Anticancer research
-
Anticancer research · Mar 2005
Search for meaningful support and the meaning of illness in German cancer patients.
Spiritual needs are an essential component of holistic health care. Several studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcome, coping skills and health-related quality of life. ⋯ Knowledge of a patient's spirituality can help service providers predict aspects of psychosocial needs and to respond sensitively and appropriately. The SpREUK questionnaire is a useful tool to define patients who are more in need of spiritual support than others.
-
Anticancer research · Mar 2005
Thymidylate synthase and dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase in non-small cell lung cancer: relationship between mRNA expression and activity.
UFT (Tegafur + Uracil) has been reported to be effective for postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in a randomized prospective study. Recently, many clinical studies have demonstrated that UFT is effective for cancer with a low activity of thymidylate synthase (TS) and dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD). In the present study, we investigated TS and DPD activity in resected tumors and corresponding normal lungs and the relationship between the activity and the mRNA expression of TS and DPD in NSCLC. ⋯ TS and DPD activities in NSCLC were higher than those in normal lungs. Assay of DPD mRNA and TS mRNA by real-time RT-PCR can be used as an indicator for the use of UFT.