Latest news with #chemotherapy
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Teen Refuses to Shave Head for Niece With Cancer. Now His Family Is Calling Him Selfish
A teen turns to Reddit after his family asks him to shave his head to support his young niece with cancer, but he's unsure the gesture matters A teen turns to the Reddit community for advice following a heartbreaking request that leaves him feeling torn between love and personal identity. At just 17 years old, he finds himself facing unexpected pressure from his family after his young niece is diagnosed with leukemia. 'I really really don't want to sound egoistic, but I'm a guy with long hair, which over the years has basically become my personality,' the teen explains in his post. He says that while he's always cared for his niece and her family, he's struggling with the idea of giving up the one thing that brings him confidence and joy. The situation begins when his 7-year-old niece is diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a moment that the teen says 'basically broke their family apart.' Wanting to be supportive, he makes efforts to emotionally be there for his niece and the rest of the family during the difficult time. But things shift when chemotherapy causes his niece's 'beautiful long blonde hair' to fall out, and her family decides to shave her head. 'The next day, a group chat including the entire family was created where my aunt announced it would be wholesome if everyone shaved their hair off as well,' he writes. At first, the teen finds the idea 'wholesome,' but admits he doubts anyone would actually follow through. That changes quickly when he comes home to find both his mother and sister already bald. '[Followed] by my other cousin, and grandma,' he adds. The pressure mounts when his mother confronts him the next morning. 'When are you ready to do it?' she asks, trimmer in hand. The teen is stunned. 'I originally thought it was something to decide on your own,' he says. 'But since everyone else is doing it, I'm kind of being pushed into a corner.' Though he deeply loves his niece, the teen can't ignore how much his hair means to him. 'It's pretty much the only thing about myself I love,' he admits. He also questions how much the gesture really matters to his niece, recalling a video his aunt took of her reaction to other family members shaving their heads. 'She has to tap her maybe 4 times to get her attention, and when she looks, she just stares at it, says 'wow' and continues watching her cartoon,' he writes. After watching that video, he notices his mom becoming 'pushy' about him doing the same. 'In other words, she wants to drag me down into the pit with her,' he says. Things intensify when he receives a text from his aunt urging him to shave his head too. 'She said it would be really nice if I shaved my head as well, in order to show my emotional support,' he writes. But the teen questions whether the act would truly have any impact. 'If we have to keep things real, shaving my head will basically change nothing in the entire situation,' he says. 'But I can't just say no, can I?' He reveals that what stings the most is the lack of acknowledgment shown to the family members who already shaved their heads. 'If my aunt would have shown a little more appreciation to my sister and mom, I would have probably considered it,' he admits. 'But considering she did not even reply to the pictures and just immediately showed them to my niece, as if you HAVE to do it, I don't think I'm willing to do it.' Despite the emotional weight of the decision, the teen reiterates his love for his niece. 'I really really really love my niece,' he writes. 'And even though I'm not that close with her, I always really cared about her and made sure she always felt comfortable with me.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. But the emotional burden is growing, and the teen feels outnumbered. 'I'm almost getting threatened to cut off my hair by three people,' he shares. What troubles him most is the fear of sacrificing something personal only for it to go unrecognized. 'If I do decide to do it, what if no appreciation is shown?' he asks. 'Yes, I would have done it, to show support from my side, but if it's nowhere to be appreciated, then what's the point?' Other Redditors weigh in, including cancer survivors themselves. 'Don't do it,' one commenter writes. 'I never asked, wanted anyone to do that. It made me feel worse.' Another commenter echoes that sentiment. 'As a cancer patient, I never understood this gesture,' they say. 'I also see it as attention seeking behavior.' The teen ends his post not with anger, but with a question that reflects the emotional complexity of his situation. 'But really, what do I do?' he asks. 'I seriously really don't know.' Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword


Daily Mail
21 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Ryan Seacrest breaks down in tears as he reveals heartbreaking family news
