cancer-treatment

Blue Note Therapeutics raises $26M to help treat cancer-related distress via cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM)

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Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics Rais­es $26.25 Mil­lion in Series A Financ­ing (press release):

Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc., today announced the clos­ing of a Series A financ­ing round of $26.25 mil­lion. Pro­ceeds will allow the com­pa­ny to scale the orga­ni­za­tion and fund near-term clin­i­cal tri­als of its lead pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic (PDT), which will poten­tial­ly improve the treat­ment of can­cer. The cap­i­tal will also sup­port the devel­op­ment of Blue Note’s pipeline assets. The Series A financ­ing was led by JAZZ Ven­ture Part­ners and joined by Sum­mer VC. [Read more…] about Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $26M to help treat can­cer-relat­ed dis­tress via cog­ni­tive behav­ioral stress man­age­ment (CBSM)

Growing research aims at helping cancer patients in distress access most-likely-to-help self-care options, from Mindfulness training to Web-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

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Cred­it: UCIrvine/flickr , CC BY-NC-ND

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Mind­ful­ness in can­cer treat­ment: time to stop and think (The Conversation):

“Breathe deeply and focus on the moment: mind­ful­ness now appears every­where as a tech­nique to improve well-being, includ­ing in health care.

Mind­ful­ness train­ing is often sug­gest­ed for can­cer patients to reduce high lev­els of anx­i­ety and dis­tress asso­ci­at­ed with diag­no­sis, treat­ment and antic­i­pa­tion of pos­si­ble dis­ease recur­rence. But two ques­tions per­sist: does mind­ful­ness work and, if so, for whom? [Read more…] about Grow­ing research aims at help­ing can­cer patients in dis­tress access most-like­ly-to-help self-care options, from Mind­ful­ness train­ing to Web-based cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT)

Next: Tools to detect and treat “chemo brain” symptoms common in around 35% of breast cancer survivors

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fog brainUCLA study reveals treat­ment for women with breast can­cer suf­fer­ing cog­ni­tive dif­fi­cul­ties (Health­Canal):

“UCLA researchers have devel­oped a pro­gram that could improve the day-to-day lives of women with breast can­cer by address­ing post-treat­ment cog­ni­tive dif­fi­cul­ties, some­times known as “chemo brain,” which can affect up to 35 per­cent of women after their treat­ments [Read more…] about Next: Tools to detect and treat “chemo brain” symp­toms com­mon in around 35% of breast can­cer survivors

Why computerized neuropsychological tests will become routine — chemo brain example

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Good arti­cle today in the NYT on “chemo brain” — some typ­i­cal short-term and long-term cog­ni­tive con­se­quences of chemotherapy.

The Fog That Fol­lows Chemother­a­py (New York Times)

This quote is crit­i­cal — for chemo brain and also for a vari­ety of clin­i­cal con­di­tions that present asso­ci­at­ed cog­ni­tive impair­ments: “Con­trol­ling for brain func­tion before can­cer treat­ment begins can help deter­mine cause and effect. In one study, can­cer patients took a bat­tery of neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests before start­ing chemother­a­py, three weeks after com­plet­ing treat­ment, and again one year lat­er. Although a third of the patients had signs of cog­ni­tive impair­ment before ther­a­py began, the num­ber jumped to 61 per­cent after treat­ment, and half remained impaired a year later.”

As we have dis­cussed before, we believe that inex­pen­sive com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ments will start to become wide­ly avail­able in only a few years, to help set up indi­vid­u­al­ized cog­ni­tive base­lines and inform clin­i­cal diag­noses and treat­ments. For more, you can read Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments: oppor­tu­ni­ties and concerns