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Objective: Women aged 45 or younger with breast cancer, or those who are at high risk of breast cancer due to a family history of the disease or genetic test results indicating risk, have distinct health risks and needs. Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE), a non-profit advocacy organisation, developed an online resource designed to address these needs. Design: In-person surveys were administered to compare baseline and post-test knowledge of two cohorts of 55 volunteer participants. Both groups read a printed media news article related to breast cancer research. The intervention group also read a printed brief review that provided a summary of research findings, and discussion and ratings of research evidence and reporting quality. Setting: Participants were recruited at two FORCE conferences. Data were collected at the conference sites. Method: Pilot and follow-up sample results were pooled and analysed using "t"-test comparisons. Results: The intervention resource use was associated with a significantly greater increase in knowledge than only reading the media news article. Conclusion: An online tool developed to respond to audience needs, offering ratings of evidence quality and relevance, can help readers to better understand research reporting.

The article discusses primary dermal melanoma (PDM), a rare subtype of melanoma, focusing on a case series of nine patients diagnosed with clinical primary dermal melanoma (cPDM). The study highlights the challenges in diagnosing and distinguishing PDM from other skin conditions, emphasizing the importance of early recognition and intervention to prevent disease progression and metastasis. The research underscores the need for further studies to establish diagnostic criteria, staining techniques, and histopathological markers for PDM to aid in prompt identification and treatment planning. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Oncology nurse navigators (ONNs) facilitate breast cancer patients' care via information, resources, and referral services. Objective: To determine the needs and barriers of ONNs serving young breast cancer (yBC) patients and metastatic breast cancer (mBC) patients. Methods: Fifty-two active ONNs completed an online needs assessment survey created and reviewed by a multi stakeholder working group under the CDC-funded Project EXTRA program. Results: Familiarity of ONNs with topics relevant for breast cancer patients, referral patterns, and perception of educational needs varied by career stage. Earlier-career ONNs (≤5 years of work experience) were less familiar with clinical trial participation (45% vs 79%; P=.0315) and genetic counseling and testing (73% vs 96%; P=.0431), and referred patients less often to clinical trials (35% vs 89%; P=.0014 for yBC patients, and 36% vs 89%, P=.0028 for mBC patients). ONNs reported substantial barriers to many services, but not to fatigue, menopause management, and pain management. Most ONNs were interested in continuing education for sexual health and intimacy, but not clinical trials, treatment side effects, or pain management. The majority cited a need for patient materials about sexual health and intimacy and mental health issues. Although most ONNs were confident in their ability to address questions about breast cancer in the media, they indicated additional resources would be useful. Conclusion: Familiarity, referral patterns, educational needs, and barriers faced by earlier-career ONNs differ from later-career ONNs. Site-specific attention to distinct needs of ONNs by job tenure may benefit patient outcomes. Notably, 5 years of work experience appeared to be a meaningful threshold for distinguishing novice and expert ONNs. ONNs expressed significant barriers to referral for clinical trials, most commonly patient understanding of value, suggesting that patient education and materials may reduce this barrier. Improving clinical trial referral (or other site-specific barriers) are actionable steps for ONN programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The drug tamoxifen may reduce the risk of breast cancer in healthy women who have the BRCA2 gene mutation but not in women with the BRCA1 mutation. These two gene mutations have been linked to a higher risk of breast cancer.

Hearing loss is a major public health concern with no pharmaceutical intervention for hearing protection or restoration. Using zebrafish neuromast hair cells, a robust model for mammalian auditory and vestibular hair cells, we identified a urea-thiophene carboxamide, 1 (ORC-001), as protective against aminoglycoside antibiotic (AGA)-induced hair cell death. The 50% protection (HC50) concentration conferred by 1 is 3.2 µM with protection against 200 µM neomycin approaching 100%. Compound 1 was sufficiently safe and drug-like to validate otoprotection in an in vivo rat hearing loss model. We explored the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of this compound series to improve otoprotective potency, improve pharmacokinetic properties and eliminate off-target activity. We present the optimization of 1 to yield 90 (ORC-13661). Compound 90 protects mechanosensory hair cells with HC50 of 120 nM and demonstrates 100% protection in the zebrafish assay and superior physiochemical, pharmacokinetic, and toxicologic properties, as well as complete in vivo protection in rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The external location of the zebrafish lateral line makes it a powerful model for studying mechanosensory hair cell regeneration.Wehave developed a chemical screen to identify FDA-approved drugs and biologically active compounds that modulate hair cell regeneration in zebrafish. Of the 1680 compounds evaluated, we identified two enhancers and six inhibitors of regeneration. The two enhancers, dexamethasone and prednisolone, are synthetic glucocorticoids that potentiated hair cell numbers during regeneration and also induced hair cell addition in the absence of damage. BrdU analysis confirmed that the extra hair cells arose from mitotic activity. We found that dexamethasone and prednisolone, like other glucocorticoids, suppress zebrafish caudal fin regeneration, indicating that hair cell regeneration occurs by a distinctly different process. Further analyses of the regeneration inhibitors revealed that two of the six, flubendazole and topotecan, significantly suppress hair cell regeneration by preventing proliferation of hair cell precursors. Flubendazole halted support cell division in M-phase, possibly by interfering with normal microtubule activity. Topotecan, a topoisomerase inhibitor, killed both hair cells and proliferating hair cell precursors. A third inhibitor, fulvestrant, moderately delayed hair cell regeneration by reducing support cell proliferation. Our observation that hair cells do not regenerate when support cell proliferation is impeded confirms previous observations that cell division is the primary route for hair cell regeneration after neomycin treatment in zebrafish [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]