Ryan Seacrest began to cry as he revealed this week that his father Gary, to whom he is 'very close,' has been battling prostate cancer. Gary was diagnosed 'years ago,' and although he underwent treatments including chemotherapy, the illness 'got worse and it spread.' As his system was battered by the combination of the cancer and the measures taken to combat it, he contracted pneumonia and wound up in intensive care. For four months Gary was confined to either the hospital or his home with 'full-time care,' his son revealed on his radio show On Air with Ryan Seacrest. Now Gary is mere days away from his 79th birthday, and when Ryan asked him what he wanted for the occasion, he gave a heartrending reply. 'I just wanna get outta this chair. I just wanna leave this house,' he said according to Ryan, 50, whose eyes swam with tears as he remembered the request. 'I haven't shared this on the air because it has been very private for me and family, as it was something that was extremely hard to see with my father,' Ryan began. 'So my dad is about 80 years old, and I have a very close relationship with my father. And my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer years ago, and started his treatment. And it didn't get better. It got worse and it spread,' he shared. 'And when this happens to somebody, or someone really close to you that you love, this is a hard thing to see, because the treatments that are commonly recommended can be barbaic to the system [sic]. They can cause so much damage to your body in other ways,' he explained to his co-hosts and listeners. 'My father went and started his chemotherapy, and this is hard and you know people who have been through it. It didn't go well for him. He caught pneumonia. I was on an American Idol show live during last season and my sister called me and she said: 'Dad is in the ICU, and how fast can you get here?"' Ryan went into a daze, and although he 'finished the show' he could not even 'remember what I was saying' for the rest of the taping, after which he 'went to the airport immediately and got on a flight and got to Atlanta overnight.' He arrived to see his father and the doctors engaged in a 'life-or-death conversation' regarding a potential emergency surgery. 'And I've never seen my strong, very smart father with the look on his face that he had and the concern, and looking at me to help guide what decisions should be made in this moment. And this is ICU, with pneumonia, with the cancer, after the chemo, so weak,' Ryan shatteringly remembered. 'The emergency surgery – he did not wanna have it. Thank God he didn't, 'cause it could cause complications,' he added. In a detail even his co-hosts were previously unaware of, Ryan revealed that 'for weeks I was broadcasting from Atlanta. I moved everything there and I was broadcasting from a hotel room. And I was in the hospital every single day in the ICU.' The Wheel of Fortune host reflected that 'when you see a parent suffering and when you see them going through this, and you don't understand it yourself – you're just listening to all the different doctors and trying to make sense of what they're trying to suggest and do – it is a hard thing.' He added: 'But I didn't want to miss trying to understand who these people were that were taking care of my father. He could not get up to sit. He could not eat. He could not drink water. He could not go to the bathroom.' Ryan recounted: 'Weeks go by in the ICU, and finally he began to get some strength back. My mother was in Atlanta but I needed her to take a break from this because she also has cancer - and she's in remission, God bless her.' He noted that 'when you're a kid, no one tells you how to handle this with your parents. You don't know. I don't know. I didn't know. 'And my father, after being absolutely miserable, miserable in ICU – not only having the cancer, but feeling like you-know-what, feeling bad, feeling weak, feeling sick, not eating – he slowly gained strength. He slowly was able to eat liquids, which he complained about,' Ryan said fondly. 'My dad, after several weeks, I remember the morning where we were gonna get him up out of his seat, his bed, and have him walk around the bay where the nurses are right outside the room. And he did it, but it was very difficult just to move around a little circle of these desks where the nurses are.' Ryan became 'very, very close to the nurses,' whom he described as 'angels,' saying he sent them Italian food from the chain Maggiano's because he 'wanted them to have a bunch of good – something good because I appreciate the care.' After 'months,' Gary was discharged from the hospital but remained homebound in Atlanta, under 'full-time care' and taking oxygen artificially. 'Weeks went by. He didn't leave his seat or a hospital or a home for four and a half months. I went back and forth over the weekends,' said Ryan. Gary's 'birthday is in a few days and I asked him – first of all, to see him getting stronger, I was so happy. And I asked him: 'What would you like for this birthday?' And he said: 'I just wanna get out of this chair. I just wanna leave this house.'' Ryan dissolved in to tears as he divulged that one night earlier, he had gotten 'the most powerful good, happy picture from my dad. And my mother, who was with him, they went to a beach to sit outside. They just wanted to look at the water. They can't do much. But I saw him smile. I saw my mom smile.' Gathering himself, he said: 'I'm embarrassed to – I'm just emotional. I am so – anyway, I watched them over the weekend send photos of smiling and happiness, and being together. They've been married for over 55 years and they've got each other.' Gary's 'pneumonia's gone but his cancer's not, and so we have to go back into another treatment and fight this cancer, and so it's difficult,' Ryan shared. The TV host has often spoken of his great affection for his parents Gary and Connie, whom he welcomed onto his morning program Live! with Kelly and Ryan in late 2022, shortly before he left that job ahead of becoming the host of Wheel of Fortune. Gary, who was a lieutenant in the US Army before working as an attorney for 30 years in Atlanta and running his own law firm, is now president and CEO of his son's nonprofit the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, where Connie is the vice president of community affairs and hospital relations.


