The oxygen paradox tells us that oxygen is both necessary for aerobic life and toxic to all life forms. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) touch every biological and medical discipline, especially those involving proliferative status, supporting the idea that active oxygen may be increased in tumor cells. In fact, metabolism of oxygen and the resulting toxic byproducts can cause cancer and death. Efforts to counteract the damage caused by ROS are gaining acceptance as a basis for novel therapeutic approaches, and the field of prevention of cancer is experiencing an upsurge of interest in medically useful antioxidants. Apoptosis is an important means of regulating cell numbers in the developing cell system, but it is so important that it must be controlled. Normal cell death in homeostasis of multicellular organisms is mediated through tightly regulated apoptotic pathways that involve oxidative stress regulation. Defective signaling through these pathways can contribute to both unbalance in apoptosis and development of cancer. Finally, in this review, we discuss new knowledge about recent tools that provide powerful antioxidant strategies, and designing methods to deliver to target cells, in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Oxidative stress in apoptosis and cancer: an update.

Engaging individuals with cancer in decision making about their treatments has received increased attention; shared decision making (SDM) has become a hallmark of patient-centered care. Although physicians indicate substantial interest in SDM, implementing SDM in cancer care is often complex; high levels of uncertainty may exist, and health care providers must help patients understand the potential risks versus benefits of different treatment options. However, patients who are more engaged in their health care decision making are more likely to experience confidence in and satisfaction with treatment decisions and increased trust in their providers. To implement SDM in oncology practice, physicians and other health care providers need to understand the components of SDM and the approaches to supporting and facilitating this process as part of cancer care. This review summarizes recent information regarding patient and physician factors that influence SDM for cancer care, outcomes resulting from successful SDM, and strategies for implementing SDM in oncology practice. We present a conceptual model illustrating the components of SDM in cancer care and provide recommendations for facilitating SDM in oncology practice.

Implementing and evaluating shared decision making in oncology practice.

A systematic review of factors influencing older adults' decision to accept or decline cancer treatment.

The increasing use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has kindled the need for scientific evaluation of the mechanism of action of CAMs. Although, licorice, a common ingredient in many Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has attracted great attention for its antitumor and immunomodulatory activities, the mechanism of action of its polysaccharides is still unclear. Here we report the immunomodulatory activity of licorice polysaccharides in vivo. The differential anticancer activities of licorice polysaccharides by tumorigenesis and immunomodulation was evaluated in vivo. Six weeks old, 120 CT-26 tumor bearing BALB/c mice, weighing 20 ± 2 g were used. They were randomly divided into six groups, three groups receiving high molecular weight (fraction A), low molecular weight (fraction B) polysaccharides and crude extract (fraction C); positive, negative and normal groups receiving cytoxin, saline and normal diet respectively. Weight of mice and tumors was determined and tumorigenicity assay calculated to determine the anticancer effects. Immunomodulatory potential was determined by immune organ indices, immune cell population and serum cytokine levels using immune organ weight and index, flow cytometry and cytokine/chemokine bead panel kit respectively. Licorice polysaccharides exhibited immunomodulatory activities in CT 26 tumor bearing BALB/c mice. The polysaccharides significantly suppressed tumor growth and increased immune organ index. Furthermore, the immunomodulatory effect was evident with activation of CD4+ and CD8+ immune cells population. The polysaccharides also affected the production of various cytokines, by increasing IL 2, IL 6, IL 7 levels and a decreasing TNFα levels. In summary, licorice polysaccharide especially of low molecular weight exhibit anticancer and immunomodulatory activities by suppressing tumor growth and improving general health of mice. They also augment the thymus/spleen index and population of T lymphocytes. Furthermore, the polysaccharides enhance the levels of serum antitumor cytokines, IL 2, IL 6 and IL 7 while decreasing pro-tumor cytokine TNFα.

/pdf/the-immunomodulatory-activities-of-licorice-polysaccharides-2eszp5nxwf.pdf

The immunomodulatory activities of licorice polysaccharides (Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch.) in CT 26 tumor-bearing mice

Cancer immunotherapy is a promising and effective treatment modality for patients with cancers. Cytokine, anticytokine, and antibody therapies appear to be effective in treating various forms of cancer. The human papillomavirus vaccine is protective for cervical cancer, and this discovery has paved the way to the development of cancer vaccines for other forms of virus-associated cancers such as liver cancer and Merkel cell carcinoma. Clinical trials have demonstrated that adoptive cell therapy using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes can induce tumor regression in approximately 75% of metastatic melanoma patients, suggesting the possibility of using similar technique to effectively treat breast, lung, and renal cancers in the near future. Besides, genetically engineered T cells transduced with genes encoding specific T cell receptors and chimeric antigen receptors have been shown effective in the treatment of cancer patients. These studies suggest that combination therapies are superior choices in cancer immunotherapy for patients.

/pdf/advances-and-prospects-in-cancer-immunotherapy-3liriczaog.pdf

Advances and Prospects in Cancer Immunotherapy

This narrative review of the literature examines the issues influencing chemotherapy treatment of older patients with cancer. Increasing age is associated with physical, social and psychological changes, but the rate of change differs widely between people, such that chronological age is not a good determinant of fitness for treatment. Changes in old age can affect disease processes and treatments that are offered. Clinical trials suggest that older patients gain benefits from chemotherapy, but with increased toxicity profile. Dose reductions may be required, but the effect on outcome is not known. Adjuvant chemotherapy is likely to benefit patients with a life expectancy over 5 years, although mortality benefits become less pronounced with increasing age. Older patients want chemotherapy, as long as side effects do not reduce quality of life or ability to function independently. Older patients face barriers to communication with professionals, including sensory and memory problems and poorer health literacy. Patients should be assessed covering functional, physiological and socio-economic domains that identify significant comorbid disease and frailty, to ensure that planned chemotherapy is appropriate. Successful treatment of older patients with chemotherapy may require interventions to support them to ensure all patients who may derive benefit can undergo treatment, if they so wish.

Chemotherapy treatment decision making by professionals and older patients with cancer: a narrative review of the literature.

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in terms of newly diagnosed cases. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment but confers comorbidities including high rates of persistent post-surgical pain. The James Lind Alliance breast surgery priority setting partnership (2022) identified the need to support patients around the time of diagnosis, during and after treatment, asking what are the best methods to individualise information and support given to patients. Web-based interventions providing real-time symptom reporting support patients and clinicians to make early and effective decisions regarding care. 

Developing an effective self-management web-based intervention using co-designed patient and multidisciplinary research: ePainQ

Background: Metastatic melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Worldwide incidences of melanoma continue to rise, ranking melanoma as the sixth most common cancer. A large proportion of melanomas carry mutations in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway leading to hyper-activation and proliferation. Driver mutations in BRAF V600(50%) and NRAS Q61(20%) are commonly found. FDA-approved kinase inhibitors that directly target BRAFV600E-mutated tumors have shown dramatic and long-lasting clinical efficacy, but relapses do occur. 

Vertical inhibition of the MAPK pathway as potential treatment strategy in NRAS-mutant melanoma

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

M. Johnson

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Chemotherapy treatment decision making by professionals and older patients with cancer: a narrative review of the literature.

Developing an effective self-management web-based intervention using co-designed patient and multidisciplinary research: ePainQ

Vertical inhibition of the MAPK pathway as potential treatment strategy in NRAS-mutant melanoma