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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

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Trump imposes 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum; 80% of Montanans oppose reduced workers' rights; Lawmaker says dismantling Education Dept. would harm Oregon schools; Harm reduction efforts fall short for Black men in Indiana.

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President Donald Trump approves 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Democrats who oppose dismantling the agency have been denied access to the Department of Education. And some places buck policy trends on sex education and immigration.

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Medical debt, which tops $90 billion has an outsized impact on rural communities, a new photography book shares the story of 5,000 schools built for Black students between 1912 and 1937, and anti-hunger advocates champion SNAP.

Purdue researchers see possible link with dog, human cancer treatments

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Wednesday, March 6, 2024   

In the first experiment of its kind, Purdue University researchers treated canines diagnosed with cancer using chemotherapy to see if their response could lead to future treatment for human cancer patients.

Chemoresistance, a patient's adverse reaction to chemotherapy, can lessen remission and survival time.

Michael Childress, professor of comparative oncology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University, said the dogs were chosen because they had diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The condition mimics the cancer phenotypes or traits that would be needed when treating human cancer patients.

"Every dog's cancer is a little bit different from every other," Childress explained. "That's what makes dogs an especially valuable research model when you're trying to develop a technology that predicts which individual's cancers are going to respond to chemotherapy and which are not."

Armed with more information on a patient's reaction to certain medications, researchers can better customize a patient's wellness plan. The Indiana Cancer Consortium reported many cancers can be prevented through lifestyle changes such as diet, eliminating tobacco use, regular physical activity and avoiding excessive sun.

Another method of cancer treatment used to measure chemoresistance is Doppler ultrasound, or biodynamic imaging.

David Nolte, professor of physics and astronomy at Purdue, said light is scattered through pieces of biopsied tissue, to match with the light image's reflection pattern to see how patients respond to chemotherapy. He hopes other oncologists see Purdue's findings as useful.

"We work with doctors, but the doctors are not making any decisions based on our technique yet," Nolte noted. "We have a collaborator down at IU School of Medicine, looking at esophageal cancer in human patients. But we are not currently influencing how the doctors make their decisions."

Nolte pointed out a clinical trial is also needed. Then, the Purdue team would start to inform doctors of the trial's results. The cancer consortium reports surgery, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy and radiation are the top methods used for cancer treatments.

Disclosure: Purdue University contributes to our fund for reporting on the Environment, Environmental Justice, Health Issues, and Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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