Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Health effects of isoflavones and breast cancer

Are soy products healthy additions to a person's diet, safe alternatives to hormone-replacement therapy or cancer-causing agents" The answer, according to University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor William Helferich, is, "It depends."

17 May 2007

Imported Chinese seafood not 100% safe

Adding to China's recent problems of food safety is now seafood contamination.

17 May 2007

Simple clinical criteria can eliminate pulmonary embolism risk and expense

Although clots in the lung (pulmonary embolism or PE) are the second-leading cause of sudden death in the United States, blood tests and ultrafast CT scanning to detect PE are being used on so many patients that over 90% of these tests are negative.

17 May 2007

Researchers identify the cancer stem cell for rhabdomyosarcoma

As published in the June 1 issue of Genes & Development, Dr. Leonard Zon (Children's Hospital Boston) and colleagues have identified the cancer stem cell for rhabdomyosarcoma, the most common soft-tissue sarcoma of childhood.

17 May 2007

Important new gene-silencing mechanism

Genes provide the instructions used by the individual cells to produce the many different proteins that make up the body.

17 May 2007

New findings on microRNAs

Over 30% of our genes are under the control of small molecules called microRNAs.

17 May 2007

Merits and risks of postmenopausal hormone therapy

The study was categorized as a primary prevention trial for coronary heart disease, although the fact that mean age at recruitment was 63 years was not given enough importance at that time. WHI investigators concluded that hormone therapy (HT) was not cardioprotective, and, in fact, its riskbenefit ratio did not favor the use of postmenopausal hormones for prevention of chronic diseases.

17 May 2007

Chromium 6 in drinking water may cause cancer

Researchers announced today that there is strong evidence a chemical referred to as hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6, causes cancer in laboratory animals when it is consumed in drinking water.

17 May 2007

Culture techniques can significantly affect cell growth and function

When it comes to growing cells in a lab, technique matters. A new Brown University study shows that nerve cells grown in three-dimensional cultures use 1,766 genes differently compared to nerve cells grown in standard two-dimensional petri dishes.

17 May 2007

Promoter hypermethylation is common in breast cancer

Cancer epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo have identified specific genes that are most likely to become cancer promoters when exposed to a process called DNA promoter hypermethylation.

17 May 2007

Surgeons rebuild war veteran's nose using his own body parts

It took only seconds for the Humvee to flip over and crash on a highway near Camp Bucca in southern Iraq in August 2005.

17 May 2007

Cancer cells can be killed by a new cancer drug that is triggered by a laser light

Their paper describes how these new photosensitizer drugs can only be activated by light once they have been localized in the target tumour cells. For the first time Zheng and Wilson have demonstrated that tumour cells can be selectively attacked using a PDT.

17 May 2007

Model of proline dehydrogenase created

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia recently created a model of proline dehydrogenase, an important cancer-preventing enzyme in the human body, and analyzed how it works.

17 May 2007

Multivitamins linked to prostate cancer

According to a new study men who take a large number of multivitamins might be increasing their risk of developing prostate cancer.

16 May 2007

Single dose of vitamin D may be enough to boost the immune system to fight against tuberculosis

Their findings came from a study that identified an extraordinarily high incidence of vitamin D deficiency amongst those communities in London most at risk from the disease, which kills around two million people each year.

16 May 2007

Cigarette smoking is more strongly associated with head and neck cancers than drinking alcohol

The study found that smoking is responsible for a quarter of head and neck cancers among individuals who do not drink alcohol.

16 May 2007

Boiling vegetables severely damages anticancer properties

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that the standard British cooking habit of boiling vegetables severely damages the anticancer properties of many Brassica vegetables such as broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower and green cabbage.

16 May 2007

Reducing cardiovascular disease risk factors when discontinuing HRT

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been shown to reduce many cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, but many women have stopped using HRT due to reports from the Women's Health Initiative that HRT may increase the risk of breast cancer and heart disease.

16 May 2007

Cedars-Sinai helps Doug Fieger battle brain tumors

When singer/songwriter/guitarist Doug Fieger, lead singer of The Knack, found out last year that he had two brain tumors, he was concerned that either the tumors or the side effects of surgery would leave him unable to pursue his livelihood.

16 May 2007