New York Times
a day ago
- General
- New York Times
My Mother, the Artist, Discovered at 90
In the past month, I have been selling and giving away paintings. They are not the work of a famous artist or even my own output. No, they are the 400-painting oeuvre of my 90-year-old mother. A literature scholar by profession, she retired long ago from teaching and had painted nearly every day for 30 years due to a fiendish work ethic. But four months ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. I have been helping her with her chemotherapy appointments, among other only-child caretaker duties. For me, there has been a parallel quest, though: to sell or give away some of her oil paintings, many of which are still stored in her apartment. Finding homes for the paintings while she is still with me has taken on a strange urgency — I want her to know where they will dwell. I ask the new owner of each painting to send me a photograph to show her where it hangs. Yet there is more to it than that. As a result of cataloging and handling her work, I understand better what it is that she was doing, painting away, often alone, with only a few people — her fellow amateur artist retiree friends and the like — ever seeing most of what she made. Paintings can be seen as commemorating time or capturing individual subjectivity. While decades of art criticism have put these truisms in question, for my mother painting did give shape to her way of seeing. Why hadn't I paid more attention to her paintings before? Looking anew, I found out things about her that I had never bothered to think about — children, of course, don't tend to dwell on their parents' ambitions or reveries. My guess is that painting made her feel free, outside of time, age, self-criticism, self-doubt and even social class. My mother painted when she was young, and her abstract oils hung in our living room. I didn't think about them very much when I was a kid, although their very '60s color schemes might explain why my favorite color is orange. Then she took a long break, a career to attend to, a child to raise, teaching, with its small pleasures mixed with blue-book-grading drudgery. But after her early retirement from the City University of New York system — the buyouts of the 1990s — she suddenly had time for art classes. She describes it as 'a whole second life.' Some days, she'd paint all day long, sometimes just in the mornings. She painted in the Berkshires with painting friends and in a studio in an old-time artists' building in Union Square, a relic of an art scene in Manhattan that barely exists. All of this — being able to retire early, obtaining a reasonably priced studio to paint in (with excellent light, praise be), even an accessibly priced summer home — was, admittedly, part of an entire system of affordability that has basically vanished from many of our major cities. My mother was generationally lucky in this way. Over the years, my mom was in group exhibitions but never sought out a gallery show. To this day, she has a mixture of self-effacement and pride about her work. Her paintings may not be 'worth' a gallery show, in her mind, but they certainly shouldn't be cast out on the streets. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ryan Seacrest Breaks Down in Tears Over Dad's Prostate Cancer Struggle: ‘No One Tells You How to Handle This'
Ryan Seacrest's father, Gary Seacrest, is navigating a difficult prostate cancer journey, the host shared in an emotional broadcast of On Air with Ryan Seacrest. The American Idol host was prompted to reveal his family's private struggle while discussing colleague Dennis Clark's 'victory story' of remission from cancer. Ryan, 50, had shared in a 2021 Instagram post that his father, who turns 81 on July 27, had been 'battling cancer for several years'— but at the time, they thought it was 'no longer detectable.' However, as he said in a July 21 broadcast of On Air with Ryan Seacrest, "It got worse and it spread.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by On Air with Ryan Seacrest (@onairwithryan) 'When this happens to somebody or someone really close to you that you love, this is a hard thing to see, because the treatments that are commonly recommended can be barbaric to the system. They can cause so much damage to your body in other ways," Ryan shared. The host also noted that Gary contracted pneumonia while undergoing chemotherapy. When Ryan was hosting American Idol's live shows last season, his sister Meredith called him with dire news: She said, ' 'Dad is in the ICU, and how fast can you get here?' ' Explaining that he's 'never really spoken about this,' Ryan said he somehow finished the episode even though 'I didn't even remember what I was saying.' Once the show wrapped, he flew to Atlanta to see his father: 'The night that I got there, the conversation they were having with [my father] about an emergency surgery was a life or death conversation, and I've never seen my strong, very smart father with the look on his face that he had — and the concern, and looking at me to help guide what decisions should be made in this moment.' Gary opted to not have surgery, Ryan said, explaining he visited his father daily in the hospital and ended up broadcasting his radio shows from his hotel room in Atlanta. 