Adapting to Lifestyle Changes

Getting diagnosed with cancer is the hardest thing anyone would ever have to go through. You're forced to make life changes that you may have never expected. Adapting to your new lifestyle may be difficult and scary but, in the end, it’s what’s best for you body and mind.

Cancer.org has provided some helpful advice when it comes to adapting to new lifestyle changes:

Making healthier choices

For many people, a diagnosis of cancer helps them focus on their health in ways they may not have thought much about in the past. Are there things you could do that might make you healthier? Maybe you could try to eat better or get more exercise. Maybe you could cut down on the alcohol, or give up tobacco. Even things like keeping your stress level under control may help. Now is a good time to think about making changes that can have positive effects for the rest of your life. You will feel better and you will also be healthier.

You can start by working on those things that worry you most. Get help with those that are harder for you. For instance, if you are thinking about quitting smoking and need help, call the American Cancer Society at 1-800-227-2345. The tobacco cessation and coaching service can help increase your chances of quitting for good.

Eating better

Eating right can be hard for anyone, but it can get even tougher during and after cancer treatment. Treatment may change your sense of taste. Nausea can be a problem. You may not feel like eating and lose weight when you don't want to. Or you may have gained weight that you can't seem to lose. All of these things can be very frustrating.

If treatment caused weight changes or eating or taste problems, do the best you can and keep in mind that these problems usually get better over time. You may find it helps to eat small portions every 2 to 3 hours until you feel better. You might also want to ask your cancer team about seeing a dietitian, an expert in nutrition who can give you ideas on how to deal with these treatment side effects.

One of the best things you can do after cancer treatment is to start healthy eating habits. You may be surprised at the long-term benefits of some simple changes, like increasing the variety of healthy foods you eat. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, and limiting your alcohol intake may lower your risk for a number of types of cancer, as well as having many other health benefits.

See the section called “Additional resources for ovarian cancer” to get more of our nutrition information.

Rest, fatigue, and exercise

Extreme tiredness, called fatigue, is very common in people treated for cancer. This is not a normal tiredness, but a "bone-weary" exhaustion that doesn't get better with rest. For some people, fatigue lasts a long time after treatment, and can make it hard for them to exercise and do other things they want to do. But exercise can help reduce fatigue. Studies have shown that patients who follow an exercise program tailored to their personal needs feel better physically and emotionally and can cope better, too.

If you were sick and not very active during treatment, it is normal for your fitness, endurance, and muscle strength to decline. Any plan for physical activity should fit your own situation. A person who has not been physically active will not be able to take on the same amount of exercise as someone who plays tennis twice a week. If you haven't exercised in a few years, you will have to start slowly – maybe just by taking short walks.

Talk with your health care team before starting anything. Get their opinion about your activity plans. Then, try to find a buddy so you're not doing it alone. Having family or friends involved when starting a new activity program can give you that extra boost of support to keep you going when the push just isn't there.

For the full article from cancer.org please follow the link: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/ovariancancer/detailedguide/ovarian-cancer-after-lifestyle-changes

Rearming Immune Cells Proves Successful in Treating Ovarian Cancer in Mice Trials

Ovarian cancer is such a deadly disease because it turns off the immune cells that try to fight it. Researchers and medical teams have been working tirelessly to find ways to reactivate immune cells after they’ve but shut down by ovarian cancer.

A Weill Cornell Medical College team recently discovered that disarming the gene XBP1 awakens and rearms the immune cells that successfully combat ovarian cancer. Here’s what else they had to say:

In Cell, the team reported that ovarian cancer, in later, liquified stages, oozes about inside the body, creating a toxic tumor microenvironment rife with damaging, reactive oxygen molecules. These molecules prompt the endoplasmic reticulum stress response pathway to turn on the XBP1 gene in dendritic cells (DCs). This prompts lipids to build up inside DCs and render them unable to do their job, which is to engulf cancer bits (antigen) and show them to T cells for attack.

The team is creating drugs to block XBP1 in both cancer and dendritic cells. For the paper, they injected nanoparticles, carrying a genetic molecule (siRNA) that blocks XBP1, into an ovarian cancer mouse model. DCs, seeing the nanoparticles as foreigners, ingested them. Once inside the DCs, like soldiers in a Trojan Horse, the nanoparticles swarmed out, and turned XBP1 off. This freed the dendritic cells to get to work warning T cells about the cancer.

“Probably the most important and clinically relevant finding in the paper is a demonstrated opportunity to therapeutically silence XBP1 in DCs to improve the development of antitumor immune responses,” Michael Shurin, M.D., Ph.D. (ABMLI) told Bioscience Technology. Shurin, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Clinical Immunopathology associate director, was uninvolved in the work.

