Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Epigenetic signature changes in low oxygen levels may contribute to prostate cancer development

UCD Conway researchers have characterised epigenetic signature changes in prostate cells under conditions of low oxygen levels that may lead to tumour development.

30 Jul 2009

Sunbeds confirmed as cancer risk

Sunbeds have been put in the highest cancer risk category by the international body charged with evaluating potential cancer hazards.

29 Jul 2009

New research reveals what motivates people to smoke

A new study - designed to understand why people smoke and help develop more effective quitting programmes for smokers - has revealed that only half of smokers say enjoyment and coping with stress were reasons why they smoke. The new Cancer Research UK study is published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research* today (Wednesday).

28 Jul 2009

Smokeless tobacco use carries little or no risk of cancer

A large meta-analysis, published in the open access journal BMC Medicine, has shown that snuff as used in Scandinavia has no discernible effect on the risk of various cancers. Products used in the past in the USA may have increased the risk, but any effect that exists now seems likely to be quite small.

28 Jul 2009

Mathematical modeling predicts Herceptin resistance

Cancer researchers are turning to mathematical models to help answer important clinical questions, and a new paper in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, illustrates how the technique may answer questions about Herceptin resistance.

28 Jul 2009

Senate Dems seek compromise on contentious health reform issues

A leading Democratic senator, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Sunday Democrats would need Republican support to make ambitious proposals to overhaul the health system a reality, the Associated Press reports.

28 Jul 2009

Oregon hospital building boom slows down

"Oregon's hospital spending boom is winding to a close," as hospitals cut back on projects, Portland Business Journal reports. "Portland-area hospitals have opened, started construction on, or announced expansions costing at least $1.3 billion in the past 18 months. Projects include cancer treatment centers, cardiac units and pediatric care facilities.

28 Jul 2009

Research shows why HIV virus is so successful and so deadly

Retroviruses such as HIV that are already within cells are much more easily transmitted when they are next to uninfected cells than if they are floating free in the bloodstream.

28 Jul 2009

Discovery of potential treatment for spinal muscular atrophy

Spinal Muscular Atrophy is the second-leading cause of infant mortality in the world. Ravindra Singh, associate professor in biomedical sciences at Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, would like to see Spinal Muscular Atrophy lose its high ranking and even slide off the list altogether.

28 Jul 2009

Study finds few patients die from prostate cancer within 15 years of radical prostatectomy

Investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), along with collaborating teams at the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Michigan, have completed the first large- scale, multi-institutional study of prostate cancer death after standard treatment to remove the prostate since PSA screening has become widely used as a method to screen for the disease.

28 Jul 2009

miR-21 molecule plays early and important role in nonsmoking lung cancer

The cause of lung cancer in never-smokers is poorly understood, but a study led by investigators at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and at the National Cancer Institute has identified a molecule believed to play an early and important role in its development.

28 Jul 2009

Gene expression patterns in cancer could aid early screening and prevention

Distinctive patterns of genes turned off - or left on - in healthy versus cancerous cells could enable early screening for many common cancers and maybe help avoid them, Medical College of Georgia scientists say.

28 Jul 2009

Current diagnostic tests for ovarian cancer woefully ineffective

A new study finds that in order to make a significant dent in the mortality rate for the deadly cancer, the tests would have to be able to detect tumors of less than 1 cm in diameter, or about 200-times smaller in mass than those currently used to assess potential new tests. Still, if that hurdle can be overcome, there is good reason to believe that testing could make a big difference: The window of opportunity for treating these clinically undetectable cancers before they become life threatening is surprisingly long: about four years.

28 Jul 2009

Artificial intelligence used to diagnose metastatic cancer

When doctors are managing care for women with breast cancer, the information available to them profoundly influences the type of care they recommend. Knowing whether a woman's cancer has metastasized, for instance, directly affects how her doctors will approach treatment -- which may in turn influence the outcome of that treatment.

28 Jul 2009

Smoking increases likelihood that pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma will become metastatic

Smoking has once again been implicated in the development of advanced cancer. Exposure to nicotine by way of cigarette smoking may increase the likelihood that pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma will become metastatic, according to researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson.

27 Jul 2009

Cost effectiveness study looks at potential value of new genetic test for guiding chemotherapy treatment

For the 29,000 patients in the United States with metastatic colorectal cancer, chemotherapy with irinotecan is a standard treatment that has been shown to improve survival. But for more than one in 10 of these patients, a variation in their DNA means that this treatment could result in a severe reduction in their white blood cell count, leading to a high risk of bacterial infection and possible subsequent death.

27 Jul 2009

Nanodiamonds hold promise for wound-healing applications

Bacterial infection is a major health threat to patients with severe burns and other kinds of serious wounds such as traumatic bone fractures. Recent studies have identified an important new weapon for fighting infection and healing wounds: insulin.

27 Jul 2009

New clues about the roots of neurological disease

Switching off a key DNA repair system in the developing nervous system is linked to smaller brain size as well as problems in brain structures vital to movement, memory and emotion, according to new research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists.

27 Jul 2009

Anxiety and distress during active surveillance for early prostate cancer

Men with early stages of prostate cancer who delay radical treatment in favor of an approach of "expectant management" do not have high levels of anxiety and distress. That is the conclusion of a new study published in the September 1, 2009 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

27 Jul 2009