http://localhost:1115/MSCC/rss.xml http://localhost:1115/MSCC/images/edc_logo.jpghttp://www.mscc.in9754 http://www.google.co.in/search?rls=ig&hl=en&source=hp&q=mazumdar+shaw+cancer+centre&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&rlz=1W1WZPA_en&aq=0&aqi=g5g-s2g3&aql=&oq=Mazum&gs_rfai= Content http://www.google.com Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center Head Neck news Content Two conjoined twins were separated successfully after a marathon surgery here at Narayana Hrudayalaya Multi-speciality Hospital.click here... To give advice on how to make services affordable was member of governing council ofMedical Council of India(MCI) and chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya, Dr Devi Shetty, who said: Indiawill have a model healthcare system in five years. We have a population of 1.2 billion people and 28 million babies are born every year. Fifty per cent of our population is less than 25 years old. It's a huge strength. When I was a medical student, I was told that healthcare inIndiais going to be very expensive. But look atAmericanow, 50% of the population doesn't have decent medical care,.click here... Narayana Hrudayalaya and the Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre said they have tied up with SANA, a research group at Harvard/MIT, to try out smart phone-based detection of oral cancer and other diseases.Medical personnel of the cancer centre and two hospitals in Bangalore and Raichur have started screening high-risk individuals for oral cancer using smart phones with camera.Read more... Narayana Hrudayalaya has been selected by the US-based National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) to source Matched Unrelated Donor (MUD) stem cells for the treatment of life-threatening conditions. Narayana Hrudayalaya signed an MoU with the Central University of Orissa which shall pave way for enhanced cooperation between the two centres in medical education, clinical expertise and research..Read more... Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH) on Thursday announced its first successful matched unrelated donor (MUD) stem cell transplant in Karnataka, which is performed in only three or four transplant centers in the country. A 58-year-old woman was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia almost a year ago, and was initially treated with chemotherapy to which she responded. However, within six months, she had recurrence of the disease and at this point, her only hope for a cure was an allogeneic stem cell transplant. Since she had two brothers and two sisters, doctors at NH went ahead with the process of HLA typing of the patient and the siblings. However, it was found that none of the siblings matched the patients' stem cells. National Marrow Donor Programme (NMDP), a US-based NGO was contacted to find out, if there is possibility of getting any other donor. A donor search was initiated through the NMDP, and in three months, a suitable matched donor was available who was free to undergo stem cell pheresis in theUS.Read more... Obesity is known to increase the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes and breathing difficulties during sleep. While dieting and physical exercise are the mainstays of treatment for obesity, many studies conducted abroad reveal that the success ratio of the two combined is minimal, underlining that the long-term effects of dieting, exercise and even medical therapy on obesity are relatively poor. Read more... A new development in testing for cervical cancer could lead to more lives being saved, scientists have suggested. A study carried out by American and British researchers on about 47,000 women appeared to show that the new cobas 4800 HPV test improved the detection of pre-cancerous cells in women whose cervical smears tested normal.Read more... The incidence of breast cancer is rising in metropolitan cities.If there is enough awareness among women about how to keep a tab on these risk factors, then we can combat the disease easily. Late detection and lack of awareness are a major problem in India where one in 22 women is likely to develop breast cancer, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).Read more... Bangalore: Medical tourism is old hat. Now, foreign doctors visiting India is a growing trend. As many as 48 (almost three a month) international doctors who registered with the Karnataka Medical Council in 2010, visit hospitals in Bangalore. These doctors, who come from various countries including smaller ones like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia, stay here for a few months to a year to perform surgeries together or even to train themselves. As per KMC records, the trend is on the rise.Read more... Rates of lung cancer in women have soared in a sign that efforts to persuade them to quit smoking have failed, new research has revealed. While the number of cases in men has fallen, the killer disease was shown to be claiming a growing number of victims among the opposite sex.Read more VMAT from Elekta Medical Systems India Pvt Ltd is an advanced radiotherapy optimisation which allows the radiation dose to be delivered accurately and efficiently in significantly shorter treatment time. VMAT is being touted as the next generation arc therapy technique that establishes new standards for radiation therapy treatment speed and dose reduction to the patient. VMAT treatment is specially recommended for patients who cannot lie still for long time and the movement can impair the delivery of radiation. It is also beneficial for patients undergoing re-irradiation as the sharp fall off of dose in the proximity of previous treated fields can be achieved. Elekta VMAT also offers flexibility of using single arc or where clinically indicated, multiple arcs to optimise target dose delivery for different patients and pathologies.Read more... Dispur today announced an ambitious scheme to introduce technology-based healthcare services in the state to overcome shortage of doctors and ensure fast and affordable treatment for patients. Health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said technology could play a crucial role in the healthcare sector and Assam would fully exploit the same. He said the government was in touch with several leading IT firms in the country to use technology in radiological investigation in all medical colleges and district hospitals in Assam. Read more... Breast cancer accounts for 10.4 percent of all cancer incidence among women, making it the most common type of non-skin cancer in women. Women below the age of 35 years, who have been using oral contraceptive pills for more than 10 years, are at an increased risk of developing breast cancer. So consult a doctor before popping those pills.Read more... A protein that regulates prostate stem cell self-renewal and also plays a role in the transformation of healthy cells into prostate cancer cells has been identified by U.S. scientists. The findings, which involve the Bmi-1 protein, could prove important in efforts to find ways to control cancer growth and progression, according to the research team, from the University of California, Los Angeles. Previous research had found that Bmi-1 is associated with higher-grade cancers and is predictive of poor patient outcomes. But until now, its role in prostate stem cell maintenance and prostate cancer have not been clear.Read more... It's a rare occurrence in medical history and has a complicated treatment method that has rarely been tried in the country. Cardiac cancer, which is usually triggered by tumours on the chest wall or in the heart, has been successfully treated in a Kolkata hospital. Two patients were operated upon last month to surgically remove the affected tissues in the heart, which has saved their lives. Even though doctors don't rule out the possibility of a relapse (metastasis) which could be fatal, the feat is being looked upon as a major breakthrough in the treatment of this rare form of cancer.Read more... A daily dose of baby aspirin may reduce mortality from a range of common cancers by an average of 21%, with the reduction persisting for at least 20 years. Deadly cases of stomach, colorectal and esophageal cancers all declined among people who took low-dose aspirin for 10 to 20 years, according to a study published online in the journal Lancet. The chewable tablets also were linked to a reduced risk of death from adenocarcinoma and from lung cancer in nonsmokers.Read more Researchers have reported that the sun's ultraviolet light activates an enzyme that helps skin cancer cells survive and proliferate. Skin cells normally make protein kinase D to help regulate growth needed to replace cells that are constantly sloughing off.Read more... Contrary to conventional wisdom, lifting weights doesn't cause breast cancer survivors to develop the painful, arm-swelling condition known as lymphedema, new research suggests. There's a hint that weight-lifting might even help prevent lymphedema, but more research is needed to say that for sure, the researchers said.Read more... Five to ten years back, for corporates eying Eastern India, there was no better place than Kolkata for setting up private healthcare institutes. And why not? Besides the yawning demand supply gap, the well-established medical infrastructure, Kolkata has always been the gateway to the East that received a regular stream of patients from the North Eastern states and even from the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. However, in the last few years, private hospital groups with their feet firmly set in Kolkata have been found scouting for newer destinations for augmenting their network and their search has ended with Siliguri in Darjeeling district of West Bengal (WB).Read more Maastricht University, a global university in Netherlands is now gearing up to tap the translational research partnership opportunities with leading life sciences and medical research centres in the country.Click here... Research is underway at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) to develop herbal drug that would help in curbing cancer cells. This herbal drug, if taken in combination with allopathic medicine, will help in reducing the toxicity and curbing the growth of the cancer cells.Read more... Ovarian cancer screening only slightly reduces the number of deaths from the disease. Until more sensitive screening tests can be developed, other strategies, such as better prevention and treatment, are needed to significantly reduce deaths from ovarian cancer.Read more A more accurate genetic test for prostate cancer is being devised, offering hope to thousands of men. Using DNA information will improve the reliability of the blood test routinely used to spot signs of the killer disease, researchers say.Read more Stem cell research is an emerging interdisciplinary field of research with a clinical application that is focused on the repair, replacement or regeneration of cells, tissues or organs, to restore impaired function. India is one of the few countries in the world pursuing stem cell research, but regenerative medicine comprising stem cell therapies and tissue engineered products is at a nascent stage in the country. Moreover, they are primarily autologous therapies; the stem cell based therapy on the autologous mode is evolving as the new branch of therapy to address a spectrum of clinical disorders, for which traditional medicine does not offer any cure. Read more... An advanced type of body scan could help doctors decide when a man with slow-growing prostate cancer needs treatment. Many men diagnosed with early prostate cancer that is not immediately life threatening undergo active surveillance. Doctors monitor their condition with biopsies and blood tests and only start aggressive treatment if the tumour starts to grow more quickly. Read more India Semiconductor Association (ISA), the trade body representing the Indian semiconductor and electronics industry presented a report on Current status and potential for medical electronics in India. The report that details its findings on the opportunities in the Indian medical electronics field was released by Dr. Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya in the presence of Dr. Bobby Mitra, ISA chairman, Poornima Shenoy, ISA president and Vivek Sharma, convener of the ISA Medical Electronics Segment. Some of the key findings in the report indicate that the Indian medical electronics market growth is taking place due to some key features which are unique to India such as changing demographics and age profile which is prone to spend more on healthcare; rise of lifestyle diseases and the need for their diagnosis; increasing awareness leading to the growth of preventive healthcare; increase in healthcare spend due to increase in healthcare insurance; growth in medical tourism to address international needs; and entry of corporates into the healthcare arena.Read more Mariam, a three-and-a-half-year-old baby from Oman was suffering from leukaemia and only a bone marrow transplant could save her. Though her eight-year-old brother Abdullah was the donor, they had to travel all the way to Bengaluru for the advanced facilities and treatment options available here. The bone marrow transplant from one sibling to another was successfully done about 10 days ago at a city hospital and Mariam has now been shifted to a ward. Read more Cancer patients who continue to smoke despite their diagnosis experience greater pain than nonsmokers.Investigators surveyed 224 patients with a range of cancer diagnoses. Patients completed self-report measures of pain severity, pain-related distress, and pain-related interference, as well as a demographics questionnaire. Read more Overexpression or hyperactivation of ErbB cell-surface receptors drives the growth of many breast cancers. Drugs, like Herceptin, that block the receptors signals halt tumor progression in some patients. However, not all patients tumors respond, with some becoming resistant over time. Different drugs that interfere with other steps in the signaling pathway may improve the response of patients, yet little is known about these molecules.Read more Scientists are designing treatment plans and medicines by using nanotechnology to fight cancer. Nanotechnology allows doctors to improve the quality and effectiveness of medicines and use a treatment that is more effective, but less invasive and toxic.Read more Tests are underway on a new device that some doctors think will prevent cancer patients from losing their hair during chemotherapy. The idea that cooling the head would prevent hair loss has been batted around in scientific circles for decades. A few such devices have been tested over the years and none has completely stopped hair loss or was successful in all people.Read more Breath sensor could offer on-the-spot cancer report. Researchers say theyve used nanoparticles to create a material sensitive enough to analyze a patients breath in real time and detect indicators of cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. Diagnostic breath-analysis tools have been around for several decades, this is the first time a material has been developed thats sensitive enough to deliver on-the-spot results. Read more Lung cancer screening using computed tomography (CT) scans can be effective in high risk populations if it follows a strict clinical protocol supported by a multidisciplinary care team. This conclusion is drawn after conducting a clinical trial in a high-risk local population with rates of histoplasmosis three times higher than the national average. Read more Cancer treatments that normally come with a huge bill could soon include a new type of treatment that could possibly be as effective as it is inexpensive. Researchers have been trying to make a material using nanoparticles that could be so sensitive that doctors would be able to use our breath to detect indicators cancer, diabetes, and other important illnesses in real time. Breath-analyzers detect changes in the conductance of gases like our breath as it passes over sensors. The things that cause changes in the sensors would be biomarkers, or substances that are typically warning signs of the illnesses named above plus other conditions as well. Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and also at Purdue University told CNET that although breath-analyzers have been around, this would be the first time someone has come up with a sensitivity level that could be efficient. It was done by trying to increase the surface area of the sensor, and replacing a flat surface with some material that made an incredibly porous metal-oxide film. According to NIST and Purdue University, the main element allowing this was due to using a coating of metal-oxide nanoparticles that allowed tons of things to be involved. Doing this, researchers now can run better studies because the sensitivity level increases along with the actual active part of the surface.Read more Taking on an exercise programe could also reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other cancers. And regular physical activity can even be beneficial after a cancer diagnosis has already been made. Read more Scientists have been testing broccoli extract on human volunteers and mice, which showed their skin was protected against sunburn. Broccoli contains sulforaphane, an antioxidant, which helps stop sunburn and tumour development. Read more A new breakthrough in cancer research could soon allow doctors to detect cancerous tumors early, without invasive procedures like mammograms or colonoscopies. This test can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy cells. Stray cancer cells could mean that a tumor is spreading. Read more Scientists at The University of Texas have discovered a protein that arrests an enzyme that may worsen and spread cancer. They also found that the same deactivation of the enzyme called EZH2 is necessary for the formation of bone-forming cells from the stem cells that make them and other tissues. Read more A new, more accurate way to identify pre-cancerous cells in the lining of the oesophagus uses a tiny light source and sensors at the end of an endoscope. Acid reflux occurs when stomach acid splashes, or refluxes, up into the oesophagus.Long periods of acid reflux can change the cells that line the oesophagus, making them appear more like intestinal cells than oesophageal cells. Read more Green tea could be a far more powerful medicine for fighting cancer and dementia.Scientists were astounded at how effectively compounds within the drink, once they reached the gut, protected cells from attack. The green tea not only battled against toxins that allow plaques to build up in the brain, which lead to Alzheimers, but it also stopped cancer cells from dividing. Read more Colonoscopies do not have blind spots they reduce colon cancer risk not only on the left side of the colon, but also on the right side, researchers from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg revealed in an article published in Annals of Internal Medicine. A colonoscopy is a test that allows the doctor to have an inside look at the patients colon and rectum. The physician uses a flexible tube, called a colonoscope, with a camera at the end. As the camera moves through the rectum the doctor watches everything on a monitor (screen) the colonoscope can reach right to the end of the colon. The colonoscopy helps the doctor identify any abnormality, take a biopsy, or even remove a polyps there and then. Read more Using specific silicon microdevices might provide a new way to screen breast cancer cells ability to metastasize.Any change in the cytoskeletal structure can affect the interaction of cells with their surrounding microenvironments. Biological events in normal cells such as embryonic development, tissue growth and repair, and immune responses, as well as cancer cell motility and invasiveness are dependent upon cytoskeletal reorganization. Read more Malignant cells from the prostate gland had migrated according to a familiar pattern and left identifiable scars. Proteins extracted from the bone tested positive for PSA, prostate specific antigen. Medical science Though thought of as a modern disease, cancer has always been with us. Where scientists disagree is on how much it has been amplified. Archaeologists have made about 200 possible cancer sightings dating to prehistoric times. Read more A new research may have opened doors to significant implications in the treatment and intervention of cancer and obesity. The findings suggest that this molecule is potentially an interesting pharmaceutical target in many diseases, including cancer. Read more The medicine, a combination of camels milk and urine, has been tested on mice and will later be tested on human beings. The camels immune system was rejuvenating itself every time they took samples of milk and urine, making it one of the strongest immune systems. Read more The defective gene was a double-edged sword. While surgical removal is the primary way to combat these cancers, patients can also undergo anti-cancer therapies to kill off any cancer cells left behind or tumours which surgeons could not reach. Read more India is going all out against cancer the non-communicable disease (NCD) that affects 10 lakh new Indians every year and kills four lakh. The Union health ministry is launching a national programme, which will not only help diagnose cancer cases early among the general population but also provide chemotherapy free of cost. At present, the two biggest problems with cancer control are that the majority of the cases are diagnosed in the last stage while those who are diagnosed cant afford the high costs of treatment in form of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Read more Ongoing clinical trials have shown that a peptide known as PHSCN can slow or prevent the spread of metastatic breast cancer in over a third of patients treated with the drug. This drug works by binding to an activated receptor found on the surface of breast tumor cells but not normal cells. Read more Renal cancer is among the 10 most common cancers in both men and women.Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) accounts for 90% of kidney cancer cases with clear cell RCC (ccRCC) being the most prevalent subtype. Researchers have found a genetic mutation that occurs in one in three patients with this type of cancer, a finding that is critical to finding treatment for the disease. Team of researchers previously identified the role of the VHL gene and SETD2 in an inherited form of kidney cancer known as sporadic renal cell carcinoma. These three genes are all involved in altering the chromatin structure that holds DNA together and their location allows cancer to reduce the number of genetic events needed to hit and inactivate all three genes. Read more Scientists have discovered a novel peptide that can act as a potent inducer of cancer cell death, which may have significant implications for therapeutic agents used to treat cancer. Researchers suggested that the amphipathic tail-anchoring peptide, or ATAP, might provide more successful outcomes in cancer treatment than the BH3 peptide-based therapy currently used. Read more... In an audacious twist on the concept of fighting fire with fire, scientists have developed a provocative strategy of fighting cancer with cancer. Researchers are taking tumor cells from mice, encapsulating them in beads made from a seaweed-derived sugar called agarose, and implanting them in the abdomen of cancer patients. There, cells in the beads secrete proteins researchers believe could signal a patients cancer to stop growing, shrink or even die. Read more It is discovered a rogue gene which helps cancer spread around the body and blocking it with the right kind of drugs could stop many types of the disease in their tracks. The challenge now is to identify a potent drug that will get inside cancer cells and destroy the activity of the rogue gene.Read more A device that filters free floating cancer cells from the body could mean a new treatment option for ovarian cancer. The device provides a way to extend lives of patients with ovarian cancer while continuing other treatments. The machine that is used outside of the body lowers the chances that a patient will develop secondary tumors that can complicate cancer treatment. One can remove the primary cancer, but the problem is metastasis. A good deal of the metastasis in ovarian cancer comes from cancer cells sloughing off into the abdominal cavity and spreading the disease that way. Read more A new, highly accurate genetic test that can predict whether some women with breast cancer will suffer a relapse is discovered. The test is reported to be superior than an existing test, and has the potential to spare women at a very low risk of relapse of breast cancer from undergoing toxic chemotherapy. ncreasingly, oncologists are zeroing in on the genetic underpinnings of cancer. For breast cancer, that means testing for things like the HER2/neu gene, and consequently tailoring a drug therapy like Herception for that type of disease. Read more Immunosuppressives seem to hold exciting promise in cancer treatment. One particular antibiotic could become an anti-cancer agent too, it is hoped. Immunosuppressive drugs can form a part of treatment of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or HIV, which arise from inappropriate immune responses. In such instances, the bodys immune system attacks the body, instead of attacking foreign cells. It is to inhibit such a response, the immunosuppressives are pressed into service. Such drugs are also used in organ transplant. Read more Scientists have made a breakthrough in the battle against prostate cancer.They have pinpointed a protein that stops cancerous cells from growing and even drives them to kill themselves. Now researchers have shown that FUS, which occurs naturally in cells, can stem the growth of prostate tumour cells in a dish and trigger a series of reactions that leads to their death. Read more Dogs have always been well known for their sensory organs and thus, this is the only animal used to detect humans, bombs, drugs etc. Dog sensory organs have once again created history after a Japan researcher has declared that dogs apparently can detect colorectal cancer. Dog was able to detect Colorectal Cancer even in people who were smokers and stomach disease patients. The test was undertaken three times, The results of all tests were correct, thereby suggesting that a specific cancer scent indeed exists. Read more Nanoparticles, ranging from 29 to 230 nanometers across, could be used to trap antibodies to the virus causing cervical cancer or to the bacteria that cause potentially deadly diarrhoea. Scientists said it was not so difficult to immobilize on nanoparticles, synthetic or monoclonal antibodies that respond to the human papilloma virus, HPV18, and the toxic gut microbe Escherichia coli O157:H7. Once the antibodies are trapped, they can be exposed to a potentially contaminated sample. If pathogen particles are present, some will stick to the antibodies and this change can then be detected by a conventional test or analysis. Read more Moderate physical exercises can help reduce the risk of cancers such as breast cancer and colon cancer, the World Health Organization said on the World Cancer Day Friday. In a report, WHO recommended moderate intensity aerobic physical activities of at least 150 minutes a week, for all people aged 18 and over, which has proven effective in bring down risks to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). For the 5 to 17-age group, the WHO said at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activities can serve to prevent such diseases from building-up. Physical activity has a strong role to play in reducing the incidence of certain cancers, said Ala Alwan, WHO assistant director-general for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health. Read more A small piece of RNA forms a big roadblock for breast cancer cells trying to spread away from the original tumor. The findings are important for understanding the basic biology of how tumor cells migrate. Cancers spread, or metastasis, to other parts of the body is one of the main reasons cancer kills. So stopping tumor cells from spreading could be an important step in fighting the disease. If we can get to this level, we could cure cancer. Read more A groundbreaking radiotherapy device which could transform the way some cancer patients are treated is due to go into service. The machine, the Novalis Tx, will enable doctors to treat patients with tumours virtually anywhere in the body in just a single session. The device uses a satnav like targeting system to destroy cancerous cells and helps to protect surrounding healthy tissue. Read more A revolutionary device that can cure cancer for some patients in just one 15-minute session will soon be available. The ground-breaking gadget uses a sat nav targeting system to accurately destroy cancerous cells, while helping to safeguard the rest of the body from damage. The Novalis Tx machine could provide a cure for those with inoperable tumours. Read more If you suffer from allergies, take heart: Researchers say you may be less likely to develop a tough-to-treat brain cancer, possibly because your immune system is on high alert. Researchers have published conflicting studies about whether people with allergies and autoimmune disorders (which cause the immune system to attack the body) have a lower risk of developing the tumors. The researchers found that patients with both high- and low-grade tumors were more likely to report no allergies than the other patients. And the more allergies someone had, the lower their odds of having gliomas.Read more Scientists have unlocked the genetic secrets of prostate tumours. The breakthrough could transform the treatment of the disease which affects 35,000 men a year and kills more than 10,000. Analysis of these rearrangements revealed genes tied to the formation and growth of the disease. Drugs that target some of these genes are already in development and could offer new hope for prostate cancer patients. Read more A breakthrough could help reduce heart failure among cancer patients worldwide and increase survival rates, researchers claim. Scientists have discovered the role of an enzyme which, when a patient receives chemotherapy, can cause serious damage to the heart.This has, until now, restricted the amount of chemotherapy doses a patient can receive. But while protecting the heart, this dilutes its effectiveness in destroying cancerous tumours, the journal Cancer Research reports. Read more Scientists have found that two tumor inhibiting drugs can increase the progression-free survival time for patients suffering from a rare type of pancreatic cancer. The pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor is a rare form of pancreatic cancer though it has a better prognosis than the more common, and deadlier, form of cancer known as adenocarcinoma. While the progression free survival time for those with neuroendocrine tumor is just over five months, the researchers found that the two drugs, everolimus and sunitinib, increased it by more than six months. Read more Sticky tape could soon be used as a simple, cheap and quick tool to diagnose skin cancer, say scientists. The study has shown the cells can be analysed using a simple genetic screening technique to reveal if the growth is cancerous and how dangerous it is. The scientists demonstrated how normal skin cells contain 17 specific genes proving they are healthy. But when cancer is present, these genes subtly mutate. Laboratory test of skin cells collected on the sticky tape can reveal any unusual changes in the genes that would indicate cancer. Read more Aiming to bring together scientists, clinicians and governmental policy makers for cancer prevention under one umbrella to discuss ways to contain the burden of cancer, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center and Narayana Hrudayalaya are conducting a four-day workshop, Indo-US Translational Cancer Prevention and Biomarker 2011, from Monday. Read more Many women with breast cancer will no longer face a potentially devastating side effect of their cancer surgery, as the conclusions of a newly published study about the need to remove underarm lymph nodes are taken to heart by breast surgeons. The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that women who underwent lumpectomies for tumors of less than 2 inches and whose lymph nodes did not have obvious signs of disease, showed no difference in survival if many lymph nodes were removed or if only their sentinel nodes were removed. Surgeons will still remove one to three sentinel nodes, the first nodes that drain lymphatic fluid from the breast, to see if the cancer is spreading beyond the breast. Finding cancer in those nodes indicates that disease cells have migrated and could cause metastases elsewhere. Such patients almost always are treated with chemotherapy. Read more New research has found that a natural chemical found in red wine can help boost a common cancer drugs ability to suppress breast cancer cells. Scientists have discovered that when the drug rapamycin is used in combination with the compound resveratrol, the drug is better able to act as a tumor suppressant against growing breast cancer cells. Some cancer cells are able to develop a resistance to rapamycin alone, but adding resveratrol to the treatment makes for an anti-tumor effect. Read more People who take drugs called bisphosphonates to prevent bone loss may also reduce their risk of developing colorectal cancer by almost 60 percent compared to those not on the drugs. The researchers found that taking bisphosphonates, mostly Fosamax, for at least a year was associated with a significant 59 percent reduction in relative risk for colorectal cancer. The lowered risk of colorectal cancer seen with bisphosphonates may be due to the way the drug acts in the body, which is similar to how cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins work. Read more There is no denying the fact that cases of cervical cases have been rising. As per records, out of the 6,000 new cancer patients detected in the city each year, around 1,000 are women who suffer from this disease. However, cervical cancer is curable if detected in early stages. One of the major risk factors that leads to such changes is the human pappilloma virus (HPV). HPV is a group of viruses that can infect the cervix. It is one of the causes of nearly all cervical cancers. The virus is transmitted through sexual contact and if it persists for a longer duration in the genital tract then it becomes infectious. Mostly, women from rural background, least aware about the importance of hygiene of the genital organs, are prone to the disease. Smoking slightly increases the risk of cervical cancer. Infection with HIV, or taking drugs that suppress the immune system also increase the risk. Cervical cancer is more common among women who do not go for regular Pap tests. The Pap test helps doctor to find abnormal cells. If the cellular changes are diagnosed early then killing the cells before turning cancerous can prevent cervical cancer. Doctors say women can reduce the risk of cervical cancer by regular Pap test. Read more A GENE which causes aggressive breast cancer has been found by scientists. Named ZNF703, it is responsible for about 4,000 cases a year, or one in 12 of the total. It causes the disease by speeding up a cells growth rate, making it and daughter cells divide permanently. Experts said the discovery, which is the first of its kind in five years, could lead to better treatments. Read more Group of 699 patients who were all either middle-aged or older. Out of that group, 388 of them were said to be suffering from prostate cancer during the study. The idea was to see if there was any correlation between early baldness and prostate cancer later in life. What researchers found is that people who developed baldness early, in their 20s, were far more likely to suffer from prostate cancer later in life. The belief is that this is due to high testosterone levels in these people, as well as genetic traits that are linked between the two diseases. Overall, the risk of prostate cancer later in life for these men who developed premature baldness was said to be doubled. Prostate cancer is extremely common, and kill a quarter-million people each and every year. Read more Cancer is an unusual or abnormal uncoordinated growth of tissue beyond the normal tissue in any particular area of the body. There are organs of the body that are highly susceptible to it. It affects virtually every part of the body. It is important to note that those ones that are very common are cancer that could be prevented, but if it is not prevented one can improve the survival rate through early detection. Much of these can come around through awareness. You need to know what it is all about before you talk of people going for the screening to detect it and get the precautions that you need, to ensure that you are not down from cancer, because it has become a major problem in our society. Cancer is a disease that affects virtually everybody, male and female; black or white; young or old. Specific cancer affects different age groups and sexes. It is not a new disease but a disease that has been neglected overtime because much attention was not paid to it. This is borne out of the fact that, it is a slow developing disease. Because it does not usually come down with immediate issues that one would report to the hospital or screening centres, so people tend to neglect it. Most times cancers are yet to be known even to the person having it. It is when they are late that is when they begin