Mutant HTT (huntingtin) directly interacts with p53, a tumor suppressor whose mutation is responsible for breast cancers, in mice and flies. Although not always, the phosphorylation of HTT can also induce neuro protectiveness in individuals with Huntington’s and can help regulate cell differentiation and localization. Overall, there is 80% less rate of cancer amongst people with Huntington's than the normal population.

Santa Clara University

- Cancer is a term that refers to a collection of diseases in which some of the body's cells divide uncontrollably and invade surrounding tissues. 
- Cancer can metastasize, i.e., spread to other parts of the body. Metastatic cancer is hard to treat and tends to be fatal. Most cancer deaths are caused by metastasis.

This node should be a relation node, but I can't delete it since it's a root node of the "cancer" tree and it has two upvotes.


Cancer

- An Inherited, adult-onset, eventually fatal brain disease.
- About 41,000 Americans have HD symptoms; 200,000 are at-risk of inheriting HD


Huntington's Disease (HD) | Introduction

Elisa Becze. “Huntington Disease May Hold Key to Novel Cancer Treatment.” ONS Voice, 10 June 2022, https://voice.ons.org/news-and-views/huntington-disease-may-hold-key-to-novel-cancer-treatment#:~:text=Patients%20with%20Huntington%20disease%20have,as%20those%20with%20Huntington%20disease. 

Huntington Disease May Hold Key to Novel Cancer Treatment

- Many cancer treatments work by suppressing rapidly-dividing cells. Note that cancer cells divide rapidly, but some healthy cells (e.g., white blood cells) also divide rapidly. Hence, the immune system weakens, making the patient more likely to get infected and experience severe COVID-19 complications.

COVID-19 and Cancer Comorbidity

- Note: Having some cancer symptoms/signs doesn't mean one has cancer. Also, many cancers don't have clear signs/symptoms, especially during the early and middle stages.

General Signs/Symptoms of Cancer
- Unexplained weight loss
- Fever
- Fatigue
- Pain
- Skin changes

Signs/Symptoms of Specific Cancers
- Changes in bowel/bladder functions
- Sores that don't heal
- White patches in mouth or on the tongue
- Unusual bleeding/discharge
- Thickening or lump in part(s) of the body
- Persistent Indigestion or swallowing difficulties
- Persistent, "nagging cough or hoarseness"
- Other major changes in how one feels or one's body functions

Signs and Symptoms of Cancer

- Treatment resistance
- Types of treatment (e.g., surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy)
- Treatment approaches/aspects (e.g., palliative care, precision medicine)
- Other treatments (e.g., hyperthermia, complementary medicine)

Cancer Treatment

User-Created Sources
- Cancer Tutorial | Sai Chengalvala

Primary Sources
- PeeWeeToms

General 
- Alliance for Aging Research
- American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
- American Cancer Society
- Cancer.Net
- Demystifying Medicine
- Doc Unlock
- HealthCareInsider
- Healthcare Triage
- Mayo Clinic | Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER)
- MD Anderson Cancer CEnter
- NIH - National Cancer Institute
- Rogel Cancer Center | Michigan Medicine

Journals Used
- The Lancet 
- The Lancet Oncology
- Nature Reviews | Clinical Oncology

*Note: This list excludes the references that are only used for the node "COVID-19 and Cancer Comorbidity" and its children. If I include them here, this list will get too crowded and hence will become less useful.

Cancer | References Used

According to the American Cancer Society (original source) and https://cancer80.weebly.com/ (secondary source), 
- In the USA, 1 in every 3 people will get cancer at some point in their lives, and cancer causes 1 in every 5 deaths. 
- Most of us will have a parent, sibling, relative, or friend who eventually dies from cancer.
- Cancer takes a financial, emotional, and psychological toll on patients and caregivers.

Impact of Cancer

According to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR),
- 4 in every 10 cancer cases are preventable.
- Tobacco smoking (19%), excess body weight (8%), alcohol (6%), UV radiation (5%), poor diet (5%), infections (4%), and sedentary lifestyles (3%) are the main preventable risk factors for cancer.
- Numbers in parentheses indicate % of US cases in adults age >30 attributable to the indicated risk factors.

The above content is copied verbatim from Venkata Chengalvala's website https://cancer80.weebly.com/prevention.html.

Preventable Causes of Cancer

Financial toxicity is when patients struggle with the severe financial burden of cancer treatments. It causes severe distress -- sometimes more than the cancer itself -- even pushing many patients to skip treatment.

Cancer | Financial Toxicity

Cancer health disparities are differences among populations in their treatment and diagnosis of cancer. This is due to social, environmental, and economic disadvantages. 


Cancer Disparities 

Connection Between Cancer and Huntington's

Cancer forms in the cells of the breasts. Breast cancer can occur in women and rarely in men. Symptoms of breast cancer include a lump in the breast, bloody discharge from the nipple, and changes in the shape or texture of the nipple or breast.

Breast Cancer

Note: A basic understanding of cell biology is needed to understand this node.
- Improve resilience/survival of neurons affected by the abnormal (mutated) huntington protein.
- Stem-cell therapy to replace damaged/dead neurons
- Reducing the production of huntington 
- Increasing huntington’s clearance and degradation by inducing autophagy 


Huntington's Disease | Research Directions

Huntington's disease has 5 stages. Stage 2 is where HD is usually first diagnosed.
- Stage 1: Preclinical stage
- Stage 2: Early stage 
- Stage 3: Middle stage 
- Stage 4: Late stage
- Stage 5: End-of-life stage

Huntington's Disease (HD) | Stages

- Inherited in an autosomal dominant manner (i.e., one mutant copy of the gene is enough to cause symptoms)
- CAG segment in the gene Huntington is repeated too many times, leading to the formation of an abnormal huntington protein

Genetics of Huntington's Disease

- The striatum -- critical for mood, motor, and behavior control -- is most severely affected, though many other regions get affected in the late stages.
- Hence, motor control (e.g., involuntary movements), behavior control, mental health (e.g., major depression, OCD), and cognition are impaired.
- Patients often describe their condition as having Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS simultaneously.

Huntington's Disease (HD) | Symptoms and Brain Regions Affected

- The motor (movement-related) symptoms of HD usually start in the 40s and 50s, with other subtle changes possibly starting much earlier.
- However, 10% of patients start to have motor symptoms after age 60, and 10% have juvenile-onset HD (i.e., motor symptoms occur before age 20).

Huntington's Disease (HD) | Age of Onset

- Current treatments cannot even slow HD progression, although they can alleviate HD symptoms.



Huntington's Disease (HD) | Current Treatments

General Sources (e.g., reliable websites, textbooks)
- HOPES (Huntington's Outreach Project For Education) Stanford University
- Huntington's Disease Society of America
- MedicineNet
- Medline Plus | U.S. National Library of Medicine
- Wikipedia

Journals (No journals used yet)

Learn Before

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