Wind up a mechanical mouse, set it down, and watch it go. New research by Dana-Farber scientists shows that boosting a single protein in the liver can have the same animating effect in real mice. The protein, called MIC19, produces changes deep inside liver cells that help the body burn nutrients, protecting against obesity and … Read more
Hispanic Americans are substantially more likely to develop liver cancer than non-Hispanic whites are. The disparities are more pronounced among women than men: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hispanic women had more than twice the rate of liver cancer incidence than white women between 2011 and 2015, the most recent … Read more
Liver cancer that develops in people with obesity and Type 2 diabetes is dependent on elevated amounts of a protein that might be targeted for treatment by two existing drugs, say Dana-Farber scientists. The research reported in Cancer Research by Pere Puigserver, PhD, and colleagues pertains specifically to liver cancer in individuals who are obese … Read more
Tumor markers are substances in the human body that are produced by tumors and secreted into the blood, urine, or other bodily fluids. Certain benign conditions can also raise these markers, but significant elevations or a progressive rise can indicate a malignant process. An AFP, or alpha-fetoprotein, tumor marker test—one of many different types of … Read more
In 1947, when Dana-Farber Cancer Institute founder Sidney Farber, MD, set out to find a drug treatment for childhood leukemia, cancer treatment took two forms – surgery to cut out cancerous masses, and radiation therapy to burn them out. Cancers that couldn’t be removed or irradiated – either because of their position in the body, because … Read more
Primary liver cancer is cancer that forms in the tissues of the liver. Secondary liver cancer is cancer that spreads to the liver from another part of the body. Most liver cancer is secondary or metastatic. Primary liver cancer, which starts in the liver, accounts for about 2 percent of cancers in the U.S., but … Read more
Worldwide, more than 700,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer – a leading cause of cancer death – each year. Does drinking alcohol cause liver cancer? Although alcohol is a risk factor for liver cancer, it’s not the most common one. Chronic infection with the hepatitis B or C virus is the leading risk factor … Read more
There was mostly good news in the most recent annual government report on cancer trends in the United States: Overall death rates, which have been dropping since the early 1990s, continued to decline between 2003 and 2012. But the report focused on a disturbing exception: The death rate for liver cancer during that same period … Read more