'When you see a parent suffering and when you see them going through this and you don't understand it yourself, you're just listening to all the different doctors and trying to make sense of what they're trying to suggest and do," he shared. "I didn't want to miss trying to understand who these people were that were taking care of my father.' He continued: 'He could not get up to sit. He could not eat. He could not drink water. He could not go to the bathroom. Weeks go by in ICU and finally he began to get some strength back.' Ryan noted that he wanted to help his mother, Connie, who is in remission from cancer. 'I needed her to take a break,' he said. 'When you're a kid, no one tells you how to handle this with your parents.' 'He slowly gained strength,' said Ryan, who went on to praise the 'angels' — the nurses — who looked after his father. 'The nurses are the people that nurture and care and have emotion about their patients. The nurses are the ones that are really looking after them day and night for hours, and I loved the team of nurses,' Ryan added, continuing to share that he sent them something to thank them afterward. His father was released this month and is home in Atlanta with full-time care, Ryan shared. He also revealed that he has flown back and forth from Los Angeles every weekend to visit his father, who struggled to get up out of his chair for nearly five months. 'His birthday is in a few days, and I asked him, 'What would you like for your birthday?' ' to which Ryan recalled his father replying, ' 'I just want to get out of this chair. I just want to leave this house.' ' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ryan Seacrest (@ryanseacrest) His voice audibly broke — and Ryan took a moment to steady his emotions. He shared that the night before, 'I got the most powerful, good, happy picture from my dad and my mother, who was with him. They went to a beach to sit outside. They just went to look at the water. They can't do much, but I saw him smile. I saw my mom smile." 'I'm embarrassed,' Ryan admitted as his emotions overtook him. 'I watched them over the weekend send photos of smiling and happiness, and being together. They've been married for over 55 years. They've got each other and the pneumonia is gone, but his cancer is not.' He shared he was 'so excited and happy' for his colleague, Clark, 'When he had beaten it.' 'Cancer affects every one of us in some way, and it. And it sucks. And the treatments suck … treatments are tough. But I know he's going to get through this," Ryan continued. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Cantargia Announces Preliminary Topline Efficacy Results From the Phase 2 TRIFOUR Trial of Nadunolimab in Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
LUND, SWEDEN / / July 17, 2025 / Cantargia (STO:CANTA) Nadunolimab added to carboplatin and gemcitabine (GC) did not impact the safety profile of the chemotherapy and was well tolerated with neutropenia and asthenia as the most common side effects The primary endpoint, overall response rate (ORR),was similar in the nadunolimab plus carboplatin/gemcitabine treated group and the carboplatin/gemcitabine reference group TRIFOUR is an exploratory open label randomized Phase 1b/2 clinical study conducted by the Spanish Breast Cancer Group (GEICAM).The objective is to evaluate early signals of efficacy of Cantargia's IL1RAP antibody nadunolimab in TNBC, with unconfirmed ORR as primary endpoint. The ORR was 40% in the Ph2 study in the nadunolimab plus GC treated patients. As reference, the ORR in the GC group was 43%. Subgroup analyses of the data are ongoing. The tolerability of the combination was acceptable and in line with previous trials combining nadunolimab and chemotherapy. Most common side effects in this trial were neutropenia and asthenia with no notable differences between the two study arms. "TNBC is a heterogeneous and difficult to treat disease, with a high unmet medical need. We welcome the efforts to explore new treatments and appreciate the learnings we are making from the TRIFOUR study. We now await the outcome of further analyses from the study, including overall survival," said Dr. Eva Carrasco, CEO of GEICAM. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with GEICAM and explore nadunolimab in the TNBC indication. While the preliminary ORR results of the Phase 2 part of the TRIFOUR trial do not match those obtained in the Phase 1b part of the trial, the study continues and we will now await the mature survival data." said Damian Marron, interim CEO of Cantargia. "Following the signing of our CAN10 agreement earlier this week, we will be undertaking a detailed portfolio discussion to define our plans for the further development of nadunolimab". The TRIFOUR Ph1b/2 study first enrolled 15 patients in a preliminary phase 1b dose-ranging part, which showed an acceptable safety profile with promising efficacy including 73% unconfirmed ORR (60% confirmed) in first-line (1L) or second-line (2L) patients with metastatic TNBC. In the Phase 2 part of the trial, patients were randomized to two study groups with nadunolimab + GC treatment in the experimental group (n=51) and GC alone in the reference group (n=48). Nadunolimab (2.5 mg/kg) and GC were given twice per cycle in 3- or 4-week cycles. The objective of the study was to identify early signals of efficacy, with an internal GC group for reference. RECIST 1.1 criteria were used to evaluate the preliminary ORR which was based on a minimum of 2 CT scans (approx. 