“Using nanodelivery of specific siRNA to silence the XBP1 gene of DCs in vivo, the authors demonstrated a significant reduction of tumor burden and tumor progression in mice, mediated by increased activity of tumor-specific cytotoxic T cells. These data provide a new target in key antigen-presenting cells in the tumor milieu to develop a therapeutic approach to ovarian cancer,” Shurin said.

Noted Louisiana State University tumor immunologist Paulo Rodriguez, Ph.D., to BioscienceTechnology: “Interestingly, deletion of XBP1 resulted in significant anti-tumor effects, and a dramatic transformation of tumor-associated DCs, from cells that promoted tumor growth, into populations that induced anti-tumor responses through activation of T cells.” Rodriguez was also uninvolved in the study. “These results emphasize the relevance of tumor-induced stress signaling on suppression of protective immune responses in cancer, a field that has generated significant attention over the last years.”

For the full article from Bioscience Technology, click here: http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/articles/2015/07/rearming-immune-cells-blasts-ovarian-cancer-mice

This Drug Combined with Chemo Improves Survival in Ovarian Cancer with Poor Prognosis

According to a new study, chemotherapy paired with bevacizumab will help increase the survival benefit of patients with poor prognosis of ovarian cancer. The Cancer Theapy Advisor reports,

An international, phase 3, two-arm, open-label study included 1,528 women with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer, high-risk early-stage disease or more advanced disease, and an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status of 0 to 2. The patients were randomly assigned to arm A with standard chemotherapy (carboplatin and paclitaxel) and arm B with standard chemotherapy plus bevacizumab.

The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoint was restricted mean survival time (RMST).

After a median follow-up of 48.9 months, there was no difference in PFS between the treatment arms. Moreover, RMST was no different in the overall study population with 44.6 months (95% CI: 43.2, 45.9) in arm A and 45.5 months (95% CI: 44.2, 46.7) in arm B (P=0.85). The patients in non-high-risk group had a similar outcome with no difference in RMST with 49.7 months (95% CI: 48.3, 51.1) in arm A and 48.4 months (95% CI: 47.0, 49.9) in arm B (P=0.20).

However, in patients with poor prognosis disease, a significant difference in RMST was found where arm A had 34.5 months (95% CI: 32.0, 37.0) and arm B had 39.9 months (95% CI: 37.0, 41.7) (P=0.03).

The findings suggest that standard chemotherapy with bevacizumab shows benefit in patients with poor prognosis disease although no improvement in the overall study population.

Bevacizumab is a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody that blocks angiogenesis by inhibiting vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/gynecologic-cancer/ovarian-cancer-poor-prognosis-bevacizumab-chemotherapy-survival/article/423165/

In England, Postal Code Determines Ovarian Cancer Survival Rates

When it comes to ovarian cancer, there’s a strange predictor of whether or not a woman will survive ovarian cancer: Her postal code. A new study found correlations between where a woman lives and whether or not she’ll survive for five years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. According to the Daily Mail,

“A postcode lottery in ovarian cancer care means women in some parts of the country have vastly better survival rates than others.

Analysis of NHS data reveals a 40 per cent gulf in five-year survival rates between different areas of England.

In Birmingham and South East London – the best performing parts of the country – up to 49 in every 100 women will survive for more than five years after diagnosis.

In Kent and Sussex, however, as few as 35 women will survive for the same period – a 40 per cent difference.

The Target Ovarian Cancer charity blamed the variation on a lack of awareness of early symptoms among patients and their GPs, and poor access to cutting-edge treatments.

They warned that patients’ chances of getting on a medical trial – the way to get the most modern medicines – varied from 65 per cent in some parts of Britain to just 3 per cent in others.

But the charity also warned that some GPs cannot spot the early signs of ovarian cancer, which markedly reduces a woman’s chance of survival, and not all have access to the best blood tests.

A spokesman for the charity said: ‘We know we have a huge problem with late diagnosis – more than 1,000 women die each year within two months of their diagnosis.

‘In addition, almost a third of women are diagnosed in A&E and three-quarters of women are diagnosed once the cancer has already spread, making it much harder to treat.”

Read the entire article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3135750/Why-woman-s-postcode-determine-chance-beating-ovarian-cancer-Birmingham-London-40-likely-survive-Kent-Sussex.html

Discovering Which Ovarian Cancer Treatments Don’t Work

70% of women who develop ovarian cancer have what’s called high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, or HSC - the ovarian cancer that’s the most malignant. 80,000 women around the world die from HSC each year. That number hasn’t moved in decades despite other advances in cancer treatments. In many cases, this is because women with HSC don’t respond to chemotherapy. After treatment is done, the tumors may come back within a matter of weeks or months. According to Medical News Today,

“Co-senior author and professor David Bowtell, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, says our current knowledge is not good enough to make effective clinical decisions about how to deal with ovarian cancer that returns after treatment:

"For decades clinicians around the world have watched HSCs shrink under attack from chemotherapy, before returning aggressively months or years later."

