Researchers report that a set of genetic variations in at least four regions of DNA strongly predicts prostate cancer risk and that these variations may be responsible for a large number of prostate cancer cases in white men in the United States. The research was conducted by investigators from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their partners in the Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) initiative. CGEMS researchers are scanning the entire human genome to identify common, inherited gene variations that increase the risks for breast and prostate cancers.
Everyone has known for decades that that smoking can kill, but until now no one really understood how cigarette smoke causes healthy lung cells to become cancerous. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, show that hydrogen peroxide (or similar oxidants) in cigarette smoke is the culprit. This finding may help the tobacco industry develop "safer" cigarettes by eliminating such substances in the smoke, while giving medical researchers a new avenue to developing lung cancer treatments.
A new international study finds that introducing an increased intensity of chemotherapy in children with severe Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) can reduce the mortality rate for this disorder by as much as 20 percent when the patient demonstrates a rapid response to such treatment.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Stony Brook University Medical Center has identified a family of genes linked to the development of liver cancer. Principal Investigator Wadie F. Bahou, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and colleagues discovered in a mouse model that the loss of one specific gene (Iqgap2) in this family causes Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). They also found that when another member of the gene family (Iqgap1) is turned on, a more aggressive form of the disease occurs.
In a couple where one of the partners is diagnosed with cancer, women are more consistently and severely distressed than men, regardless of whether they are the person with the disease or the healthy partner. The results of a research paper appearing in the Psychological Bulletin report that when a couple is faced with coping with a diagnosis of cancer, gender plays a greater role than who the patient is.
A new American Cancer Society study of twelve types of cancer among more than 3.5 million cancer patients finds uninsured patients were significantly more likely to present with advanced stage cancer compared to patients with private insurance. The study, which appears in the March issue of The Lancet Oncology, is the first to use national data to investigate insurance status and stage of diagnosis for a large number of cancer sites. It finds the strongest association between insurance status and advanced cancer was for cancers that can be detected early by screening or evaluation of symptoms.
How did a failed contraceptive become the first targeted therapy for the treatment of breast cancer? The transformation of tamoxifen, from cast-off to lifesaver, laid the foundation for a new class of therapeutics -- selective estrogen receptor modulators -- that could treat or prevent a variety of human diseases, including cancer and osteoporosis, according to V. Craig Jordan, OBE, Ph.D., D.Sc., a researcher at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
With the aid of computerized image analysis, it may be possible in the future for radiologists to feel images with the help of a three-dimensional mouse. Erik Vidholm at Uppsala University has been involved in developing the new technology, which makes it easier to diagnose and plan the treatment of cancer, for instance.
Research has shown that the main metabolite of the insecticide DDT could be associated with aggressive breast cancer tumours, but there has been no explanation for this observation to date. Now a new report shows how DDT could act to disrupt hormone-sensitive breast cancer cells.
