The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) an $11.5 million, five-year SPORE grant to focus on cancers of the kidney. Michael Atkins, MD, Deputy Director of BIDMC's Division of Hematology/Oncology, will oversee the grant, which involves collaborations with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital via the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. [More]

Research from the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota indicates that a baby born to an older mother may have a slightly increased risk for many of the cancers that occur during childhood. [More]

A protein abundant in embryonic stem cells is now shown to be important in cancer, and offers a possible new target for drug development, report researchers from the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston. [More]

A brain chemical that plays a role in long term memory also appears to be involved in regulating how much people eat and their likelihood of becoming obese, according to a National Institutes of Health study of a rare genetic condition. [More]

Twenty percent of British adult survivors of childhood cancers are current smokers, and nearly a third have been regular smokers at some point in their lives, according to a study in the July 29 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. [More]

Physicians at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have demonstrated that children with bilateral Wilms tumor, a cancer of the kidneys, can retain normal function in both kidneys by undergoing a procedure called bilateral nephron-sparing surgery, even when preoperative scans suggest that the tumors are inoperable. [More]

A gene called N-Myc leads a double life in certain white blood cells, helping to trigger a cancer called acute myeloid leukemia (AML) under some conditions while triggering apoptosis, or cell suicide, under other conditions, according to results of a mouse study done by investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. [More]

St. Jude researchers have shown that the drug topotecan holds promise as a treatment for the recurrent form of a kidney cancer called Wilms tumor, a solid tumor of the kidney that arises from immature kidney cells, and the fifth most common tumor among children. [More]

A substantial proportion of childhood cancer survivors experience serious health problems as young adults, particularly those who received radiation treatment, according to a study in the June 27 issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, a theme issue on chronic diseases of children. [More]

This article out of Johns Hopkins reviewed the risk of renal cell carcinoma occurring as a secondary malignancy after chemotherapy in childhood. [More]

This growing rate of pediatric cancer is occurring as the number of children dying from infectious diseases is being reduced through the efforts of the World Health Organization and international charities, the researchers say. [More]

Women who were treated with radiation therapy to cure Wilms tumor as a child can go on to have healthy babies so long as their entire pelvis was not irradiated, according to a new study in the April 2004 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology-Biology-Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. [More]