Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Europe to tackle brain disorder research by linking industry, academia

Attempts to cure brain-related disorders have proved less successful than therapies for other major conditions such as heart cancer, even though just as many people suffer from them.

27 Nov 2007

Study looks at progesterone for Alzheimer's

The first study on progesterone and Alzheimer's disease has found no clear preventive benefit for the widely prescribed hormone in an animal model.

27 Nov 2007

Alcohol and tobacco use doesn't boost HPV-related cancer risk

Heavy smoking and drinking are known to cause head and neck cancer. Infection with human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16), a common strain of the sexually-transmitted HPV virus, is another known risk factor for head and neck cancer, which affects about 500,000 people each year worldwide.

27 Nov 2007

Scientists create mouse resistant to cancer

A mouse resistant to cancer, even highly-aggressive types, has been created by researchers at the University of Kentucky.

27 Nov 2007

Blood-vessel blocker aids cancer-killing virus

Cancer-killing viruses are a promising therapy for incurable brain tumors, but their effectiveness has been limited in part because immune cells rapidly move in and eliminate them.

27 Nov 2007

Cholera can be controlled with oral vaccines

Endemic cholera, a potentially fatal diarrheal disease found in the world's most impoverished countries, could be effectively controlled by orally vaccinating half of the affected populations once every two years for only pennies per dose, according to new findings by an international team of researchers led by Ira M. Longini Jr., Ph.D., a biostatistician in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Longini and colleagues will report their findings online Nov. 27 in PLoS Medicine.

27 Nov 2007

Special scans reveal the deadly effects of second hand smoke

Any doubts harboured about the damage second hand smoke can inflict on the health may be resolved in the minds of skeptics by the results of a new study.

27 Nov 2007

City life raises a woman's risk of breast cancer

According to a new study city living increases a woman's risk for breast cancer.

27 Nov 2007

Wyeth receives European approval for TORISEL

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth, has announced that the European Commission has approved TORISEL (temsirolimus) for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who have at least three of six prognostic risk factors. TORISEL is the only approved cancer therapy that specifically inhibits the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) kinase, an important regulator of cell proliferation, cell growth and cell survival.

27 Nov 2007

Many people mistrust Britain's NHS even though it is improving, research shows

Research carried out by Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby and Dr Andrew Wallace at the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, shows that many people mistrust the NHS even though spending has increased hugely, waiting lists have fallen rapidly and death rates in the priority areas (heart disease and cancer) have improved sharply.

27 Nov 2007

Researchers transfer immune response to myeloma patient

Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have for the first time transferred an immune response in a healthy individual to a patient with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, showing promise for cancer vaccination.

27 Nov 2007

Scientists bridge the "terahertz gap"

Going through airport security can be such a hassle. Shoes, laptops, toothpastes, watches and belts all get taken off, taken out, scanned, examined, handled and repacked. But "T-rays", a completely safe form of electromagnetic radiation, may reshape not only airport screening procedures but also medical imaging practices.

27 Nov 2007

Adding water-soluble polymer to anti-cancer drug helps reach brain tumors

Bioengineers at Yale and Cornell have created a modified chemotherapy that more effectively reaches and remains at the site of brain tumors — by adding a water-soluble polymer to the anti-cancer drug, according to a report in the November-December issue of Bioconjugate Chemistry.

27 Nov 2007

Study of Mexican Americans shows that polymorphisms of the CYP2E1 gene enhance susceptibility to alcoholism

Mexican Americans make up 66 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population and, when compared to other ethnic groups, show high rates of heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems.

27 Nov 2007

City women have denser breasts, making them more likely to develop breast cancer

Breast tissue in women may be fatty or glandular or a mixture of both. Women with more glandular breasts show denser tissue on a mammogram and are known to have nearly four times the risk of developing breast cancer than women with fatty breasts.

27 Nov 2007

Cultural differences in understanding of mammography

Black and Hispanic women have a different understanding of screening mammography compared with that of Caucasian women, according to the findings of a Boston University Medical Center survey presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

27 Nov 2007