to manifest symptoms. But at the early stages they do not manifest anything. So people do not have any cause to go to the hospital. It is on the rise and also becoming a very major killer of men, women and children. Read more The enzyme lysyl oxidase-like 2 (LOXL2) is needed for tumour cells to escape from the breast and invade surrounding tissue, thereby allowing cancer cells to travel to distant organs. Using laboratory models, the team showed that blocking the function of LOXL2 significantly decreased the spread of the cancer from the breast to the lungs, liver and bone. Study suggests that drugs which block this enzyme may be effective in preventing patients cancer from spreading, lead researcher Dr Janine Erler said. In Britain alone, around 12,000 women die from breast cancer each year, mostly because their cancer has spread to other parts of their body. In 2008, 47,693 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Read more A recent study finds that the primary active ingredient in marijuana tetracannabinol, or THC may help cancer patients improve their appetites and sleep habits. While the overall caloric intake between subjects in the control and experimental groups did not significantly vary, many who were given the THC pill reported that they found the food that they did eat tasted better. They also reported improved patterns of sleep and relaxation. These findings are not considered to be revolutionary, but they may serve to further the cause of individuals and organizations which advocate the use of medicinal marijuana. Read more High-resolution images from a laser-based tool could help doctors better diagnose melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The tool probes skin cells using two lasers to pump small amounts of energy, less than that of a laser pointer, into a suspicious mole.For the first time, scientists have the ability to identify substantial chemical differences between cancerous and healthy skin tissues. Using the amount of eumelanin as a diagnostic criterion, the team used the tool to correctly identify all eleven melanoma samples in the study. Read more Detecting breast cancer in its earliest stages is very important to treating it and long-term survival. So what if you could diagnose breast cancer even before a mammogram picks up a small lump. Well, in a preliminary study of a few dozen women, doctors were able to diagnose breast cancer with a simple breath test. People with cancer have small amounts of telltale chemicals in the breath and now new technology can pick up those chemicals. Read more An international team of scientists,has discovered the reason why a rare skin cancer called multiple self-healing squamous epithelioma (MSSE), heals by itself. The scientists said understanding how tumours that lack the gene known as TGFBR1 behave will help them predict the clinical effects of drugs that target these cancer-promoting or cancer-inhibiting signals. Read more... Cancer can be notoriously difficult to spot, so scientists are working to develop new techniques to better detect tumors in the body. Such tools could potentially identify cancer cells more reliably and earlier than currently available methods, such as mammography, biopsies and magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. Improved detection methods could help speed up treatment decisions and monitor whether a therapy is working. Current cancer-detection methods have limitations. Some technologies, like mammography used for screening for breast cancer, can only detect cancerous tumors after they have grown to a certain size. With biopsies, in which samples of tissue are removed for study, only a portion of the sample is examined; it is too time consuming and expensive to look at the entire biopsy. And, because tissues are sampled randomly from suspicious regions, it is hit-or-miss whether the biopsies actually capture any cancerous cells that may be present. MRIs are more sensitive than mammography but are more expensive and have some limitations on image quality. Read more Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy may be able to avoid the accompanying muscle loss and malnutrition by taking fish oil supplements that contain omega-3 fatty acids, new research suggests. The finding is based on a small study involving just 40 lung cancer patients. Nevertheless, it raises hope that a simple, noninvasive intervention might go a long way towards countering the fatigue, poorer prognosis and impaired quality of life that can result from chemo-induced muscle mass loss. Fish oil may prevent loss of weight and muscle by interfering with some of the pathways that are altered in advanced cancer.Read more Service tax on healthcare totally unjustified. Letter The budget proposal to levy a 5% service tax on all services provided by centrally air-conditioned clinical establishments has stirred up a storm. Industry insiders say unless the government supports the sector, healthcare will be unaffordable for 90% of the population.Read more The question seemed simple enough: Should women in their 40s be advised to get routine mammograms in the hopes of catching breast cancers while they are still small and, presumably, easier to treat? But the more an expert panel of doctors, nurses and preventive health specialists studied the data, the harder it was to come up with an answer. Without screening, 3.5 out of every 1,000 women ages 40 to 49 will die of breast cancer in the next 10 years; regular mammography can reduce that number to 3. The panel calculated that to save one life among women in this age group, 1,900 women must be screened annually for 10 years. The other 1,899 women will receive no benefit from mammography over that period, though they will field 1,330 call-backs for reassessment and 665 breast biopsies, and eight of them will be diagnosed with cancers whose prognosis will not be altered by detection via mammogram either because they would never become dangerous or because they are so aggressive that theres little to be done. Read more With over 366 million Indian women over 15 at risk for developing cervical cancer, an Indian American specialist says regular pre-cancer screening can prevent this killer disease. Cervical cancer is the most common cancer afflicting women in India and almost 73,000 women die from the disease each year, Of the estimated 530,000 cervical cancer cases globally per year, India contributes over 134,000 cases, representing more than one-fourth of the worlds cervical cancer burden. Read more Metastatic liver disease more frequently develops metachronous metastasis following treatment of CRC. It was reported that hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection finally reduces the risk of intrahepatic metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with a higher survival rate and therefore can be considered an important prognostic factor for HCC patients. Rare reports are available on the relation between HBV infection and hepatic metastasis of CRC. Read more Nearly one in four ovarian cancers are inherited, say researchers who are developing a gene-based blood test to identify women with these hereditary cancers. The test, which looks for variations in 22 genes known or suspected to predispose women to ovarian cancer, isnt ready for prime time yet.But if results of the new study can be replicated and the test becomes commercially available, it would be a big advance over the current genetic screen. Read more Scientists are enlisting salmonella, a deadly bug that turns thousands of people sick every year, to do the unthinkable fight cancer! researchers believe the bug may be a valuable tool in the fight against cancer in organs surrounding the gut, namely the liver, spleen, and colon, since thats where salmonella naturally infects the body. Trials in animals have already shown salmonella can successfully control tumours in the gut. Human clinical trials are already underway, showing promise.Scientists have known for centuries that cancer patients sometimes get better after theyve been exposed to an infection. Read more Tamoxifen, taken by certain women as a preventive measure against breast cancer, saves lives and reduces medical costs. That is the conclusion of a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The studys results suggest that the benefits of tamoxifen to prevent cancer can sufficiently compensate for its side effects in post-menopausal women under age 55 years who have an increased risk of developing breast cancer. Research has shown that tamoxifen can protect against breast cancer for years after treatment ends, but identifying the group of women who can most benefit from the drug as a cancer preventive agent, without experiencing serious side effects, is a challenge. Side effects of the drug can include pulmonary embolism, endometrial cancer, deep vein thrombosis, and cataracts, as well as hot flashes and early menopause. Read more New research shows a painstaking surgical technique can help some men deemed infertile because of childhood cancer treatment to become fathers after all. Many of the cancer treatments that can save lives also leave survivors infertile. Young men can bank sperm if theyre told in time, but many arent. And experiments to find options for children diagnosed before puberty are only now beginning. Surgeons essentially perform tiny biopsies of testicular tissue to hunt any pockets of hidden sperm, which then are used in standard in vitro fertilization to attempt a partners pregnancy. Read more Although colorectal cancer can often be prevented, it is one of the leading causes of cancer death.Colon cancer can be prevented if it is caught early. When it is found at its earliest, most treatable stage, colon cancer has a 90 percent survival rate.Screening now includes a choice, giving people an option of either a colonoscopy or a stool test. Screening that can prevent colon cancer by removal of precancerous polyps: Colonoscopy every 10 years Screening that can detect early stage treatable colon cancer: Fecal immunochemical test (FIT) every year. Read more Scientists have developed a tiny white breath mint-like little capsule that can track the growth of a tumour without repeated invasive procedures.The device is small enough to fit inside a needle and implant in the body during a biopsy. Magnetic nanoparticles fill the capsules hollow interior, each sporting a few monoclonal antibodies. These are proteins engineered to bind to molecules of interest, such as human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a hormone that tumour cells overproduce in testicular and ovarian cancers. Read more... Survivors of oral cancer today joined health groups in reaching out to MPs, and urging them to push the Centre into taking long-overdue steps to curb the use of tobacco. Public health specialists who had organised the meeting said such interactions are intended to influence policy-makers who can push the government into implementing obligations on tobacco control that it has consistently tried to avoid. Anti-tobacco activists believe sections of the tobacco industry are lobbying the government to stall such measures. Already we see regressive steps the warnings were to be on both sides, theyre on one side, the size of the warnings is also smaller than what was originally proposed, said Gupta. Read more Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Centre, part of the Narayana Hrudayalaya Health City project has now brought in a novel concept to avoid unnecessary scars and mutilation of the breast. Oncologists at Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Centre are able to remove lump in the breast less than 2.5 cm and is not malignant clinically adopting a fine needle aspiration cytology. The procedure is simple and performed safely under local anaesthesia using a vacuum assisted device called the Mammotome, stated Dr Anthony Pais, Breast Cancer Surgeon and Head of the Dedicated Breast Cancer Unit.Read more... Scientists have found sunflower proteins and their processing machinery are hijacked to make rogue protein rings in a discovery that could open the door to cheaper, plant-based drug manufacturing. The study, published overnight in the international journal Nature Chemical Biology, showed that the machinery used to process and mature otherwise dull seed storage proteins is commandeered by a protein ring, SFTI, for its own use.While this work is of interest to researchers by providing an understanding of how new proteins can evolve and how proteins are matured, it has wider applications for drug production. SFTI can be used in its natural form to block breast cancer enzymes, and in a modified form to block enzymes associated with other types of cancer. These proteins have not been broadly adopted by drug designers despite their potential to fight cancer because of the expense of producing them using traditional, synthetic manufacturing methods.Read more Quincy (Mass.) Medical Center has been tapped to conduct a new clinical trial that would assess the efficacy of a GI device aimed at detecting more abnormalities during colonoscopy, according to a Boston Globe news report. The Third Eye device enables GI physicians to view a 360-degree image of patients colons, which reduces the risk of missing colorectal polyps. The device, which is FDA approved, is contained within a traditional colonoscopy but allows physicians to view up to 25 percent more colon abnormalities than a routine colonoscopy, according to the news report. Read more Engineers have developed an ultra- sensitive sensor that could help detect a wide range of substances, from tell-tale signs of cancer to hidden explosives.The sensor, which is the most sensitive of its kind to date, relies on a completely new architecture and fabrication technique developed by the researchers. The technology is a major advance in a decades-long search to identify materials using Raman scattering, a phenomena discovered in the 1920s by Indian physicist C Raman, where light reflecting off an object carries a signature of its molecular composition and structure. Read more... Scientists discovered that leflunomide, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, helps block melanoma when used with a drug called PLX4720.Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. As leflunomide is already licensed and PLX4720 is being trialled, the drug could be available in five years. Read more A 16-year-old boy, weighing 160 kg, cannot go to school as he struggles to move around; a middle-aged woman on an airplane requires a seat-belt extension Dr Kenneth Dcruz, Head of Department, Surgical Gastroenterology, Oncology and Minimal Access Surgery at Bangalores Narayana Hrudayalaya Multi-speciality Hospital, sees many patients like these every month, with the rising incidence of morbid obesity in India. Despite the many challenges and mental trauma faced by those with morbid obesity, Dr Dcruz chooses to focus on the success stories. I once treated a 65-year-old woman from Orissa who became breathless when she walked just 4-5 steps, he says and recalls her husbands uncontrolled happiness when, ten days after surgery, she walked from the entrance of the hospital to the out-patient department. Read more Scientists have identified an enzyme that could be used to diagnose colon cancer earlier. It is possible that this enzyme also could be a key to stopping the cancer. This enzyme biomarker could help physicians identify more colon cancers and do so at earlier stages when the cancer is more successfully treated. The team studied colon cancers from 40 patients and found a form of this enzyme known as ALDH1B1 present in every colon cancer cell in 39 out of the 40 cases. The enzyme, which is normally found only in stem cells, was detected at extraordinarily high levels. It appears that ALDH1B1 aids the development or growth of these cancer cells because it would not be present in every cell at such high levels if it were simply a byproduct of the cancer. Read more Researchers have designed a microfluidic device that uses porous forests of carbon nanotubes to detect individual cancer cells or viruses such as HIV in a blood sample. By making the posts out of porous carbon nanotubes, which are cylinders of carbon atoms, and attaching various antibodies to them, sample fluid can flow through and around the trees, increasing the chances of detection. The antibodies will bond to targets chemically, but the device also works mechanically by trapping particles depending on the distance between the trees. The forest has 10 billion to 100 billion carbon nanotubes per square centimeter, and is 99 percent air. The device is about the size of a dime and the detection method is described in a study that appears online in the journal Small. Normally, circulating tumor cells are very difficult to detect, and the device may be useful in discovering when cancer has metastasized to other parts of the body. The researchers are working to tailor the device to HIV detection. Read more A drug that doubles patients chances of surviving malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, has been given the go-ahead. Ipilimumab, prolongs lives by an average of four months in patients whose cancer has spread to other organs. Some are alive four years after having the treatment. The drug was approved for routine use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after research showed almost half of patients with advanced melanoma taking it were alive after one year, compared with 25 per cent of those having chemotherapy alone. After two years, 24 per cent of those receiving ipilimumab were alive compared with 14 per cent of those going without. Patients lives were extended by an average of ten months, compared with six months for patients not on the drug although some were tracked for more than four years, according to results in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read more In a long-term study of more than 600,000 cancer survivors, an estimated 8 percent of second cancers were attributable to radiation treatment for the original cancer, according to the study. The results suggest that other factors, such as lifestyle risks and genetics, cause the majority of second cancers, the researchers say. The researchers looked at outcomes for 15 different types of cancer for which radiation treatment is routine, including cancers of the rectum, larynx, lung, breast, cervix, testicles, prostate, eye and orbit, brain and thyroid. More than half of the second cancers developed in breast and prostate cancer survivors. Four percent of second cancers were in the eye, and 24 percent were cancer of the testicles, the researchers found. Read more Theres something unusually calming about the operating rooms at Dr. Devi Shettys 1,000-bed cardiac hospital here in Indias high-tech hub. Natural light floods the theatres. When Shetty designed his hospital, he wanted to ensure surgeons