gradients.html Immunology Fri, 18 Jan 2013 04:58:38 EST news277707485 A research paper by the group of Michael Sixt, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), published today in Science, provides new insights into how immune cells find their way through tissues. The findings provide the first evidence for directed cell migration along concentration gradients of chemical cues immobilized in tissues, a concept that has long been assumed but never experimentally proven. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-immune-cells-skin-graded-patterns.html Medical research Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:00:01 EST news277653549 Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a set of proteins circulating in blood whose levels accurately flag the presence of lymphedema. The findings, to be reported Dec. 18 in PLoS ONE, spur optimism that this common but relatively neglected condition, which affects an estimated 10 million people in the United States, finally will be amenable to detection (and, eventually, treatment) with 21st-century techniques. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-blood-accurately-lymphedema.html Inflammatory disorders Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:00:05 EST news275072203 Delayed wound healing is a major complication of diabetes because the physiological changes in tissues and cells impair the wound healing process. This can result in additional disease outcomes such as diabetic foot ulcer, a significant cause of morbidity in the growing population of diabetic patients. A new study has found that topically applied simvastatin accelerates wound healing in diabetic mice, suggesting important implications for humans with diabetes. This study is published in the December issue of The American Journal of Pathology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-topical-simvastatin-shown-wound-diabetes.html Diabetes Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:50:55 EST news273243030 Melanoma is so dangerous because it tends to metastasize early on. New treatment approaches utilize, among other things, the ability of the immune defense to search out and destroy malignant cells. Yet this strategy is often only temporarily effective. A research team under the direction of Bonn University has discovered why this is the case: In the inflammatory reaction caused by the treatment, the tumor cells temporarily alter their external characteristics and thus become invisible to defense cells. This knowledge forms an important foundation for the improvement of combination therapies. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-melanoma-cells-circumvent-immune.html Cancer Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:00:06 EST news269091890 LAM, short for pulmonary lymphangioleiomyomatosis, affects about 1 in 10,000 women of childbearing age and is characterized by proliferation of smooth muscle-like cells in the lung, destruction of lung tissue, and growth of lymphatic vessels. The disease manifests itself in a wide variety of ways, so it is sometimes difficult to diagnose and there is no cure. The disease is caused by inactivation of either of two genes, TSC1 or TSC2, but to date no animal model has been able to replicate the pathologic features those mutations produce in humans. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-mouse-debilitating-lung-disease-potential.html Medical research Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:00:01 EST news268488811 A Massachusetts General Hospital research team has identified factors that contribute to solid stress within tumors, suggesting possible ways to alleviate it, and has developed a simple way to measure such pressures. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-physical-block-cancer-treatment.html Cancer Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:58:06 EST news267371873 (Medical Xpress)—One of the world's top selling drugs potentially also acts against the growth of new lymphatic vessels, with potential implications for cancer therapy. This surprising finding was brought forward by Swiss researchers with their newly developed three-dimensional cell culture system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-statins-stem-tumor-growth.html Cancer Tue, 04 Sep 2012 06:39:35 EST news265959333 Not only infants crawl. ETH researchers have shown that so-called dendritic cells, important cells of the immune system, use a similar mode of movement more often than previously assumed. The scientists used intravital microscopy to image dendritic cells crawling within lymphatic vessels of living animals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-preschool-lymphatic-vessels.html Medical research Thu, 09 Aug 2012 07:59:27 EST news263717954 Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer, estimated by the National Cancer Institute to afflict more than 70,000 people in the United States annually and the incidence rate continues to rise. In a study published online in Genome Research, researchers have identified a previously unknown non-coding RNA that plays an important role in the biology of melanoma, a finding that could lead to a new target for therapy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-rna-melanoma-cancer-therapy.html Cancer Thu, 10 May 2012 17:00:01 EST news255876694 One of the major routes of tumor cell dissemination to form metastasis at distant organs in the body is the lymphatic system. To study this process, still poorly understood, and to gain information on which tumors prefer this route for dissemination and how to block it, researchers of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), led by researcher Sagrario Ortega, have created transgenic mice in which, for the first time, the growth of the lymphatic vessels can be visualized in the whole animal, by a light-emitting reaction, as tumor progresses and forms metastasis. The technique is so sensitive that it allows monitoring those lymph nodes that are going to be invaded by tumor cells. The work is published today in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-genetically-mice-visualize-vivo-inflammation.html Cancer Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:25:02 EST news252602696 Lymph nodes help to fight off infections by producing immune cells and filtering foreign materials from the body, such as bacteria or cancer cells. Thus, one of the first places that cancer cells are found when they leave the primary tumor is in the lymph nodes. The spread of cancer cells to the lymph nodes, lymphatic metastasis, is known to indicate a poor prognosis in many types of cancers; how tumor cells reach the lymph nodes, however, is not well understood. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-pathway-linked-breast-cancer-metastasis.html Cancer Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:00:04 EST news252584321 A new study reveals key factors that promote the spread of cancer to lymph nodes and provides a mechanism that explains how a common over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication can reduce the spread of tumor cells through the lymphatic system. The research, published by Cell Press in the February 14 issue of the journal Cancer Cell, opens new avenues for the design of antimetastatic therapies. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-evidence-link-nsaids-cancer-metastasis.html Cancer Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:00:01 EST news248362682