In my previous post, I talked about how nanoparticles can deliver a payload of chemotherapy drugs in a targeted way, bypassing the anything other than cancer cells. Well, there’s another very interesting line of research involving nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are small, but they’re still larger than most human cells. But they are the perfect size to infiltrate cancer cells, which are… Read more »
OK, so y’all know I’m a science nerd, right? And there’s some really interesting research being done with nanoparticles to treat cancer. But I was always a little hazy on how exactly all of that worked. How did the nanoparticles find and target only the cancer cells and leave the regular cells untouched? I came across an explanation and thought… Read more »
As readers of the blog may know, I live in Austin. Our local television station ran a story about a new radiation-based skin cancer treatment that sounded interesting. The treatment is an FDA approved non-surgical treatment called Superficial Radiation. The claim is that the treatment destroys skin cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue. For maximum effectiveness, you need 8-10 treatments, which last… Read more »
I just read a discouraging article that notes that patients with darker skin tones have a much worse chance of their melanoma becoming fatal. The article references a study performed by Case Western Reserve University (incidentally close to my hometown in Ohio and a very well-respected institution) that found that patients with black skin had the worst survival rates for melanoma…. Read more »
My news feed lit up today with a bunch of links talking about research done by a German and Israeli team showing how skin cancer cells develop and spread. This important research will hopefully show how skin cancer cells spread throughout the body. As you already know, melanoma is one of the deadliest types of cancer once it has spread… Read more »
There was a recent article on msn.com that talked about myths regarding sun exposure. Although we may think we know everything there is to know about protecting yourself from harmful sun exposure, it’s still good to have a reminder. Let’s start with the first, and to my mind, obvious. How many of you remember trying to get a base tan… Read more »
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (knowns as the CDC, a U.S. national public health institute) conducted a survey on sunscreen usage. The results were alarming, especially for someone who has battled melanoma and would hate to see anyone else have to go through the process. Only 14.3% of men and 29.9% of women reported regularly using… Read more »
I was clicking around on the internet and was on a story that talked about how cheap drugstore brands are more effective at helping aging skin look younger than the expensive skin care lotions (don’t judge, you know you want to read that article too), when I saw a sidebar with the story headline “Surprising Causes of Skin Cancer“. Of course,… Read more »
I’ve posted a few times regarding immunotherapy (both its historical context as well as newer attempts using microneedles). I just came across another article that shows promise in treating melanoma with targeted and personalized melanoma cancer vaccines, using the patients’ own immune system to help combat the disease. In the article, two melanoma patients whose cancer had metastasized to the… Read more »
My blog received a follow from a fellow blogger, Mississippi Meow who writes the Chronicles of Nowhereland. Of course, I check out everyone else’s blogs because – let’s face it, I’m curious about other people, and particularly those who find their way to my little spot in the interwebs. What motivates them to learn more about pink melanoma? Like I… Read more »