Leukemia News and Research

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Leukemia (Leukaemia) is a cancer of the blood cells. It is the most common type of blood cancer and affects 10 times as many adults as children. Most people diagnosed with leukemia are over 50 years old. No one knows why some people develop leukemia and others do not. However, scientists have identified some risk factors for the disease. Most people who have known risk factors do not get leukemia, while many who do get the disease have none of these risk factors. During the early stages of leukemia, there may be no symptoms. Many of the symptoms of leukemia don't become apparent until a large number of normal blood cells are crowded out by leukemia cells.

Tamoxifen kills fungus cells and may prevent them from causing disease

An FDA-approved drug used for preventing recurrence of breast cancer shows promise in fighting life-threatening fungal infections common in immune-compromised patients, such as infants born prematurely and patients with cancer. Some scientists suspected that tamoxifen has antifungal properties; now new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center shows that it actually kills fungus cells and stops them from causing disease.

20 Jul 2009

Childhood cancer risk rises with mother's age

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.

14 Jul 2009

New insight into apoptosis

A study by Nanyang Technological University (NTU)'s Assistant Professor Li Hoi Yeung, Assistant Professor Koh Cheng Gee and their team have made an important contribution to the understanding of the process that cells go through when they die. This process known as 'apoptosis' or programmed cell death, is a normal process in the human body which removes perhaps a million cells a second.

14 Jul 2009

Embryonic stem cells used to create human sperm

Human sperm have been created using embryonic stem cells for the first time in a scientific development which will lead researchers to a better understanding of the causes of infertility.

9 Jul 2009

Thiarabine shows promise for rheumatoid arthritis

Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today new preclinical data demonstrating that thiarabine shows remarkable efficacy in the prevention and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

7 Jul 2009

Potential new target for acute myeloid leukemia

Dr. John Dick, Senior Scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute, the research arm of Princess Margaret Hospital, co-led a multinational team that has developed the first leukemia therapy that targets a protein, CD123, on the surface of cancer stem cells that drive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is an aggressive disease with a poor outcome.

6 Jul 2009

Survivors of childhood cancer at greater risk of birth complications when pregnant

Survivors of childhood cancer run particular risks when pregnant and should be closely monitored, the 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology heard this week.

2 Jul 2009

Vegetarians less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters

Vegetarians are 12 per cent less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters, according to new research published in the British Journal of Cancer.

1 Jul 2009

Epigenetic modulation at birth - altered DNA-methylation in white blood cells after Caesarean section

Swedish researchers have discovered that babies born by Caesarean section experience changes to the DNA pool in their white blood cells, which could be connected to altered stress levels during this method of delivery, according to the July issue of Acta Paediatrica.

30 Jun 2009

Harnessing nanoparticles to track cancer cell changes

The more dots there are, the more accurate a picture you get when you connect them. Cancer researchers adopting that philosophy have developed a new imaging technology that could give scientists the ability to simultaneously measure as many as 100 or more distinct features in or on a single cell. In a disease such as cancer, that capability would provide a much better picture of what is going on in individual tumor cells.

28 Jun 2009

Woman's placenta new source for harvesting stem cells

A groundbreaking study conducted by Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland is the first to reveal a new avenue for harvesting stem cells from a woman's placenta, or more specifically the discarded placentas of healthy newborns.

23 Jun 2009

Parents ask lawmakers to keep kids in mind during reform debate

A group of 50 families will ask lawmakers this week to keep in mind 9 million uninsured children and many more who are underinsured when they undertake health reform this summer, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

17 Jun 2009

Estrogen receptor status may modify how a protein that spurs leukemia behaves in the breast

A protein known to play a role in growth of some types of leukemia appears to have a mixed function in breast cancer development, say researchers from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC).

13 Jun 2009

Discovery 'significant step' in understanding leukaemia drug resistance

Scientists have pinpointed an enzyme responsible for breaking down and inactivating a key childhood leukaemia drug, which could help to explain why around 20 per cent of patients do not respond to therapy. Their findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

8 Jun 2009

Prophylactic cranial irradiation prevents early lung cancer metastases to the brain

A national Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) study led by a Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center physician at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee has found that a course of radiation therapy to the brain after treatment for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer reduced the risk of metastases to the brain within the first year after treatment. The study was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Orlando, June 1.

3 Jun 2009

One in ten advanced colon cancer patients worry about prescription drug costs

The vast majority of advanced colon cancer patients in a clinical trial were not concerned about the cost of prescription drugs for managing chemotherapy side effects, such as infection, pain and nausea and few adopted strategies to reduce drug cost burdens after joining the clinical trial, according to a study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

1 Jun 2009

Protein abundant in embryonic stem cells offers a new cancer target

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.

1 Jun 2009

“Misreading” of histone code linked to human cancer

The development of blood from stem cell to fully formed blood cell follows a genetically determined program. When it works properly, blood formation stops when it reaches maturity. But when it doesn't, genetic mutations can prevent the stop signal and cause the developing cells to turn cancerous. In research published in Nature, Rockefeller University scientists show for the first time that a misreading of the blood cells' histone code is responsible for acute myeloid leukemia, a rare form of the deadly blood cancer.

1 Jun 2009

Combination of gene therapy and induced pluripotent stem cells cure human genetic disease in vitro

A study led by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has catapulted the field of regenerative medicine significantly forward, proving in principle that a human genetic disease can be cured using a combination of gene therapy and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology. The study, published in the May 31, 2009 early online edition of Nature, is a major milestone on the path from the laboratory to the clinic.

31 May 2009

FDA grants full approval for Sprycel (dasatinib) for chronic myeloid leukemia

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted full approval for Sprycel (dasatinib) for the treatment of adults in all phases of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) (chronic, accelerated, or myeloid or lymphoid blast phase) with resistance or intolerance to prior therapy including Gleevec (imatinib mesylate).

27 May 2009