Antibody in Women's Blood May Indicate Ovarian Cancer

A recent study has found a possible way to identify women who are at higher risk of ovarian cancer, and actually diagnose early onset of the disease. They found mesothelin, a protein present in normal tissue that can develop as an immune system response, in abundant quantity in ovarian cancer cells. Read published study.

When researchers looked into the blood of infertile women, an ovarian cancer high risk group, mesothelin antibody was more likely to be found. And it proved to be the same as with women with cancer of the ovary. On the other hand, healthy women and those with benign ovarian cysts or tumors didn’t have significant levels of the antibody.

The significance of mesothelin antibody in detecting ovarian cancer is just on the first step of the whole long process. More studies will have to be done to identify the correlation of this antibody to infertility, or whether women found to have high mesothelin count in the blood would likely develop ovarian cancer.

Being able to fully maximize the use of mesothelin in detecting early-stage ovarian cancer would be a breakthrough. The presence of autoantibodies could be a significant biomarker, allowing doctors in uniforms scrubs to help patients improve their odds and increase survival rate. Meanwhile, early detection of ovarian cancer remains stark.

Doctors, Community Hospitals Failed to Provide Proper Bladder Cancer Treatment

Community hospitals, along with the men and women in uniforms scrubs got failing grades as a recent study found that only 1 in 4,545 high-grade bladder cancer patients receive recommended treatment. Consequently, patients not receiving are 50% more at risk of spread and 70% increased risk of the cancer to return.

Could it be that the researchers of Chamie of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center set the standard bar too high as suggested by Dr. H. Barton Grossman, professor and deputy chairman of the urology department at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston? That’s unlikely the case, since only 37% of patients with high-grade bladder cancer received the treatment.

High-grade bladder cancer treatment guidelines as set by the American Urological Association and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network:

• Inject chemotherapy drugs into the bladder
• Chemotherapy drugs injection must be followed with bladder assessment and urine testing every three months
• Chemotherapy shot with a six-week course of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) treatment follow ups
• Upper urinary tract MRI or CT scans every two years

Saving Women and Newborns Means More Midwives

Midwife shortage gets in the way of reducing mortality rate among newly born babies and women during pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal period as shown in the first State of the World’s Midwifery report. The effect of such shortage is most notable in low-income countries, wherein poor marginalized women have no access to functioning healthcare facilities, qualified health professionals, midwives, and even those trained with midwifery skills.

The world is losing 358,000 women and 3.6 million newborns every year due to largely preventable complications. The mortality swells with the 2.6 million stillbirths caused by insufficient healthcare. The numbers boldly suggest immediate deployment of more skilled midwives to remote areas is very much necessary. Even in rural areas, wherein those in uniforms scrubs are outnumbered at an overwhelming rate, more midwives should be sent to give doctors and nurses a hand.

The probability of death or survival of women and newborns largely depend on how many are the skilled people that are going to provide health care. WHO and its partners are working closely to strengthen midwifery education around the globe, to increase women’s access to healthcare, especially in the more impoverished countries such as Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Sudan. This is also deemed to answer improved services on primary health care as well as link women up with obstetric care if necessary.

I don’t know how these organizations are working on midwifery education, but I do hope they are imparting midwifery training to those people who are likely to devote their skills to these people. Who else but those coming right from the heart of the communities? These people need to be educated by the importance of healthcare from traditional doctors, and given the basic survival training. As for more thorough midwifery training, they have to be training until they become experts of the craft.