could connect with the world outside. In most western hospitals, operating rooms are in the middle of the floor and they only have fluorescent lighting, Shetty says during a tour of his flagship hospital, one of 10 that his family owns and operates in India. Surgeons are creative people. Its ridiculous to think they can perform well all day under fluorescents. Try it. Do something creative in a room with only artificial lights and see how you do after two hours. Unorthodox operating rooms arent the only way Shetty is transforming health care in India, a nation with 1.2 billion potential patients. At his Narayana Hrudayalaya cardiac hospital, which is just metres away from his family-owned-and-operated cancer, eye and multi-specialty hospitals, 42 surgeons performed 6,272 cardiac surgeries last year, three times the number at Toronto Generals cardiac unit. Read more... A new study has found that metabolic syndrome, a constellation of conditions that increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes, may also increase the risk of the two most common types of liver cancer. Metabolic syndrome is defined as the co-occurrence of at least three of the following five conditions: raised blood pressure, elevated waist circumference, low HDL or good cholesterol, raised triglyceride levels and raised fasting plasma glucose levels. For the current study, researchers identified 3,649 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma and 743 cases of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. They compared the medical history of these patients with the medical histories of 195,953 cancer-free adults. Read more Preliminary research suggests that a blood test could offer evidence that a nonsmoker has lung cancer, potentially giving doctors a new diagnostic tool.The test would allow these imaging tests to be further evaluated and provide a degree of certainty in diagnosis. The researchers came to their conclusions after testing more than 600 samples in search of biomarkers that would indicate the presence of cancer. Once they found biomarkers that seemed promising, they ran the tests on samples of 80 people who had never smoked, including 40 with lung cancer and 40 who did not have the disease. The people in both groups were matched for age and gender. Read more Zebrafish has offered new hope to people with melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer.Researchers identified SETDB1 as a new gene that promotes the growth of melanoma and may play a role in up to 70 per cent of malignant melanomas. The researchers screened more than 3,000 zebrafish and found one gene that dramatically accelerated melanoma formation: SETDB1, which encodes a histone methyltransferase enzyme. Fish melanomas with elevated levels of SETDB1 are highly invasive and have a set of deregulated genes that are present in human tumors with high levels of SETDB1. Read more A new PSA test to screen for prostate cancer more accurately identified men with prostate cancer particularly the aggressive form of the disease and substantially reduced false positives compared to the two currently available commercial PSA tests, according to a research from Northwestern Medicine. PSA stands for prostate-specific antigen, a substance whose elevated levels can indicate prostate cancer but can also be caused by prostate inflammation or enlargement or other conditions. Its lack of specificity can result in unnecessary biopsies. The results of the study showed the new screening test, a simple blood test called the Pro-PSA test, is particularly useful for patients with a normal prostate exam whose PSA is 2 to 10, a range considered the diagnostic gray zone because most men with higher levels have prostate cancer and most men with lower levels do not. Read more Strawberries have the potential to prevent esophageal cancer, according to a preliminary study released Wednesday.Esophageal cancer is the third most common gastrointestinal cancer and the sixth most frequent cause of cancer death in the world.Esophageal cancer is the third most common gastrointestinal cancer and the sixth most frequent cause of cancer death in the world. Group of researchers are studying esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, the dominant type of esophageal cancer world-wide. They are looking at whether food or other substances might prevent cancer. Previous work showed that freeze-dried strawberries were able to significantly inhibit tumor development in rats. Read more Fifty years ago, only 10 to 20 per cent of children survived a diagnosis of cancer. Today, the overall survival rate is closer to 80 per cent. Many of these children will be left infertile by the very treatments that save their lives. Now, fertility clinics are increasingly experimenting with egg freezing and ovarian tissue freezing for teen and even prepubescent girls, as well testicular tissue banking for boys not yet old enough to produce sperm, in the hope of preserving their fertility. The emerging field of oncofertility is trying to raise a new consciousness about a consequence of cancer treatment too long ignored, experts say. But it is also raising difficult ethical and legal questions among them, who owns these freeze-banked gametes? Can parents use their childs frozen eggs or sperm to create virtual grandchildren if their child dies? In males, cancer treatment or the disease itself can irreversibly damage sperm production. For girls, chemotherapy and radiation can deplete their egg supply or plunge them into early menopause. Until recently, most cancer doctors didnt consider the risk of sterility worth raising partly because, except for freezing and banking sperm, there was little to offer in the way of treatment. The focus instead was on surviving the diagnosis, not what happens after the cancer is gone. Read more Researchers have shown that microwave heating or roasting garlic can diminish or destroy its anti-cancer activity. If garlic is processed or dried, meanwhile, it loses its ability to form hydrogen sulfide, a substance that relaxes blood vessels and may be good for the heart, according a study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The process: Frying, grilling or barbecuing meats at high temperatures can form carcinogens known as HCAs or heterocyclic amines. Some research has shown HCAs can cause genetic mutations in our cells that lead to the development of cancer. Scorching high fat meat carries another risk. As the smoke rises, another class of carcinogenic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is deposited on meat, according to the American Institute of Cancer Research. Read more Koreas traditional makgeolli rice wine has been found to have potent anti-cancer properties that are 10-25 times greater than beer and grape wine, Yonhap news agency reported quoting a state-run laboratory as saying Thursday. Farnesol is a compound that has been proven to have anti-tumor, chemopreventive and anti-microbial characteristics. It is used to make perfumes and hygiene products. Tests have shown that even a small amount inhaled as an aerosol is effective in fighting lung cancer and other cancerous growths. Read more A universal vaccine that could revolutionise the treatment of cancer could be available in just two years.The TeloVac jab is part of a new generation of drugs that use the bodys own defences to fight the disease, stopping tumours in their tracks.TeloVac has already been given to hundreds of Britons with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease. It is hoped it will be effective against many other tumours, including those of the skin, lung and liver. Breast and prostate cancers may also be within its grasp. In the case of pancreatic cancer, which killed actor Patrick Swayze, survival rates have barely improved in the past 40 years, and patients typically die within six months of diagnosis. Just 3 per cent survive five years, and it is the fifth biggest cancer killer in the UK. Although vaccines usually prevent disease, the TeloVac jab is designed as a treatment. Read more Scientists have developed a new test to identify patients with aggressive forms of the disease who could benefit from Metformin. They said it could herald an important new way of tailoring treatments to the needs of cancer patients. Patients whose cancer cells fed off high-energy compounds were more likely to see their tumours spread or become terminal, they found.It meant they could be helped by being given the diabetes drug, which essentially cuts off the fuel supply for aggressive cancer cells.Scientists used the findings to develop a method to predict which patients had a poor prognosis and those who could benefit from the drug. Read more The first genome scan for womb cancer has revealed a genetic region that is associated with a reduced risk of the disease. The same region, called HNF1B, has been linked previously to lower prostate cancer risk in men.The findings offer a tantalizing hint that there may be shared mechanisms of disease that have not been recognized previously. Women with the protective version of the gene are on average 15-18 per cent less likely to develop womb cancer, and men with the same version are 21 per cent less likely to develop prostate cancer. However, the same gene has also been linked to a 10-14 per cent greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Read more Endometrial (uterine) cancer is the most common gynaecological cancers in the women of developed countries. This is the first endometrial cancer gene identified using the genome-wide association study approach, and involved comparing more than 1,200 endometrial cancer patients to more than 5,000 unaffected people for more than 500,000 genetic markers across the genome. Read more In what could soon improve cancer survival rates, scientists have achieved success in whole-genome sequencing, a high-tech process which has opened the way for personalised treatments for patients. Whole-genome sequencing, which maps a persons DNA and analyses it for mutations, enables us to screen a much larger number of tumours and correlate them with the outcome of the patient. Read more Scientists have successfully developed a breath test that can detect cancer with an electronic nose. The highly sophisticated device can detect even malignant head and neck cancer tumours, which are often hard to diagnose. The Nano Artificial Nose or Na-Nose has been tested on a small sample group, but there are hopes it could one day be used as a routine test on the cancers. The device is designed to pick up on microscopic chemical changes that are emitted in the breath of people with the two cancers, compared to those without the disease. It also distinguished between lung cancer patients and those free of the disease and between head and neck cancer and lung cancer patients. Read more Extending the hope to live longer than expected for patients suffering from brain cancer, a team of scientists has found a molecule that is able to induce death of brain cancer cells, stated the journal PLoS One released recently. The molecule Nutlin-3 activates a protein called p53 that kills the cells and prevents the return of glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and most aggressive type of primary brain tumour among humans, Prensa Latina reported. Despite current treatments to stop it as well as innovation in neurosurgery, radiation therapy and clinical trials of therapeutic agents, most patients die within two years of diagnosis. Scientists, with this new discovery, hope to improve the treatment of glioblastoma and increase years of survival of patients. With therapy based on the Nutlin-3a, it may be possible that cancer cells do not have the ability to recover after radiation. Refer Its the second most common form of cancer in men, yet diagnosing it still presents a challenge to physicians. Now, new software being used at some hospitals should help detect prostate cancer earlier, eliminate unnecessary testing procedures and help form a treatment plan. VividLook, a new program used with magnetic resonance imaging exams, makes test results much easier to read and enables physicians to pinpoint where a malignancy may be located in the prostate. Screening for prostate cancer begins with a digital rectal exam and a blood test that gauges the level of a protein, prostate specific antigen. Nearly 218,000 men nationwide are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year and more than 32,000 men die from the disease. About one in six men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, and it trails lung cancer as the second leading cause of death in men.But more than 2 million men are alive who were diagnosed with the disease at some point in their lives. Read more A new study has found that heavy beer drinkers who have a specific genetic variant in the cluster of three genes that metabolize alcohol are at significantly higher risk of developing non-cardia gastric cancer. The researchers evaluated the type of alcohol consumed (i.e. wine, beer or liquor) and the location and grade of cancer. Total consumption of 60 grams of pure ethanol/alcohol from all beverage types combined carried a 65 per cent increased risk. (One 12 ounce beer contains about 13 grams of pure alcohol/ethanol.) . Read more Symptoms of ovarian cancer are often vague and dismissed asirritable bowel syndrome. But Nice says women with persistent abdominal pain or bloating, who feel full quickly when eating, or who need the toilet frequently should be tested. New health guidelines mean a simple blood test is to be made available to GPs and thousands of lives could be saved from ovarian cancer. Read more Bengalureans are thinking ahead. Many are planning for the future health of their children, banking on stem cells that are today viewed as a wonder cure for a host of diseases. The recent government approval for clinical trials in stem cell therapy has only increased their willingness to see it as a medical cure of the future. Currently stem cell therapy holds out hope only for diseases like thalassemia, leukaemia and a few other immuno-deficiency disorders. So should people opt for stem cell banking when it can burn a hole in their pockets, requiring around Rs75,000 and more for a storing period of around 21 years? We usually suggest that parents opt for the banking only if they have a family history of thalassemia, leukaemia or some such blood-related disorder, says Dr Sharat Damodar, consultant haematologist, Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital and Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center. Read more Two colorectal cancer studies released results on a new drug and a new biomarker. ZALTRAP(tm) shows promise as a second-line treatment of late stage disease. Examination of CTNNB1, a biomarker, revealed insights into a protein interaction that may explain increased survival in some obese colorectal cancer patients. VELOUR trial evaluating the investigational agent ZALTRAP(tm) (aflibercept) in combination FOLFIRI [folinic acid (leucovorin), 5-fluorouracil, and irinotecan] versus a regimen of FOLFIRI plus placebo showed improvement in overall survival (OS.) OS was the studys primary endpoint, aimed at the second-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). ZALTRAP(tm) is also known as VEGF Trap. Read more This three-day workshop on Head Neck Oncology organized by Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center will focus on providing update on Evidence Based Guidelines in the Management of Head Neck Tumors. To ensure that the participants receive practical knowledge, senior faculty with audience participation will lead a case-based discussion on each of the sub-sites. The first day will be designated for live surgical demonstration of routine head and neck surgery procedures. The format of the remaining workshop includes structured lectures moderated by experienced faculty members. Ample time has been allotted for case based discussion.Read more... It is recently illustrated that naively comparing the ages at cancer diagnosis between persons with AIDS and the general population is inappropriate because the age distributions of the populations at risk differ. After adjustment for these population differences, it is found that persons with AIDS do not develop most types of cancer at younger ages than the general population. Although other investigators have suggested that elevated cancer risk at all ages could be evidence of accelerated aging , it is posited that accelerated aging requires particularly elevated cancer risk at young ages, which would lead to a downward shift in the age distribution of cancer diagnoses. If HIV caused premature aging, we would expect both diagnosis of cancer at earlier ages and broadly increased cancer risk, particularly for types of cancer commonly associated with aging (for example, cancer of the prostate, colorectum, and breast), which has not been observed . It is therefore argue that cancer should not be included as part of a general syndrome of HIV-associated accelerated aging.Read more A WIDELY-used HIV drug could also prevent cervical cancer, scientists say. They have discovered the medication attacks and kills a virus which puts cells at risk of becoming cancerous. The drug lopinavir could be used as a cream to combat the human papilloma virus (HPV). It would be better than a vaccine but needs five years of trials first. They have now found lopinavir selectively kills HPV-infected, non-cancerous cells, while leaving healthy cells relatively unaffected. The HPV virus makes the cervix cells abnormal and they can become cancerous if not treated. Read more In the quest to provide affordable medical services in India, AADI MediTour has tied-up with Narayana Hrudayalaya one of the finest medical facilities in the world. AADI MediTour, one of the leading medical tour consultants in the country have assisted more than 300 patients in the past one year across different medical areas, including cardiac care, orthopedics, infertility, oncology, gastro, dental, cosmetic, neuro and transplants, including liver transplant. Till now, they have been receiving clients from Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and other African Countries. This association will help AADI MediTour cater to the needs of patients coming from Europe, North America and Middle East. Narayana Hrudayalaya, located in Bangalore, is a 3000-bed facility offering state-of-the-art facility for complex cardiac surgeries, pediatric cardiac care, neurosciences, transplants (kidney, lung, bone marrow, heart and liver), oncology, and orthopedic to name a few. With over 40 cardiac surgeries performed daily, Narayana Hrudayalaya has radically improved the quality of lives of thousands coming from around the world. Since its inception, AADI MediTour has been selflessly helping patients and trying to transform the healthcare industry by making it accessible and affordable