#Sacks4Science
Clearly #Sacks4Science needs to be a thing to support testicular cancer research and fight sexism in science. Since I don’t have a post about testicular cancer, I’m re-sharing this post about prostate cancer. Let me explain where the #Sacks4Science hashtag is coming from.
There’s a post about a group in Italy that want to promote science by showing pictures of breasts with a sign about science.
Tette per la Scienza, “Boobs for Science”
In that post Buddhini Samarasinghe reminded people about the coconut bra stunt by Pier Giorgio Righetti.
http://www.stemwomen.net/recognising-sexism/
That is almost as bad as the #HUGS4JUGS “campaign”. The only time that breasts should be mentioned in a conversation about science, is if the science is about breasts.
Bilateral prophylactic mastectomy
https://plus.google.com/+ChadHaney/posts/cJMpG7961G9
https://plus.google.com/+ChadHaney/posts/YDFjxkvC5vc
Some pedantic arguing ensued on that thread, so I turned my attention back to science. I’m working on data to see if a new imaging agent can detect if a tissue is positive for the progesterone receptor, which would guide therapy choices without invasive biopsies.
In a conversation about the boobs for science post, Rachel Blum said
Clearly: ask for guys to do a shot of their penis untying at an important section in a scientific paper. Share a few shopped ones with the MOAR BOOBS crowd.
“Oh, that makes you uncomfortable? But it’s FOR SCIENCE”.
I mention it should be for prostate cancer awareness or show your balls for testicular cancer awareness. I bet a lot of bros will jump on that bandwagon.
Then Buddhini Samarasinghe said, we should call the campaign “Sacks for Science”. We all agreed that #Sacks4Science needs to be a thing. So support #Movember and prostate cancer awareness. Support science, without sensationalizing it. And if you’re ready to jump on the bandwagon, help us support #Sacks4Science to support testicular cancer research and fight sexism in STEM.
#ScienceEveryday
Originally shared by Chad Haney
The real #Movember for #ScienceSunday .
Most of you probably know that the pink ribbon in October means, breast cancer awareness month. I disagree with the commercialization of the pink ribbon and attempts to trademark it, but that’s another story. I want to talk about Movember. You’ve seen the mustaches and the hashtag. How many of you know it is for men’s health awareness? Specifically prostate and testicular cancer. I’m going to focus on prostate cancer.
PSA about PSA
Public service announcement about prostate-specific antigen screening: For many years, PSA testing was suggested to start at age 40. The current recommendation:
The American Cancer Society recommends that men discuss the possible risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening with their doctor before deciding whether to be screened. The discussion about screening should take place starting at age 50 for men who are at average risk of prostate cancer and expect to live at least 10 more years. It should take place at age 45 for men who are at higher risk, including African-American men and men who have a father or brother diagnosed with prostate cancer, and at age 40 for men at even higher risk.
For many years researchers in the trenches were finding that PSA screening often led to false positives. There’s too much variability in the PSA screening method.
Ex vivo MRI
The purpose of the study that I’m presenting was to take advantage of higher resolution MRI, using ex vivo samples in a pre-clinical high field MRI scanner (9.4T vs. 1.5T clinical MRI). Histology is orders of magnitude higher resolution even compared to the pre-clinical scanner. The idea was that better MRI images could be correlated with histology. Ultimately decisions are made based on histology, typically via biopsy. Identifying which features in MRI correlate with histology could set up a feed back loop to improve the in vivo MRI images. What’s shown below is an early proof of concept study.
I don’t know the PSA scores for the patients in the study below, but I’m sure they were high enough to justify biopsies. We were blinded to patient names and a lot of their health records for both privacy reasons and to remove bias. There are risks and side effects associated with getting a prostate biopsy. That’s part of the reason for changing the PSA screening recommendations. If you are curious what a human prostate looks like, there’s one pictured below. It’s about the size of the palm of your hand (at least my hand).
The other two figures show what the prostate looks like using MRI (panel A, C, and D) and histology (panel B). Panel A is a T2-weighted spin echo image. Panel C is a T2 map, i.e. a display of the actual T2 values. Panel D is an apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) map. You can review the MRI terminology in the link below.
The first figure, which outlines the cancer with a dotted line in the histology image is from a 71-year-old patient. The second is from a 63-year-old patient without malignant cancer. In the examples below it isn’t obvious which MRI parameter best correlates with cancer. In the 71-year-old patient, the low T2 values along with low ADC values appears to correlate well with the tumor outlined in the histology slide. However, the 63-year-old patient also displays low ADC values, whereas the T2 values are higher. Overall, with 9 patients, the T2 values were about 10 msec longer (P < 0.03) and the average ADC values were about 1.4 times larger (P < 0.002) when comparing normal peripheral zones vs. cancerous peripheral zones. With a larger sample size we hope to improve the correlation between both the in vivo and ex vivo MRI with histology.
