Marc Lacroix - Cancer books

Targeted Therapies in Cancer (2014) - Marc Lacroix
Since the year 2000, exciting developments in cancer therapy have occurred. For decades in the 20th century, the hallmark of medical treatment for cancer had been cytotoxic chemotherapy, with drugs targeting rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells but also certain normal tissues. As a result, many patients experienced the "classic" toxicities of alopecia, gastrointestinal symptoms and/or myelosuppression. In the last years, however, clinical research has been strongly occupied with the identification of mutations and aberrations concerning molecular pathways in cancer and their alterations, which has enabled the emergence of a "targeted" (somewhat personalized) medicine approach to treatment. Today, although traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy remains the treatment of choice for many malignancies, notably as first-line agents, targeted therapies are a possible choice for many types of cancer, including breast, prostate, CRC, lung, kidney cancers, as well as lymphoma, leukemia, and myeloma. More than 60 of these targeted therapies recently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are detailed in the book, and their intended use in one or more cancer types are shown.

Coding for Disease: Genes and Cancer (2013) - Marc Lacroix
Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell division and the potential of the cells to invade surrounding tissues and spread around the body. Most of these changes in cellular behavior are the result of alterations in the function or levels of the proteins that control these processes. And these alterations are, in turn, usually caused by modifications at the DNA level. Indeed, cancer is now recognized as being essentially a disease caused by mutation, or dysregulated expression, of genes. Of the estimated 30,000 genes in the human genome, currently more than 250 are known to play an important role in the development of cancer, either sporadic or familial. In some cases, their effects result from gene fusion, due to translocation for instance, or from amplification of a chromosomal region. During the last years, attention has largely shifted from the identification of rare high-risk genetic mutations to a hunt for lower risk gene polymorphisms, many of which are likely to be common within the population. Another increasingly investigated field is epigenetics, which relates to abnormal and prolonged changes in the mechanisms that alter gene expression and activity, without involving changes in genetic sequence.

A Concise History of Breast Cancer (2011, 2013) - Marc Lacroix
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed type of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer. It is estimated that breast cancer affects more than 1,000,000 women worldwide each year, and about 450,000 die from the disease. During the last decades, breast cancer has received considerable attention, yet it is a very old disease that was described years and years ago. This book provides a summary of breast cancer history. It covers the ages from the ancient times to the early 2000's, but mainly focuses on the 20th century and its numerous discoveries and inventions in the field of breast cancer detection, analysis and treatment.

MicroRNAs in Breast Cancer (2010) - Marc Lacroix
MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, are a recently discovered class of small regulatory RNAs that influence the stability and translational efficiency of target messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Alterations in miRNA expression are associated with an increasing number of biological processes, including breast cancer. The study of miRNAs is a rapidly developing field that could considerably change our vision of breast cancer biology. This book offers an insight into our current knowledge of human miRNAs, with a specific interest for breast cancer.