to the world. And such an association will help them attain this goal no sooner than later. Read more... May is skin cancer awareness month so local esthetician Deborah Spalla feels strongly about educating everyone about the importance of skin cancer prevention and skin protection. With the degradation of the ozone layer, skin cancer is on the rise with one in six people contracting it in some form during their lifetime. Skin care is all about prevention, protection and consistency. Prevention starts with what? Sun block of course. Sun damage causes 95 percent or more of our skins aging process which is easy to avoid with a little effort. Prevention is the first step in regard to the skins health. It is important to monitor skin closely and see a doctor if anything suspicious appears. It is very important to get regular skin-care check ups through a dermatologist. Read more Mazumdar-Shaw Center for Advanced Therapeutics (MS-CAT), a 100,000 sqft state-of-the-art facility for cancer treatment, was inaugurated at Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center, Narayana Health City, on Friday. This centre will bring the most advanced therapy modalities used in the treatment of cancer and other complex diseases under one roof. The centre will have Indias largest bone marrow or stem cell transplant facility, and advanced treatment facilities like immunotherapy, gene therapy and biomodulators. The centre also has tie-ups with several research institutions in India and abroad , such as GANIT labs, Strand Genomics, Cornell University, University of California, Irvine. It is a 14-bed transplant unit, so far the biggest in Karnataka. Haploidentical transplants, gene therapy and cord blood transplants are some of the advanced therapies that will be conducted here, said Dr Sharad Damodar, head, hematology and bone marrow transplant unit, Mazundar-Shaw Cancer Centre. Read more... Urine test appears to be able to spot the signs of early colorectal cancer, and might eventually do away with less appealing test methods. The urine test is based on metabolomics, which is the analysis of the chemical fingerprints left by cellular processes in the body, including the changes of normal cells into cancer cells. It works by identifying cancer cell waste products that are then excreted into the urine by small polyps and tumours. If the test proves accurate, researchers hope it could one day change the way patients are screened for colorectal cancer and maybe other cancers as well. Read more By adopting a healthy lifestyle, women can prevent the occurrence of fatal breast cancer by almost a half, a new study has claimed. If women do more exercise, eat a balanced diet and reduce their alcohol consumption, about 42 per cent of all breast cancer cases can be prevented, the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) said in a report. The figures, which were released to mark WCRFs Cancer Prevention Week, have led the charity to call on women to make the lifestyle changes necessary to cut their breast cancer risk. Read more Altering genes to cure diseases has moved from sci-fi flicks to a major research investment in India. And Bangalore is also looking at it with hope. The latest in labs here is gene therapy for thalassemia and haemophilia, which affect Indians in large numbers. Doctors and researchers are working to make it a reality. Though treatment could be a long way off, the gene has been found and so too the vector to introduce it into the body. A team of doctors at the recently launched Mazumdar Shaw Centre for Therapeutics is exploring thalassemia treatment. Gene therapy became popular because of its potential in curing genetic blindness but could be a potential saviour in terminal conditions like cancer. Medical director and vice-president, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center and Narayana Hrudayalaya Multi-Specialty Hospital, Dr Paul C Salins, told TOI: There is no doubt that the future is in gene therapy. If we can alter the gene itself itll have far-reaching implications. Through our research, were trying to find out how we can deal with diseases that affect the common man. Read more Researchers are helping unlock the cellular-level function of the telomerase enzyme which drives cancer growth, thus paving the way for improved cancer-fighting therapies. The number of times a cell divides is determined by telomeres, protective caps on the ends of chromosomes (genes) that indicate cell age. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten, the journal Molecular Cell reports. When telomeres shrink to a certain length, the cell either dies or stops dividing. In cancer cells, the enzyme telomerase keeps rebuilding the telomeres, so the cell never receives the cue to stop dividing. Read more People with diabetes are at higher risk for certain cancers than those without the blood sugar disease, including colon and pancreatic cancer for men and breast cancer for women, according to a study. Based on a telephone survey of nearly 400000 adults,the study whose findings appear in Diabetes Care found that 16 out of every 100 diabetic men and 17 out of every 100 diabetic women said they had cancer.That compares to 7 per 100 men and 10 per 100 women without diabetes. Read more New research could pave the way for a blood test which could detect lung cancer, it has been revealed. A study, published in journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that microRNA molecules in the blood of people with lung cancer could detect the disease and rate its aggressiveness. In other news, a blood test could be used to diagnose Alzheimers disease, according to a study published in the Journal of Alzheimers Disease. Scientists have classified a unique biochemical diagnosis able to identify cancer, based on the production of dehydroepiandrosterone. The test also enabled differential diagnosis of early Alzheimers disease, indicating that the blood test could be used to identify the condition in its early stages. Read more Colonoscopies are an important tool for finding and removing colon cancer and precancerous growths. Medical groups recommend screenings at intervals no shorter than 10 years apart for people at average risk for colon cancer, starting at age 50. But a large study of Medicare patients found that many were screened more often. Though Medicare regulations disallow payment for repeat screenings within 10 years of a negative colonoscopy, only 2 percent of the early screenings were denied, according to the study. They said their data could be used to pinpoint doctors who are overusing colonoscopies.Read more Saskatchewan has licensed the right to use a diagnostic blood test aimed at detecting colorectal cancer in its early, curable stages. The test developed by Saskatoon-based Phenomenome Discoveries Inc. measures levels of a certain metabolite in the blood that is low in people with colorectal cancer. While its not yet clear how the blood test will be applied in everyday practice in the province, Premier Brad Wall touted it as a made-in-Saskatchewan development that will help with the early detection of cancer. Read more Obesity and physical inactivity may account for 25 to 30 percent of several major cancers such as colon, breast, endometrial, kidney, and cancer of the oesophagus. Experts recommend that people establish habits of healthy eating and physical activity early in life to prevent overweight and obesity. Those who are already overweight or obese are advised to avoid additional weight gain, and to lose weight through a low-calorie diet and exercise. Even a weight loss of only five to 10 percent of total weight can provide health benefits. The study found that men in the study group who were overweight or obese had a three-fold increased risk of cancer progression compared to normal-weight men, despite receiving the same treatment. Read more... Kindly check out the video Practicing yoga significantly improves the quality of life of women suffering from breast cancer and undergoing radiation therapy, Indian and American researchers have established and scientifically confirmed yet another benefit of the globally-popular, ancient Indian practice. Yoga helps breast cancer patients more than generic stretching exercises, improving their physical functioning, general health and reducing levels of cortisol the stress hormone the scientists have said. The findings are particularly significant because high cortisol levels have been associated with worse outcomes for cancer patients, they have said. Yoga has for some time been viewed as beneficial in fighting fatigue, particularly for patients recovering from strenuous treatments. But the new research suggests that it offers several other critical benefits. Read more A new research has investigated the potency of Indian wild plants against bacterial and fungal infections in the mouths of oral cancer patients.Researchers tested extracts from several plants used in traditional or folk medicine against microbials found in the mouths of oral cancer patients. Of the 40 patients involved in the study, 35 had compromised immune systems with severely reduced neutrophil counts. Eight of the plants tested were able to significantly affect the growth of organisms collected by oral swab, and pure cultures of bacteria and fungi grown in the lab. This included wild asparagus, desert date, false daisy, curry tree, caster oil plant and fenugreek. Read more... A new research has investigated the potency of Indian wild plants against bacterial and fungal infections in the mouths of oral cancer patients.Researchers tested extracts from several plants used in traditional or folk medicine against microbials found in the mouths of oral cancer patients. Of the 40 patients involved in the study, 35 had compromised immune systems with severely reduced neutrophil counts. Eight of the plants tested were able to significantly affect the growth of organisms collected by oral swab, and pure cultures of bacteria and fungi grown in the lab. This included wild asparagus, desert date, false daisy, curry tree, caster oil plant and fenugreek. Read more... Rheamol (aka Sherin Sara Alexander), is a sprightly 13-year-old, fighting for her life. A member of the St Marys Orthodox Valiyapally, Jalahalli, Bangalore, this exceptional child is the daughter of Mr Alexander Panicker. When all other kids are out in school and playful, this kid is on chemotherapy and transplant at an young age. Currently, Rheamol is undergoing treatment for cancer or relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) at the Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital near Bangalore. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is a form of leukemia, or cancer of the white blood cells which is characterised by excess lymphoblasts. Rheamol was diagnosed at the age of six and has been undergoing various treatments since then, including chemotherapy for the past 7 years at the hospital on the outskirts of Bangalore. Her only restorative treatment for survival is a Bone Marrow Transplant. Dr Sharat Damodar, consultant haematologist and head of Bone Marrow Transplant unit at the Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital says the only curative treatment is a bone marrow transplant since Rheamol has no HLA matching sibling and is planned for cord blood transplant. The approximate cost of the bone marrow transplant is Rs 8 lakhs while the approximate cost of the bone marrow treatment itself is Rs 10.50 lakhs in the absence of any major complications. Read more History Of Ultrasound Imaging 1760 Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani - Father of Ultrasound. 1912 First Practical application for rather unsuccessful search for Titanic. 1942 First used as diagnostic tool for localizing brain tumors 1953 First reflected Ultrasound to examine the heart. 1970 Origin of TEE For more Discussion click here... Brisk walking may help men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer reduce their risk of progression of the disease, according to a new study. The study shows that survivors who walk at a pace of at least 3 miles per hour for three hours or more per week were 57% less likely to develop the biochemical markers of cancer recurrence or to need a second round of treatment for their disease. Another study also showed that physical activity after diagnosis seemed to reduce disease-related death in a distinct group of men with prostate cancer.The new study supports that finding and was the first to focus on the effect of exercise after diagnosis on early indications of progression of the disease, such as a rise in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood levels. Read more The treatment, discovered is one of a very few treatments that can help men in the final stages of the disease. It represents a breakthrough because it was previously thought that hormone therapy did not extend life for those with advanced prostate cancer. In a clinical trial of 1,195 men with prostate cancer who had stopped responding to standard hormone therapy as well as chemotherapy, those given the new treatment survived for nearly 15 months about four months longer than those given a placebo. They also experienced less pain. Read more During the study, oral surgeons will use a fluorescence visualization (FV), or blue light, to identify cancerous tissue in the mouth that needs removal. Using traditional white light, its hard to spot oral cancer. But under the blue light, normal tissue generates a fluorescence, while oral squamous cell cancers or pre-cancerous cells go dark. In this new trial, researchers will assess the efficacy of the tool on 400 eligible patients. Often, oral surgeons cant easily see all of the cancerous tissue in the initial operation and therefore cant get it all. Its hoped this study will show that the blue light device helps with finding high-risk, pre-cancerous tissue that might otherwise go undetected. The beauty of the FV or blue light is that it is an incredibly simple concept: it is not invasive or painful, and the technology is relatively easy to use. Read more Skin cancer awareness day, dubbed Dont Fry Day, took place on Friday, kicking off the Memorial Day weekend. Dont forget your sunscreen along with your swimsuit! Since they are non-melanomas, they are so common and treatable that they are often overlooked in cancer statistics. Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer and is diagnosed in over 68,000 people a year. Read more According to a new study, regular coffee drinkers amongst men appear to have a lower risk of developing prostate cancer, particularly those men who drank regular or decaffeinated coffee. Even as our love affair with coffee continues to grow, there are many contradictory findings regarding coffees many health benefits, and similarly conflicting results as to its harmful effects. Several compounds in coffee are known to affect human body chemistry. Coffee beans contain certain chemicals, mild psycho-tropics for humans, but toxic in large doses, or even in normal amounts when consumed by many creatures in the wild. The caffeine in coffee acts as a stimulant, but there are certain potential risks to it. Roasted coffee has been reported to contain over 1,000 chemicals, 19 of which are known rodent carcinogens. However, most substances cited as rodent carcinogens occur naturally and at exposure levels typically experienced in day-to-day life, cannot be assumed to be carcinogenic in humans. Read more Early detection of cancer among patients is important as is the need to create awareness about the disease by educating people, according to President Pratibha Patil. Patil said tobacco consumption in the country was high and should be discouraged as it was found linked with incidences of cancer. She said the option of an integrated therapy should be explored by experts in different branches of medicine to find cure and offer relief to the patients, lessening their suffering. Read more Researchers are starting clinical trials on women diagnosed with breast cancer, trying to find a way to protect the heart from damage caused by certain cancer treatments. Herceptin, a drug used to treat a specific type of aggressive breast cancer, works by targeting HER-2 genes found in the cancer cells. Unfortunately, HER-2 is also found in the cells of the heart and protects the heart from stress. Without this protection, stress from everyday activities weakens the heart like an elastic band that has been stretched too many times. They chose breast cancer patients because it has already been well researched. Researchers started screening patients in October 2010, and have selected 17 patients so far, and hope to find as many as 159 qualified participants. Patients selected for the study will receive either an ACE inhibitor, a beta blocker, or a placebo in a blue pill capsule. Which course of pills the participant will receive is decided at random. Read more Scientists are testing a drug that can mend a broken heart. Experiments found the medicine, which is usually used to treat cancer, shrank enlarged and diseased hearts back down to near normal size, allowing them to work properly again. Now the drug is about to be given to human heart patients for the first time. In the future, it could be used to prevent and treat heart failure one of the biggest causes of hospital admissions and death. The drugs powerful effect could provide a godsend for some of the millions worldwide suffering from heart failure, in which a weakened heart struggles to pump blood around the body. Read more Please check out the video link for details. Link... Health officials have added eight new substances on the official list of toxins known to cause or suspected of causing cancer, which includes the widely used chemical formaldehyde. Government scientists listed formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and said it is found in high quantities in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. Lab results showed formaldehyde caused nasal cancer in rats when tested. They also said that styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer but is generally found in low levels. But the greatest exposure to styrene in the general population is through cigarette smoking. Read more Half of men with prostate cancer die from the disease itself, according to a new study published today, exploding the myth that it is usually not fatal. Doctors frequently leave slow-growing forms of the cancer, gauging that the patient, who is often elderly, will probably die from something else first. Removing tumours unlikely to break out of the prostate gland could do more harm than good, they believe. Surgery can result in side effects such as incontinence and erectile problems. But experts have now found the proportion of men with prostate cancer who actually die from it to be higher than previously thought. Examining records for 20,181 men with the disease who died between 1997 and 2007, they found prostate cancer was the principal cause of death in 49 per cent of them. Some 12 per cent of deaths were due to other cancers, 17 per cent to heart disease, eight per cent from pneumonia and 13 per cent from other causes. Read more Kanara Entrepreneurs (KE) will organize a network meeting on Friday June 17 at 6:30 pm at The Grand Magrath Hotel, Magrath road, Bangalore. Dr Anthony V Pais, who turned 54 last October, is an MBBS, MS in general surgery from Kasturba Medical College. He was awarded FICS in Surgical Oncology in 2000 based on his surgical oncology experience by the International College of Surgeons, Washington DC, USA. At present, he is a senior consultant breast oncology unit, head of the department of surgery-academic affairs, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center, Narayana Hrudayalaya Health City, Bangalore. He has conducted several cancer detection camps for the underprivileged and for BBMP workers, throughout Karnataka. Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center is the only center in Karnataka recognized by the government of Tamil Nadu for cancer treatment under the Kalaignar Scheme. About 60% of his patients are below poverty line. Under his guidance and direction, they have done the maximum number of breast cancer resections with immediate micro vascular reconstructions in India (state of the art surgery done in the US) for the poorest of the poor. He is the convener and examiner for MBBS course to Bangalore University; MGR University, Madras; and is also an examiner for MS to Rajiv Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Kasturba Medical College, MAHE Deemed University. He is a professor and a member of various oncology associations. He has published over 14 papers and has 16 presentations to his credit. He has delivered 44 lectures at various hospitals and centers. Read more Medical expertise from the city is sure making a global impact. In a latest, the Health City in Bangalore will provide expertise and technical support to Slovenia to develop a similar model there. As a precursor to this, Slovenian Prime MinisterBorut Pahor, along with health minister and a delegation of 40 officials, visited Narayana Hrudayalaya on Thursday. The idea was to approach Narayana Hrudayalaya chairman and cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty to help them create low-cost health infrastructure in Slovenia. This, they said, could help people from across Europe avail the services. Once a formal invitation is sent from the government of Slovenia, Dr Shetty and his team will travel to that country to get the job done. Read more Since studies of the diabetes drug Actos suggest an increased risk of bladder cancer for patients taking it for more than a year, Health Canada is reviewing the drug. An FDA analysis half way through a 10-year study showed there was no overall increased risk of bladder cancer with pioglitazone use. But there was in patients with the longest exposure to pioglitazone, and in those exposed to the highest cumulative dose of the drug. Read more CANCER vaccines could become the next generation of therapy after a new method of treatment was discovered. Scientists have had problems targeting tumours with jabs without causing side effects. But they have now taken a library of DNA from the same organ as a tumour and inserted it into a virus to attack cancers. This wakes up the immune system, which often ignores cancers, and gets the patients body to fight back against any growths. Read more In what could be called a possible breakthrough , scientists have developed a cancer jab which they claim can wipe out tumours by stimulating the immune system so that it seeks out and destroys cancer cells. A team, which has developed the vaccine, says that though the jab may not fully cure cancer but it would help make the disease more like a chronic illness than a merciless killer. Cancer victims given the jab should be able to live much longer with the disease under control, says the team. Normally the immune system does not recognise cancer as a threat and therefore ignores it. The new treatment fools the system into thinking the cancer is a virus and must be attacked. Read more Breast cancer accounts for almost a third of all cancer cases reported in women. Advances in the treatment for breast cancer, and early detection, have improved the chances of survival from the disease. New research has found that two thirds of women with breast cancer died from other causes and that over the length of the study cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death. Researchers followed over 60,000 women in the United States who were at least 66 years old with a breast cancer diagnosis for up to 12 years. About half of the women participating in the study survived. Of those who did however, more than two thirds died from causes other than breast cancer such as cardiovascular disease which killed more women that the breast cancer itself. Read more Dr. Eyituoyo Okoturo willserve his Fellowship at Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center,Narayana Hrudayalaya Health City, in Bangalore, India under the direction of Prof. Moni Kuriakose. Dr. Okoturo received his dental degree from the University of Benin DentalSchool in Benin City, Nigeria,and his oral and maxillofacial surgical training at Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria. Dr. Okoturo is currently serving as a Lecturer/Consultant in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department, Faculty of Dentistry, at Lagos State University College of Medicine. Read more... http://mazumdarshawcancercenter.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/iaoms-fellowships-announced-2011-2012.pdf Follow-up scans after treatment for testicular cancer dont appear to put men at higher risk of new tumors, researchers have found. Men usually get regular computerized tomography (CT) scans to check if their testicular cancer has returned following treatment, but some worry that the associated radiation could be dangerous. But that did not seem to be the case in the new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Overall, 14 percent of some 2,500 men who received multiple follow-up scans developed new tumors in the scanned area over the decade following their diagnosis. And those who received the most radiation were at no higher risk. Read more Its often called the wonder fruit. Now, a new research has revealed that eating strawberries could help stave off ageing and even prevent cancer. It said eating the fruit helps boost antioxidant levels in the blood. Higher levels of antioxidants have been found to combat the effects of oxidative stress, lessening the effects of ageing and even the chances of contracting diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. To cone to the conclusion, Spanish and Italian researchers fed 12 healthy volunteers half a kilo of strawberries over two weeks. Results showed that eating strawberries regularly can boost levels of antioxidants in the blood and also help prevent red blood cells undergoing haemolysis, a process which sees them fragmenting. Read more Researchers in a recently conducted study have identified a glue-like substance that can make cancer treatment easier. The study gave as example the reaction soap has to a sink full of greasy water, how as soon as the soap hits water, the grease recoils, and retreats to the edges of the sink. The researchers said the drug could force the proteins to the cells membrane (a.k.a., the edge of the sink), and make the cancer cell more vulnerable to chemotherapy. The glue is shaped like a dumbbell: at one end is an anchor that sticks to the membrane, and at the other is a molecule that binds to the cancer-promoting proteins. Read more A new study promises to make cancer treatment more tolerable and successful by focusing on therapies that could help cancer cells get back to normal, in addition to strategies for killing them. A team of researchers used the latest gene sequencing tools to examine the so-called epigenetic influences on the DNA makeup of colon cancer. They focused on a particular epigenetic biochemical signature known as methylation, which silences the genes. By comparing the epigenomes of eight human tissue samples, three from non-cancerous colon tissue, three from colon tumours and two from polyps (early-stage colon cancer), the team found that in all the colon tumours the defining characteristic was a universally chaotic pattern of methylation. Read more A breast cancer wonder drug could be turned into a universal weapon against tumors. Researchers said a family of cancer drugs, known as PARP inhibitors, affect the way tumor cells repair themselves. These inhibitors target hereditary forms of breast cancer as well as ovarian prostate cancer and pancreatic tumours with the same rogue gene. The drugs exploit the Achilles heel of hereditary forms of breast cancer. This is caused by a flaw in a gene called BRCA1, which limits the cells ability to repair damage to their DNA. Healthy cells have two ways of patching up damage which allows them to breed, grow and spread but cells in BRCA tumours have only one. PARP inhibitors block this remaining pathway, stopping the tumour cells from multiplying, eventually leading them to die. Some breast, ovarian and prostate tumours have flawed BRCA genes but account for a small proportion of all cancers. Read more A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is like a death sentence for most people, so receiving the right chemotherapy drugs is crucial to prolong and improve quality of life. New research hopes to find a biomarker or sign in peoples pancreatic tumours that would indicate to doctors what treatment would work best. Currently, there are no such indicators identified and oncologists are forced to guess and give drug cocktails with nasty side effects without knowing if the medications will work. If patients do have that protein, Gemcitabine is believed to work well and is more gentle to the system than another chemotherapy drug, which can cause nausea, nerve damage in the fingers and toes and the sensation that the patients throat is closing. Read more For years, ovarian cancer has only been detectable in its most advanced stages, leaving women with almost no hope for survival once diagnosed. But a new study, released Wednesday, has reported findings that may not only be able to detect the onset of ovarian cancer but also target genetic weaknesses in cancer cells. TP53 creates a tumor suppressor protein, stopping cells from growing and dividing uncontrollably. Mutations in the gene disrupt this proteins function. Researchers also established how sets of genes are expressed, identifying patterns for 108 genes associated with poor survival and 85 genes associated with better survival. Thiscoupled with the findings of scientists at the Ovarian Cancer Action that found that cancer cells do not in fact build immunities to cancer drugs, but instead contain cells that are resistant to themwill aid tremendously in the ability to target and destroy cancer cells in the future. Read more A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is like a death sentence for most people, so receiving the right chemotherapy drugs is crucial to prolong and improve quality of life. New research hopes to find a biomarker or sign in peoples pancreatic tumours that would indicate to doctors what treatment would work best.There are no such indicators identified yet and oncologists are forced to guess and give drug cocktails with nasty side-effects without knowing if the medications will work. There are no such indicators identified yet and oncologists are forced to guess and give drug cocktails with nasty side-effects without knowing if the medications will work. Read more Five-year-old Iraqi girl Marwah Riyadh, who underwent free heart surgery at Narayana Hrudayalaya, is all set to return to her home country on Sunday. Marwahs father Riyadh Haseen, who is a clerk, told Deccan Herald that India and its doctors have given his child a second life. I had no options to get my daughter treated, and even if I did, I had no money, he said. We have given an assurance that we will perform 10 to 15 free heart operations for needy children from Iraq. The first operation was conducted on Ameer Luaia, an 8-year-old boy from Karbala, in May 2011. He has returned and is doing fine, he said. The administration of Karbala, in co-ordination with Mr Aga Sultan, is in the process of identifying children with heart conditions below the age of 10 and they are being offered treatment free of cost, he said. Read more... Hair loss, fatigue and vomiting are some of the side effects cancer patients may be able to avoid in future thanks to a new personalized testing procedure announced Monday. The new research project, part of a $9-million personalized medicine program, will take previously existing genome information and develop a test for cancer. The test will identify specific types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), allowing doctors to recommend tailored and more effective forms of treatment for individuals in some cases, reducing unnecessary side effects. The project will focus on leukemia before moving on to other cancer types. The test will be studied over the next year before a clinical trial is launched next July. Read more A new study shows encouraging results from the lung cancer drug erlotinib, indicating it can increase survival and improve quality of life in non-small-cell cancer patients. Researchers studied the drug in 174 patients. Of the group, 55 percent responded to erlotinib, compared to 11 percent for chemotherapy. Patients lived without cancer progression for 9.4 months on average, compared to 5.2 months for those on chemotherapy. The drug is in in phase 3 of study, meaning it is in the last stage before being approved for public use. Erlotinib, besides increasing survival rates, causes fewer negative side effects than chemotherapy. The lack of serious side effects also means it is less costly than treatments whose side effects are more debilitating. Read more Eggs have antioxidant properties and hence are good for the heart. Perhaps they can prevent cancer too, say researchers. Already eggs are known to be an excellent source of proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals. But their antioxidant value is a newly discovered virtue. After analyzing the properties, the researchers determined that two egg yolks in their raw state have almost twice as many antioxidant properties as an apple and about the same as half a serving (25 grams) of cranberries. However, when the eggs were fried or boiled, antioxidant properties were reduced by about half, and a little more than half if the eggs were cooked in a microwave. Read more Scientists have developed smart gold nanomaterials, which can disrupt the blood supply to cancerous tumors. The team of researchers showed that a small dose of gold nanoparticles can activate or inhibit genes that are involved in angiogenesis a complex process responsible for the supply of oxygen and nutrients to most types of cancer. The team also controlled the degree of damage to the endothelial cells using laser illumination. Endothelial cells construct the interior of blood vessels and play a pivotal role in angiogenesis. The researchers also found that the gold particles could be used as effective tools in cellular nanosurgery. Read more Scientists claim to have carried out a first-of-its-kind study of a patient with lung cancer, who never smoked. An international team has sequenced the entire DNA and RNA of the 61-year-old woman with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lung, the findings of which are published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. The patient never smoked and her lung cancer had entered her bloodstream and spread to other parts of her body. She was treated with several types of chemotherapy. The scientists further examined the normal and tumour RNA for whole transcriptome sequencing, which can reveal the possible defects in how proteins are synthesised. And, this provided an even more intricate view of the tumours biological make up and what might have led to her cancer, says the team. A review of well-characterised cancer-related genes found that a mutation resided in the TP53 gene, a mutation in the tumour (one base change in the genetic code), and that the mutation was always present in both the DNA and RNA. Such a mutation can halt the creation of tumour suppressor genes and result in the generation of a tumour. Read more How much alcohol is it really safe to drink? Possibly less than youve been led to believe, say researchers. In a piece published Monday, Paule Latino-Martel, a cancer researcher and co-authors argued that many countries alcohol consumption guidelines which typically define a moderate, sensible level of drinking designed to help consumers drink safely fail to take into account long-term risks associated with drinking. The U.K. introduced the concept of sensible drinking back in the 1980s. Such limits were intended to prevent hospitalizations due to alcohol abuse, which had been on the rise in the country. In 1984, the British established recommended limits of 18 drinks a week for men and nine drinks for women; in 1987, they raised those limits to 21 drinks for men and 14 for women. U.S. guidelines recommend no more than two drinks per day for men, and no more than one for women. According to the study, the standard drink size in the U.K. is 8 grams, or about 3 ounces; a standard drink in the U.S. is 13.7 grams, or about 5 ounces. Average recommended daily limits for alcohol are therefore slightly higher in Britain than in the U.S. Read more New research suggests that people who develop itchy rashes when their skin comes into contact with certain metals or chemicals have a lower risk for certain cancers. Investigators say the findings support the idea that allergies may trigger the immune system to kill cancer cells before they do damage a theory known as the immunosurveillance hypothesis. Contact allergies are delayed reactions to metals like nickel or cobalt or to chemicals, such as those found in plants such as poison ivy and poison oak, perfumes, and hair dyes. Earlier research suggests that people who suffer from other types of allergies may have a lower risk for certain cancers, but the new study is among the first to look specifically at contact skin allergies. Read more It is well known that men with relatives who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer have an elevated risk of developing this type of cancer. An international research consortium along with DKFZ scientists have discovered seven DNA regions for which an association with an increased prostate cancer risk has now been established for the first time. The collaborators systematically