References:
Medical Imaging 101 pt 3: MRI from my #CHMedicalImagingSeries
High-resolution MRI of excised human prostate specimens acquired with 9.4T in detection and identification of cancers: validation of a technique.
J Magn Reson Imaging. 2011 Oct;34(4):956-61. doi: 10.1002/jmri.22745.
Fan X, Haney CR, Agrawal G, Pelizzari CA, Antic T, Eggener SE, Sethi I, River JN, Zamora M, Karczmar GS, Oto A.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21928309
Doctors’ Associations Release New Recommendations for Prostate Cancer Screening
November 8, 2014
Testicular cancer is nothing to joke about. So I’ll joke instead about how I find the word “vesicle” to be a funny sounding word. It sounds like it should be obscene, but it’s not.
November 8, 2014
BTW, if one has testicles, one should get checked…
November 8, 2014
Kathryn Huxtable, any type of cancer is not to be joked about. I hope you didn’t get the impression I was joking about cancer.
November 8, 2014
Of course not. I hope likewise. (Though I understand that prostate and thyroid cancers frequently don’t need treatment so much as monitoring.)
November 8, 2014
My father died of prostate cancer. Raising awareness , for me, is a wonderful idea, one I whole heartedly support.
November 8, 2014
I’m sorry to hear that Terry McNeil. My work is rewarding when I know it might help someone.
November 8, 2014
Chad Haney I have no doubt that you will help many. 🙂
November 8, 2014
That very kind and generous (and dare I say, very Canadian) Terry McNeil
November 8, 2014
You made a good choice to go back to science. I was close to jumping in to the discussion but…yeah. New challenge is how to help make #Sacks4Science a thing 😉
November 8, 2014
Carissa Braun I’m surely not going to post any pictures of my body parts to sensationalize #Sacks4Science but we should think of how to make it a thing. I understand you not wanting to wade into that cesspool. Buddhini Samarasinghe and I bailed out. I may go back later but yeah, ugh.
November 8, 2014
My mother beat breast cancer last year. She and I agree that no one form of cancer should be in the limelight so to speak, than any other. Everyone should be checked for cancer, any type that your body can grow. Why is pink for brrast cancer? Pink is traditionally used as a mark for women but men can develop breast cancer as well. I have multiple forms of cancer on both sides of my family. It’s a bit terrifying to think about. Chad Haney are you allowed to discuss where your work’s funding comes from? I’ve heard some nasty rumors about Susan G. Komen so I’ve no clue where would be appropriate to donate, but cancer research is my #1 priority when I’m able to donate.
November 8, 2014
All we need is a good play on a pun. A sack of “x” which is actually related to testicular cancer because of “y”. I haven’t thoughts for x and y, but it’s a beginning thought. (Anyone have a sack full of Lance Armstrong figurines?)
November 8, 2014
Carissa Braun we can expect a sack of puns from Rajini Rao
November 8, 2014
emmy e I can safely say that I have never been funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Is it because our proposals suck or because there is something else going on? I don’t know. Most of my funding has been from the NIH. A good way to support cancer research funding is to tell your local representative or senator to increase funding for the NIH and NSF. You can give a donation to the American Cancer Society if you feel like you need to donate somewhere.
November 8, 2014
emmy e I’m glad your mother is cancer free.
November 8, 2014
Chad Haney I considered getting into that discussion but I was so busy actually doing science, which strangely enough, was more challenging than simply taking off my blouse 😉 I guess some people have not figured out that a woman’s brains are between her ears and not hanging off her bosom.
November 8, 2014
I’d have to be nuts to start a punderstorm on this topic 🙂
November 8, 2014
I don’t feel that I need to, I simply want to. Cancer affects all walks of life. Rather than humans fighting over religion and politics, we should be fighting together, against a real problem, like cancer.
My family donates gently worn clothing to the American Cancer Society. Next time I’ll include a check as well.
Thanks! 🙂
November 8, 2014
Rajini Rao, I bailed out of that discussion to work on an animal protocol for a study on vascular aging. Also strangely enough, I’m working on some data so that a young scientist, who happens to be female, can graduate. I figure that’s a better way to support women in STEM (don’t be the person holding up their PhD thesis).
November 8, 2014
I agree, Chad!
Our paper on glioblastoma is back with the reviewers who are probably enjoying our 15-page response 😀 Which reminds me to get started on that grant…all better ways to “support science” than revealing my bra, which supports other things.
November 8, 2014
Rajini Rao, I’m sure you’ll go balls-to-the-wall on that grant proposal.
Too bad Gnotic Pasta is camping. There’s a sack of material worthy of weeding here.
November 9, 2014
I really have to ‘nad up to package all these dangling ideas….
November 9, 2014
Gretchen S. ‘s comment was a wiener of the lot!
November 9, 2014
It was a pretty ballsy comment.
November 9, 2014
I bilaterally agree with all above.