In their paper, he and his colleagues describe how they completely sequenced the genomes of 114 HSC samples from 92 patients and found several clues about how the aggressive cancer changes from initially being vulnerable, to eventually becoming highly resistant to chemotherapy.

The samples were collected from the patients at various stages in disease progression - some at diagnosis, some following successful and unsuccessful treatment, and others immediately after death.

First genetic map of how HSC ovarian cancer evolves in response to chemotherapy

Prof. Bowtell explains that by completely sequencing the genomes from samples taken at different stages of the disease, for the first time we have a map of how HSC evolves under the selective pressure of the chemotherapy.

The results reveal at least four genetic changes that the cancer undergoes to evade initially effective chemotherapy. Prof. Bowtell describes them:

"In two of the mechanisms, cancer cells find a way of restoring their ability to repair damaged DNA and thereby resist the effects of chemotherapy; in another, cancer cells 'hijack' a genetic switch that enables them to pump chemotherapy drugs out of harm's way.

A further mechanism sees the molecular structure of the cancer tissue shift and reshape, such that sheets of 'scar tissue' appear to block chemotherapy from reaching its target."

The researchers say this is the first time that the complex disease has been mapped at this level of detail, and believe their findings point to a range of new strategies that could be used to improve prospects for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer.”

Read the entire article here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/294575.php

3 Statistics Every Person Should Know About Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer may not be the most prevalent cancer in women, but it’s still important that all people, men and women alike, understand the impact of the disease. That’s why we want to take the time to spotlight important statistics about ovarian cancer from OvarianCancer.org:

“Ovarian cancer accounts for approximately three percent of cancers in women.

While the 11th most common cancer among women, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death among women, and is the deadliest of gynecologic cancers. Mortality rates are slightly higher for Caucasian women than for African-American women.

A Woman’s Lifetime Risk:

A woman’s lifetime risk of developing invasive ovarian cancer is 1 in 75. A woman’s lifetime risk of dying from invasive ovarian cancer is 1 in 102.

Age:

Ovarian cancer rates are highest in women aged 55-64 years. The median age at which women are diagnosed is 63, meaning that half of women are younger than 63 when diagnosed with ovarian cancer and half are older.

The median age of death from ovarian cancer is 71. Ovarian cancer survival rates are much lower than other cancers that affect women. Five-year survival rates are commonly used to compare different cancers. The relative five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is 44.2 percent. Survival rates vary greatly depending on the stage of diagnosis.  Women diagnosed at an early stage—before the cancer has spread—have a much higher five-year survival rate than those diagnosed at a later stage. Approximately 15 percent of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed early with early stage disease.”

Ovarian cancer is so devastating because it often masquerades as other illnesses or diseases until it may be too late. That’s why it’s so important to dedicate time, energy, and money to fighting ovarian cancer.

Learn more facts about ovarian cancer at OvarianCancer.org: http://www.ovariancancer.org/about/statistics/

Infertility and Ovarian Cancer

As part of treating ovarian cancer, many women lose one or both ovaries. In either case, women who’ve been treated for ovarian cancer may be infertile. While many women who develop ovarian cancer are past the age when they can have children, not everyone is. Cobie Smulders is a celebrity example of a person who had ovarian cancer, but went on to have children.

Because every case is different, women with ovarian cancer may want to know their options. Fortunately, there could be many different venues for women with ovarian cancer to maintain fertility. Here is some information on how ovarian cancer can affect fertility in women from the University of Rochester Medical Center:

“Fertility refers to your ability to produce children. Some women who are treated for ovarian cancer still maintain their fertility, while others don’t.

You may still be able to become pregnant if you have only one ovary removed to treat the cancer. Keeping your fertility options while maintaining the healing potential of the treatment required for ovarian cancer can often be a complicated management decision. It is very important that your particular findings be put into context by an expert. Gynecologic oncologists are subspecialists with advanced training in the diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance of female cancers including ovarian cancer.

You may be infertile, meaning you cannot become pregnant without medical intervention, if you had any of these treatments for ovarian cancer:

Surgery to remove both of your ovaries.

Chemotherapy. Many chemotherapy drugs can cause the menstrual cycle to stop and disrupt the function of your ovaries.

Radiation directed at your pelvic area. Radiation can affect your ovaries’ ability to produce a mature egg.

If you had any of these treatments and you want to have children, see a reproductive endocrinologist. This is a doctor who specializes in infertility treatment. A multidisciplinary team approach, which includes a gynecologic oncologist and a reproductive endocrinologist, may be required.”

Learn more about treatment options by reading the entire article here: http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=34&ContentID=19758-1