searched the whole genome of cancer patients and healthy controls for specific gene variants. Then they calculated whether specific variants are found more often in patients than in healthy people. Read more Men diagnosed with prostate cancer are routinely given a harsh hormone therapy treatment for four months it suppresses the production of the male sex hormone testosterone but little was known about how effective that treatment was at increasing the odds of survival in those with early- and intermediate-stage disease. So researchers decided to test whether giving the drugs along with radiation treatments could prolong a patients life. The study, conducted by researchers, provides compelling findings for those with somewhat more advanced cancers. Men with moderate stage 2 cancer who took hormone therapy along with radiation had just a 3 percent risk of dying over 10 years compared with a 10 percent risk for those who had just the radiation therapy. But the drugs have side effects that can linger for years: hot flashes, erectile dysfunction, loss of sexual desire, brittle bones, weight gain, and an acceleration of heart disease in those who already have it. Men may also experience fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, and excessive itching. Read more A research underway in the city holds out hope for thousands of ovarian cancer patients in the country. It reveals that a drug-resistant form of the disease can be treated through gene therapy and help to extend the life-span of patients. Even though the experiment is still at a preliminary stage, researchers believe there is enough indication to suggest that they are about a year away from hitting upon a drug that could prevent a relapse in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients. About 20% of the 60,000 who contract ovarian cancer in India every year happen to be platinum-resistant. Cellular therapy or conventional drugs and chemotherapy cant prevent a relapse. Usually, patients suffer a relapse within six months. Repeated chemotherapy cant keep the patient alive for more than two years. The only way is to target the gene that leads to the disease and block it to prevent a recurrence. Read more Coal seam gas (CSG) mining can cause cancer and harm unborn babies, according to a group of medical experts giving evidence to a Senate committee. The six experts, say the states ban on the use of cancer-causing chemicals collectively known as BTEX in CSG mining doesnt protect the community from health risks. BTEX chemicals have been used in hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, in the United States and other parts of the world to crack the coal seams and extract the natural gas. The fracking process itself can release BTEX from natural gas reservoirs, allowing them to escape into aquifers or the surrounding air, the submission says. Read more Seeing a chance to stop one of the most deadly kinds of cancer before it forms, doctors are focusing on the common pancreatic cyst. Up to 20 percent of pancreatic cancer begins as one of these small, fluid-filled brown lesions. And left to grow unabated, pancreatic cancer kills 95 percent of sufferers within five years. A study last year published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology found that up to 13 percent of the population has a pancreatic cyst, though most do not become cancerous. Researchers studied patients who had undergone an MRI for a reason besides their pancreas, and such routine screening has become the main method of discovering pancreatic cysts. Read more Younger women with early-stage breast cancer who took a drug to suppress their ovaries were more likely to avert early menopause caused by chemotherapy, researchers found. The treatment, triptorelin, helped patients avoid the permanent loss of their fertility that can be prompted by chemotherapys toxic doses, according to research published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Two out of every five women under 40 who undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer lose the ability to conceive children, the researchers said. The use of triptorelin reduced the rate of early menopause by more than 17 percentage points, according to the results of a late-stage clinical trial called Promise-GIM6. Read more A major challenge for cancer biologists had been to find out which among the hundreds of genetic mutations found in a cancer cell are most important for driving the cancers spread. But, now with a new technique scientists have found the genes responsible for this. Using whole-genome profiling, scientists have pinpointed a gene that appears to drive progression of small cell lung cancer. The NFIB gene codes for a transcription factor, meaning it controls the expression of other genes, so researchers are now looking for the genes controlled by NFIB. Read more Taller women are at greater risk of developing 10 different forms of cancer, new research has revealed. The study published medical journal checked height against cancer rates for more than 1 million middle-aged women. Between 1996 and 2001, some 97,000 developed some form of the disease and those who were taller were more likely to be at risk. But Cancer Australia head Professor Ian Olver says tall people should not panic, saying having a healthy lifestyle is far more important when it comes to preventing cancer. In particular, breast cancer risk rose by 17 per cent, ovarian cancer rose by the same, and womb cancer rose by 19 per cent. Read more A new treatment system to help people fight cancer is going into service. The Novalis Tx has the ability to destroy cancerous cells virtually anywhere in the body in a single, 20-minute session, without the need for a single cut of the scalpel, the manufacturers said. It treats cancer using a specialised technique called radiosurgery which is especially beneficial for tumours of the brain and spine previously thought untreatable by surgeons. Using powerful, highly accurate beams of radiation shaped to fit the precise shape of even the most complex tumours, the system is able to treat painlessly without the need for invasive surgery, and with fewer side effects. Read more Dedicated teams of specialists of Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center at Narayana Hrudayalaya Health City have expertise to treat patients with head, neck, gatero intestinal cancer. Read More An infectious parasite spread by cats may be a cause of brain cancer in humans, research suggests. The single-celled organism Toxoplasma gondii infects about a third of the worlds population. Often it causes no symptoms, but the parasite can be fatal to unborn babies and damage the nerve systems of people with weak immune systems. The new study shows a positive correlation between rates of infection by T. gondii and brain cancer incidence around the world. Scientists collected global data on brain cancers in men and women and compared them with figures on T. gondii prevalence. Adjusting for a range of factors that can influence brain cancer statistics, the researchers found that cancer rates went up with greater exposure to the parasite. Across the range of infection prevalence, from 4% to 67% of the population, T. gondii was associated with a 1.8-fold increase in the risk of brain cancer. Read more Factors driving the momentum for the medical aesthetics segment are easy acceptability, affordability and urge to look good as it increases the self-esteem, Vij said. Shetty said medical aesthetics offered by corporate hospitals ensure services of fully trained and qualified medical doctors and cut down risk of botched up results by untrained or unqualified staff. Taking into consideration that these clients do not want to be treated as patients, Narayana Hrudayalaya have set up clinics or first contact points, where clients can walk in and wait in a comfortable lounge, sans the usual smell or discomfort of waiting in a hospital complex. We work in partnership with clients to understand their needs and create a personalised treatment programme that delivers best possible results. At the initial consultation, we discuss all aspects of the procedure, including benefits, possible risks, and costs, Shetty said. After initial counselling, treatment is decided and mainly conducted in a non-hospital ambience. But in case of any medical issue, they are referred to the hospital, where again they are treated as non-patients and privacy given importance. Demand for medical aesthetics is roughly split between 60 per cent women, mainly in 15 to 30 age group category and 40 per cent men in the mainly above 40 category. An international survey by International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery ranked India fourth with 8,94,700 surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures in 2010, thus accounting for 5.2 per cent of all procedures done worldwide. Indias rise to being fourth biggest cosmetic surgery and cosmetic medicine market from almost nowhere in the last 7-8 years has been remarkable and this trend is likely to continue at a much faster pace in future. Read more Falling breast cancer death rates have little to do with breast screening but are down to better tre atment and health systems, scientists said on Friday, in a study likely to fuel a long-running row over the merits of mammograms. Researchers analyzed data from three pairs of countries and found that although breast cancer screening programs had been introduced 10 to 15 years earlier in some areas than in others, declines in death rates were similar. The findings suggest that improvements in treatment and in the efficiency of healthcare systems may be more plausible explanations for falling deaths rates from breast cancer. Read more Women who screen positive for gene mutations that promote breast and ovarian cancers usually opt for surgery to cut their risk of the diseases, a new study suggests. The research, reported in the journal Cancer, followed 465 women who were tested for mutations in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 that substantially boost the lifetime risks of breast and ovarian cancers. It found that more than 80 percent of women who tested positive for the harmful mutations ultimately chose to have surgery to remove their ovaries, breasts or both. Read more Get ready to eat more beans, whole grains, fresh vegetables, fruits and berries. These healthy foods have a high fiber content, and are really good for you. Now a study suggests a link between eating plant fiber and a lower risk of developing breast cancer. Women who consumed a good amount of high fiber plant foods had lower levels of estrogen - the hormone that fuels most breast tumors had an 11% lower risk for breast cancer. A high-fiber diet is good for weight loss, lower cholesterol, heart health, and diabetes prevention. Dietary fiber can improve your bowel health and may reduce your risk for colon cancer. Having regular amounts of fiber in your diet just makes you altogether healthier, so youre better able to resist diseases of many kinds. A lower risk of breast cancer may be an added benefit of a high-fiber diet, so the study does not prove that fiber itself prevents cancer in the breast. The researchers combined data from 10 different studies which covered womens health history over 7 18 years. Risk factors such as alcohol use, excess weight, hormone replacement therapy, and family history of breast cancer were used to filter the data. The bottom line was this: women who regularly consumed the highest amount of dietary fiber had the best health and the lowest rates of breast cancer. Read more A new urine test might help doctors detect prostate cancer and better evaluate a patients treatment options, researchers say. The test looks for two genetic markers associated with prostate cancer. The first, called TMPRSS2:ERG, is caused by two genes changing places and fusing together; it is thought to cause prostate cancer. Since the gene fusion is only seen in about half of cancer patients, the test also looks for another marker, called PCA3. For the study, published in the Aug. 3 issue of Science Translational Medicine, Tomlins team studied urine samples from 1,312 men who had high PSA levels and had had a prostate biopsy or surgery to remove the prostate. The researchers specifically looked for the two markers and used them to slot the men into high-, intermediate- or low-risk groups for prostate cancer. They then compared their results with the results from biopsies, which are done with a needle in a physicians office for detection of any cancer cells. Read more Healthex 2011 will enable major hospitals and healthcare organizations to meet the potential business visitors who are looking for medical and surgical services in India. The second edition of Indias comprehensive exhibition onMedical, Surgical Diagnostic equipments, Technology, Materials, Supplies and allied services had a grand opening with a high-profile inauguration ceremony graced by several luminaries from the government and the healthcare industry. The inaugural ceremony was preceded by a special presentation on New Art of the 21st Century: Creating New Faces and Fashioning New Personalities by Dr. Paul C Salins Medical Director Vice President Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center Narayana Hrudayalaya Multi Speciality Hospital. This was followed by a CEO Roundtable session on Healthcare Infrastructure in India The Way Forward. Read more A single genetic fault in a gene that normally helps the body to repair its DNA increases a womans risk of ovarian cancer six-fold, a study has found. One in every 11 women who carry the faulty gene is likely to develop ovarian cancer at some point in her life compared with a typical risk of about one in 70 for women in the general population, scientists said. The research involved analysing the genomes of more than 900 families affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer to see if they carry any genetic faults that could account for their higher risk of developing the disease compared with the general population. About 6,500 women in the UK are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year the fifth most common cancer and the scientists estimated that between 40 and 50 of these women are likely to carry faults in a DNA-repair gene known as RAD51D. Read more Using gold as a potential treatment for cancer could soon become a reality, thanks to a combination of imaging techniques. Using two imaging techniques can allow scientists to see where gold complexes used in potential chemotherapeutic treatments end up in cells. They are also able to monitor the golds effects on the cells in a non destructive way. Previous methods for this type of analysis were destructive to the cell. In the past few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the medicinal chemistry of gold compounds, particularly as anticancer agents. A stimulus for this research has been the increasing realisation that the unique properties of metal ions can be exploited in the design of new drugs. Certain gold compounds are selectively toxic to cancer cells but not to normal cells. Read more These six characters may look innocuous, but they represent a newly discovered gene thats linked to ovarian cancer one of the deadliest cancers for women. Researchers compared the DNA of women from more than 900 families with history of breast and ovarian cancer, with nearly 11,000 women with no family history. They found women with a faulty RAD51D gene had a one in 11 chance to develop ovarian cancer, compared with a one in 70 chance for the control women. The researchers think this discovery can lead to lab tests hitting the market within years to predict whos at a higher risk for the cancer that often doesnt show symptoms. But the hope is women might not have to undergo this operation, known as an oophorectomy, if these genes lead to successful treatments. Read more Listening to recorded music or working with a music therapist may reduce anxiety levels of cancer patients and have other positive effects as well, a new study shows. Listening to recorded music, singing, playing an instrument, or otherwise participating in music making apparently also have positive effects on general mood, pain, and quality of life, according to the study. Together with colleagues, Bradt, who has a masters degree in music pedagogy from the Lemmensinstituut in Belgium, analyzed evidence from 1,891 patients taking part in 30 studies. Thirteen studies used trained music therapists, who got patients to sing or otherwise participate themselves in music creation or selection. In the other 17 studies, patients listened to pre-recorded music. Read more Scientists claim to have developed serial killer cells that can wipe out leukemia within three weeks, a breakthrough they say could lead to new and effective treatments for the fatal blood cancer. Researchers engineered a technique that involved leukemia patients being treated with their own T cells a type of white blood cell that have been genetically modified to attack and destroy tumours within their bodies. The treatment was so powerful that tumours were blown away in under a month with few side effects, the Daily Mail reported. After removing the patients T cells, the researchers reprogrammed them to attack tumours by binding to a protein expressed by cancerous cells. In most forms of cancer these crucial cells are unable to distinguish tumour cells from healthy tissue, which allows the cancer to spread unchecked. But they managed to reprogramme them to attack tumour cells by inserting a secret ingredient a protein called a chimeric antigen receptor . Read more A ground bre aking study suggests that a patients own immune cells can be genetically re-engineered into tumor-targeting serial killers. Cancer researchers worldwide are heralding the results of a sensational new study, in which a team showed that a cancer patients own immune cells can be genetically re-engineered to target and kill cancer cells. Though its a preliminary study involving only three patients with leukemia, the successful results have left typically staid medical researchers wildly buoyant. Read more A sunscreen based on caffeine could help you tan safely, scientists believe. They say that sun cream made from coffee, chocolate or tea may protect against the most common form of skin cancer, while producing a bronzed glow. If that was not enough, it may also keep wrinkles at bay. The appealing thought comes from scientists who have shown that caffeine triggers the death of UV-damaged cells, while leaving healthy ones unharmed. To test the idea that caffeine provides protection by interfering with a skin protein called ATR, they genetically-engineered mice so that they made much less ATR than usual. Read more A new study that links higher vitamin D levels to a higher risk of skin cancer simply emphasizes what doctors have been saying all along: