Medical Bulletin 8/August/2023

Here are the top medical news of the day:

Depression and anxiety do not increase cancer risk, contrary to former belief

In an analysis of multiple studies from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Canada, investigators found that depression and anxiety are not linked to higher risks for most types of cancer among this population. Some research has supported an association between depression, anxiety, and cancer incidence, while other investigations have found no or negligible associations.

To provide additional insights, Lonneke A. van Tuijl of the University Medical Center Groningen, and her colleagues examined data from the international Psychosocial Factors and Cancer Incidence consortium, which includes information from 18 prospective study groups with more than 300,000 adults from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Canada.

Reference: “Depression, anxiety, and the risk of cancer: An individual participant data meta-analysis.” Lonneke A. van Tuijl et al, CANCER; Published Online: August 7, 2023 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.34853).

Marching towards engineered blood vessels

University of Melbourne researchers have developed a fast, inexpensive and scalable method for engineering blood vessels from natural tissue. By combining multiple materials and fabrication technologies, the researchers developed a method to create blood vessels with complex geometries like native blood vessels.

Illness and dysfunction in blood vessels can result in life-threatening disorders such as heart attacks, strokes and aneurysms, making cardiovascular disease the number one killer globally.

Reference: Spontaneous Orthogonal Alignment of Smooth Muscle Cells and Endothelial Cells Captures Native Blood Vessel Morphology in Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, DOI 10.1021/acsami.3c08511 

Novel method that identifies mutations in childhood brain tumors

Researchers at Uppsala university have developed a new method to find mutations in brain tumors in children. They could also show that the mutations identified by them changes how cancer cells respond to a cancer drug. These findings could lead to better diagnostics and more individualized treatment of children with brain tumors. The study is published in the journal PNAS.

To gain a comprehensive view of what mutations are important in medulloblastoma, the researchers used a method that they recently developed as part of an international consortium. The method specifically looks at conserved positions in the genome, and builds on the assumption that DNA-sequences that has remained the same over millions of years of evolution are likely to have important functions.

Reference: Using evolutionary constraint to define novel candidate driver genes in medulloblastoma, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI 10.1073/pnas.2300984120