Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Lung Cancer Survival Disparities In Nevada, Chima Osuoha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women in the United States. Nevada shows moderate incidence rates of lung cancer for men but high rates for women. Little is known about the lung cancer experience and survival characteristics of the nearly 2000 new cases occurring every year in the State. The purpose of this study was to measure the extent to which geographic area of residency, gender, race, health insurance, social economic status (SES) and stage at diagnosis were associated with survival in patients diagnosed with lung cancer in Nevada. This was a retrospective …

Effect Of Chemotherapeutic Treatment Schedule On A Tissue Transport Model, Dan E. Ganz

Masters Theses

Current chemotherapeutic treatment schedule prediction methods rely heavily on PK/PD-based models and overlook the important contribution of tissue-level transport and binding. Tissue-level transport and binding phenomena are essential to understanding drug delivery and efficacy in tumors. Drugs with desirable PK/PD properties often fail in vivo due to poor tissue-level transport. We developed an in silico method to predict the effect of treatment schedule on efficacy that couples PK/PD with tissue-level transport. Treatment schedules were implemented on theoretical drugs with different PK/PD and transport properties. For each drug with a given clearance rate, diffusivity, and binding, treatment schedules consisting of one …

Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Confers Resistance To Chemotherapy And Γ Radiation To Cancer Cells, Independent Of Direct Immune Involvement, Saman Maleki Vareki

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 (IDO) is an immunosuppressive molecule expressed by most human tumours. IDO levels correlate with poor prognosis in cancer patients and IDO inhibitors are under investigation to enhance endogenous anticancer immunosurveillance. Little is known regarding the immune-independent functions of IDO relevant to cancer therapy. In this thesis I show, for the first time, that IDO mediates human tumour cell resistance, in a cell-autonomous fashion, to single and combination treatment with a diverse group of chemotherapy drugs and g radiation. These drugs include a PARP inhibitor (olaparib), a DNA cross-linking agent (cisplatin), a folate antimetabolite (pemetrexed), a nucleoside analogue (gemcitabine), …

Is Massage Therapy An Effective Treatment For Improving Sleep Quality In Women Age 50-80 Diagnosed With Cancer?, Alexander M. Chase

PCOM Physician Assistant Studies Student Scholarship

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not massage therapy is an effective treatment in improving sleep quality among women age 50-80 diagnosed with cancer.

STUDY DESIGN: Review of two English language randomized control trials published in 2004 and 2011 and one English language quasiexperimental pretest-posttest comparison study publishEd in 2002.

DATA SOURCES: Data sources were articles published in peer reviewed journals found using PubMed and EBSCOhost.

OUTCOMES MEASURED: Sleep quality was measured using the Verran and Snyder-Halpem Sleep Scale and the Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire.

RESULTS: Soden et al …