3 months treatment) from the 97 TNBC patients included in the efficacy analyses. Among these, 20 patients (40%) showed unconfirmed complete response (CR) or partial response (PR) in the nadunolimab + GC arm vs. 20 patients (43%) in the chemotherapy arm. This data in 1L and 2L patients is higher than the historical response rate of approximately 30% reported for GC alone in 1L, 2L and third-line patients [1], and similar to 1L TNBC patients treated with chemotherapy alone [2]. Nadunolimab has been tested in over 300 patients with metastatic cancer. Previous data in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) indications have shown promising results for nadunolimab in combination with chemotherapy in these indications [3,4], and nadunolimab is granted Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in PDAC patients with high expression levels of IL1RAP. Nadunolimab is currently being tested inpatients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in an investigator-initiated clinical study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. More details of the TRIFOUR study will be communicated at an upcoming scientific conference. References[1] O'Shaughnessy, J Clin Oncol 2014, 32:3840-3847[2] Cortes N Engl J Med 2022, 387: 217-226[3] van Cutsem et al, Clin Cancer Res 2024, 30: 5293-5303[4] Paulus et al, Lung Cancer 2025, For further information, please contactDamian Marron, Interim CEOTelephone: +46 (0)46-275 62 60E-mail: This information is information that Cantargia is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, at 2025-07-17 21:30 CEST. About CantargiaCantargia AB (publ), reg. no. 556791-6019, is a biotechnology company that develops antibody-based treatments for life-threatening diseases and has established a platform based on the protein IL1RAP, involved in a number of cancer forms and inflammatory diseases. Cantargia's oncology program, the antibody nadunolimab (CAN04), is being studied clinically, primarily in combination with chemotherapy with a focus on pancreatic cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and triple-negative breast cancer. Positive data for the combinations indicate stronger efficacy than would be expected from chemotherapy alone. Cantargia's second development program, the antibody CAN10, blocks signaling via IL1RAP in a different manner than nadunolimab and addresses treatment of serious autoimmune/inflammatory diseases, with initial focus on hidradenitis suppurativa and systemic sclerosis. Cantargia is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (ticker: CANTA). More information about Cantargia is available at About nadunolimab (CAN04)The antibody nadunolimab binds strongly to its target IL1RAP and functions by inducing ADCC and blocking IL-1α and IL-1β signaling. Nadunolimab can thereby counteract the IL-1 system which contributes to the immune suppressive tumor microenvironment and the development of resistance to chemotherapy. Nadunolimab is investigated in multiple clinical trials; the phase I/IIa trial CANFOUR, NCT03267316, evaluates nadunolimab in combination with standard chemotherapies in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) (gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (platinum-based chemotherapies). Positive data show durable responses for combination therapy in 73 PDAC patients, resulting in a median iPFS of 7.2 months and median OS of 13.2 months. An even higher median OS of 14.2 months was observed in a subgroup of patients with high tumor levels of IL1RAP. Strong efficacy was also observed in 40 NSCLC patients with median PFS of 7.2 months and a response rate of 55%; even higher responses were observed in non-squamous NSCLC patients. Early efficacy data from the phase 1b/2 trial TRIFOUR, NCT05181462, also shows signs of promising efficacy in TNBC with a 60% response rate for nadunolimab combined with carboplatin/gemcitabine. About GEICAMGEICAM is the leader group in breast cancer research in Spain with a recognized worldwide prestige. It is formed by more than 900 experts, who work in 220 institutions throughout its establishment in 1995 until now GEICAM has performed more than a hundred of studies in which almost 68,000 women and men have has a large multidisciplinary team specialized in the management of clinical trials and other studies, which collaborates with clinical researchers in the design and implementation of clinical trials, as well as in their execution and dissemination in forums and high-impact scientific more information, you can visit the official website or follow us on Twitter @GEICAM, @GEICAMujer, and on AttachmentsCantargia announces preliminary topline efficacy results from the phase 2 TRIFOUR trial of nadunolimab in advanced triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) SOURCE: Cantargia View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire