Sleep problem for cancer patients
Tuesday September 10th, 2013
People with serious sleep disorder may fare badly if they get skin cancer, according to a new study.
The
link between sleep apnoea and the results of developing melanoma were
revealed at the conference of the European Respiratory Society in Barcelona,
Spain.
Laboratory studies have suggested that poor breathing during sleep might worsen the cancer - possibly because reduced oxygen levels allow tumour growth to accelerate.
The Spanish researchers say theirs is the first study to show the link in human patients.
They studied 56 patients with melanoma. Some 60% had sleep apnoea and 14.3% severe apnoea.
They found that the worse the sleep apnoea, the worse the cancer. They now plan to study a larger group of 450 patients.
Researcher Dr Francisco Campos-Rodriguez, of the Hospital de Valme, Seville, Spain, said: “This is the first study in a human sample to show that sleep apnoea can worsen the outcomes of melanoma.
"The findings are from a preliminary small sample, but if the results are confirmed in larger studies, this would have important clinical implications, particularly as sleep apnoea can be easily treated and this could open up new therapeutic possibilities for people with both conditions."
* Early findings from a major study of asthma have shown that people on severe asthma continue to suffer from severe illness in spite of taking steroid treatments, the conference heard.
Researcher David Gibeon, of Imperial College, London, UK, said: “We would like to understand why people with more severe asthma are less responsive to the effects of corticosteroids."
* Researchers in Latvia have made progress in developing "electronic noses" to test the breath for signs of lung cancer, it was revealed.
A device had a success rate of about 94%, they told the conference.
Tags: Cancer | Dermatology | Europe | Respiratory
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