Dont forget the sunscreen. Scientists studied more than 3,200 white participants of a health maintenance organization who were at high risk of developing nonmelanoma skin cancer. These participants had osteoporosis, a condition in which the bones to become weak and brittle, or worried about possibly being diagnosed with it. After looking at the patients levels of vitamin D, which is crucial for good bone health, and their medical histories, the team found that people with higher levels of the vitamin appeared to have a higher risk of developing the two types of nonmelanoma cancer: basal cell, the most common and rarely fatal, and squamous cell. Read more Sniffer dogs can be used to reliably detect lung cancer, according to researchers, they found that trained dogs could detect a tumour in 71% of patients. However, scientists do not know which chemical the dogs are detecting, which is what they say they need to know to develop a screening programme. It was first suggested that dogs could sniff out cancer in 1989 and further studies have shown that dogs can detect some cancers such as those of the skin, bladder, bowel and breast. It is thought that tumours produce volatile chemicals which a dog can detect. Researchers trained four dogs two German shepherds, an Australian shepherd and a Labrador to detect lung cancer. Three groups of patients were tested: 110 healthy people, 60 with lung cancer and 50 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a narrowing of the airways of the lungs. Read more Researchers have identified a new form of ecstasy that kills blood cancer cells in a test-tube within 24 hours. When the drug attaches to the cancer it causes the cells to self-destruct. Its a clean way to destroying the cancer. The cells kill themselves and all the bad parts are naturally removed, so there are less side-effects compared to chemotherapy. Researchers identified a version of the ecstasy drug that is 100 times more powerful than the recreational version. The work is published in Investigational New Drugs. Preliminary work suggests the new modified drug causes fewer nasty side-effects which ecstasy-users experience, including neurotoxicity. The link between ecstasy and cancer was discovered more than six years ago, when Researchers group saw the blood cancers were making very similar chemicals to the ones ecstasy targets in the brain. The new version of the drug they have created is extremely efficient at attacking the cancer. Read more Association of IT Dealers (AIT) organised AIT Health Day with the theme Health is the Real Wealth in association with Narayana Hrudayalaya at Mazumdar- Shaw Cancer Center, Narayana Health City.Dr Satish Kumar, endocrinologist gave an insight into the various aspects of diabetes and how to control it, briefly touching upon the different hormones and their functions. Dr Moni Abraham Kuriakose, oncologist, spoke about how cancer is caused and the different types of cancers. He also spoke about the factors which are under our control to ward off cancers. Dr Vijeendran, physiotherapist, gave an interesting presentation on fitness and stress management. With slides, he brought out in a vivid manner how lifestyles have brought about lack of fitness, and also made all the attendees do some simple exercises to release stress. Dr Sanjay Mehrotra spoke about the heart and the factors which affect heart functioning. He stressed on weight reduction, especially paunch reduction, as an important factor in reducing risk of heart disease. He explained in great detail why Indians are more prone to diabetes and heart diseases, which was an eye opener for all. The well-known heart surgeon Dr Devi Shetty took the crowd through a presentation on the status of health in India and the requirement of doctors which is in dearth in our country and providing medical facilities to the poor and needy, and also insurance programs. Read more A NEW study has found that saffron, a commonly used spice that add flavour and colour to foods, provides a significant chemo preventive effect against liver cancer in animal models. When saffron was administered to rats with diethylnitrosamine (DEN), induced liver cancer, an inhibition of cell proliferation and stimulation of apoptosis was observed. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), or liver cancer, is the fifth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer mortality in the world. Prior studies have shown that saffron, a naturally derived plant product, possesses antioxidant, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory properties. The research team administered saffron to the animals at 75mg/kg, 150 mg/kg, and 300 mg/kg per day two weeks prior to DEN injection and continued the regimen for 22 weeks.Results show saffron significantly reduced the number and the incidence of liver nodules, with animals receiving the highest dose of saffron showing complete inhibition of hepatic nodules. Read more Finding ovarian cysts on an ultrasound scan isnt a cancer sentence for women who are middle-aged and older. Women with so-called inclusion cysts werent at higher risk for ovarian cancer or, for that matter, breast or endometrial tumors, researchers found. Data for the new study came from the Ovarian Cancer Screening, which includes more than 200,000 women aged 50 to 74 years. About half of those are getting ultrasound screening exams at regular intervals. In the first year, screening identified 1,234 women with inclusion cysts, and 22,914 with normal ovaries, according to the report. The results add to evidence challenging the long-held belief that such cysts, which are sacs filled with fluid or other soft tissue, would trigger cancer. Read more While the big five of lung, prostate, breast, bowel and skin cancer make up 60 per cent of all diagnoses, more than half the cancer deaths are caused by less common or under-researched types of the disease. The Forgotten Cancers Project hopes to collect data from 15,000 participants 1000 sufferers of each of the 15 rare strains to build a research platform. A further 15,000 people who have a family member suffering from a rare type of cancer will also be targeted. The Cancer Council launched the initiative, which it said was the first epidemiological-based research project in the world focusing on less common cancers, today to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Daffodil Day, its largest annual fundraising event. The 15 target cancers for the project are bladder, bone, brain, gallbladder, kidney, leukaemia, liver, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, oesophageal, pancreatic, small intestine, stomach, thyroid and uterine cancer. Read more Repeat testing for high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) using self-sampling of vaginal fluid may increase specificity of cervical cancer screening and reduce unnecessary treatment in women aged 30 to 65 years, according to the results of a prospective study reported in the August issue of theBritish Journal of Cancer. Testing for high-risk [HPV] in primary screening for cervical cancer is considered more sensitive, but less specific, in comparison with [Papanicolaou]-smear cytology. Women with persistent HPV infections have a higher risk of developing cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2+ (CIN2+) lesions. The study goal was to assess the improvement in specificity for detecting histologically confirmed CIN2+ lesions associated with short-time repeat testing for high-risk HPV in women aged 30 to 65 years, using self-sampling to obtain the primary sample for HPV analysis. Of 8000 women aged 30 to 65 years who had not attended organized screening for at least 6 years, 8% (669) could not be contacted or had undergone hysterectomy. The rest of the women were offered self-sampling of vaginal fluid at home, and the samples were sent for HPV typing. About 3 months after the initial HPV test, women who tested positive for high-risk HPV in the self-sampling test were asked to undergo a follow-up HPV test and a cervical biopsy. This study provides valuable additional data which can help inform improvements in the cervical screening programme in future especially when screening will be increasingly taken up by women who have been vaccinated against HPV. Its important that we reduce the number of women going through unnecessary procedures so that we can minimise any associated anxiety, and also make colposcopy services and screening more efficient. Read more Scientists have developed a new type of scanner that is claimed to be more effective at detecting breast cancer than conventional mammograms. The new machine finds tumours in the breast without the need for radiation by using infra red beams and thermal energy. In a major trial of more than 2,500 people, the technology was found to be 92 per cent effective at detecting breast cancer in women compared to just 80 per cent for traditional mammograms that use X-rays. Results of the study are due to be published soon in the leading medical journal Radiology. Scientists at Real Imaging the Israeli inventors -have discovered that women with breast cancer produce different signals on the surface of their skin which is detected by the machine without coming into contact with the breast. Read more A hand-held device that delivers a turbo-charged vaccine into muscles is being used to treat cancer. The device fires a skin cancer vaccine into the arm or leg, using electricity to boost the treatments potency 100-fold. Researchers who developed it say it could potentially help with a number of other cancers, including lung, throat, liver, stomach, prostate, ovarian and bladder. The device treats cancer using a special vaccine. Traditional vaccines, such as those used to prevent infectious diseases, contain harmless versions of the disease-causing microbes these harmless microbes stimulate the immune system to recognise invaders. Researchers have employed the same technology for cancer treatments, in effect producing a vaccine to the disease. Instead of training the immune system to seek out viruses and bacteria, the vaccines prime it to find and destroy cancer cells. Read more An Indian origin researcher along with other colleagues have indicated that the most common breast cancer uses the most efficient, powerful food delivery system known in human cells and blocking that system kills it. This method of starving cancer cells could provide new options for patients, particularly those resistant to standard therapies such as tamoxifen. Human estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells thriving in a Petri dish or transplanted onto mice die when exposed to a drug that blocks the transporter, called SLC6A14. The compound they used is alpha-methyl-DL-tryptophan, already used in humans for short periods when the get a PET scan in certain areas of the brain. When the researchers treated estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells with it or put it in the drinking water of the mice with the cells, rapid growth stopped and the cancer cells died. The study has been published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Read more In 18 studies that included more than 10,000 people, colon cancer risk was as much as 33 percent lower in subjects with the highest blood levels of vitamin D compared to those with the lowest levels, researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Those with the highest intake of vitamin D through supplements and food had 12 percent lower risk than those with the lowest intakes. Vitamin D has previously been linked to protection from various cancers, heart disease, diabetes and asthma, among other conditions. How the vitamin might exert a beneficial effect is still poorly understood, however. Some evidence suggests that to achieve a benefit people may need more than current recommended daily requirements. Limitations of the analysis, the researchers note, included the lack of uniform criteria for comparison groups across the various studies; also, not all of the studies had information on vitamin D intake or its blood levels for individuals, only ranges for groups. The lowest and highest categories in different studies also varied significantly. Read more September brings with it Ovarian Cancer Awareness month, a rare and often-deadly disease that can strike at any time in a womans life. Recent ovarian cancer research has brought about some hope, however. One study identified a particular antibody that is found in blood and develops an immune system response to a protein called mesothelin. Mesothelin is present in normal tissue but in abundance in advanced ovarian cancer cells. Scientists hope to develop a screening test based on this antibody to better be able to early detect ovarian cancer. A second study reported findings that may not only be able to detect the onset of ovarian cancer but also target genetic weaknesses in cancer cells. Research found that 96 percent of ovarian cancer tumors they studies to contain mutated TP53 genes. TP53 creates a tumor suppressor protein, stopping cells from growing and dividing uncontrollably. Mutations in the gene disrupt this proteins function. By identifying this trademark, treatment may, one day, be able to target and destroy cancer cells. Read more Researchers have found a way to inject the Clostridium sporogenes bacterium into patients, where it grows inside solid tumors. It then interacts with a separate drug injected into the cancer sufferers, destroying the cancer cells while preserving the healthy ones in what could be a more precise treatment than surgery. An anti-cancer drug is then injected into the patient in an inactive form, and is then activated by the bacterias enzyme, destroying the tumour cells in the vicinity. The technique has recently been improved by the team introducing a much-improved version of the enzyme into the DNA of the soil bacteria, which can be produced in greater quantities in the tumor. Read more Scientists have discovered a new genetic mutation which they say could identify people who are susceptible to acute myeloid leukaemia, a type of blood cancer that kills thousands every year. An international team of researchers found mutations in a gene, called GATA2, which among other roles, controls the process that changes primitive blood-forming cells into white blood cells. The findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics, could lead to a genetic test allowing people with a family history of leukaemia to find out if they carry the faulty gene before their symptoms emerge, the researchers said. The researchers started by studying four families who, over generations, have had several relatives with acute myeloid leukaemia. Their disease onset occurred from the teens to the early 40s. Previously, scientists linked mutations in 2 other genes, RUNX1 and CEBPA, to inherited forms of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukaemia. These genes bind to DNA and control the copying of information encoded in this molecule. Read more September is National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. One in every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in his lifetime. Being told he has prostate cancer can leave a man feeling helpless and confused, having been told that his life is in danger if he forgoes immediate treatment. He may be thinking, Is there any good news in this nightmare? There is: Today, prostate cancer, when detected early, is almost 100 percent curable. And, there are many things a man can do to keep his prostate healthy and help prevent the onset of prostate cancer. Anit-Oxidents. Some dietary anti-oxidants are natures gift molecules, endowed with cancer preventive and therapeutic properties. Although there has been a great emphasis on early detection of prostate cancer with the PSA test, there has been little in progress in preventing the disease. Although the SELECT trial did not show a reduction in prostate cancer in men taking Vitamin E and Selenium over placebo, we do believe that the proper form of these compounds can be helpful. In addition, lycopene (found in tomatoes) is a potent carotenoid which has been investigated recently in pre clinical and clinical studies with interesting findings and should be incorporated into the diet. We also recommend daily intake of omega 3 compounds. In addition, we believe that there are great chemopreventative benefits of polyphenolic anti-oxidants derived from green tea, although the amount of green tea to take each day is uncertain. Typically we recommend 2-4 cups per day. Read more One or two doses of a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer may be just as effective as three doses. But investigators say more years of follow-up are needed to confirm the findings. The vaccine used in the study, the HPV 16/18 vaccine, prevents infection with the two strains of HPV that cause most cervical cancers. Currently, recommendations call for three doses of the vaccine to be given over six months. Girls typically vaccinated between the ages of 11 and 12. The vaccine can be given between ages 9 and 25. Read more Women with a history of breast and ovarian cancers in their families are developing the disease at a younger age than their ancestors, a study shows. Scientists made the finding while researching trends in the age of cancer diagnosis between generations in families with history of breast or ovarian cancer. They found among a group of 132 women with genetic mutations linked to breast or ovarian cancer, 106 had older relatives such as mothers or aunties who were diagnosed with the disease. Based on one analysis of the age all the women were diagnosed, the younger generation were told on average six years earlier they had cancer than their older relatives. Read more HPV was first identified as the cause of cervical cancer in 1983. In 1984, he discovered HPV18 which, between the two strains were shown to be responsible for approximately 70 percent of cervical cancers. In 2006, the first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer as a result of these two strains, Gardasil, was approved by the FDA. The vaccine protects against two high risk strains, those known to potentially cause cancer, and two low risk strains that typically result in genital warts. Since that time, the usefulness of the vaccine has expanded. The vaccine, which initially was approved as useful only with respect to cervical cancerwas approved by the FDA for the prevention of vaginal, vulvar and most recently, anal precancerous and cancerous lesions, resulting from these two strains of the virus. As a result, the majority of individuals who have even heard of HPV typically make the connection to cervical cancer. It is almost as if the two have become synonymous. What is unfortunate is that, despite the FDA expanding its use for prevention of three additional cancers. Read more One year ago, a team of researchers showed that a diet rich in plant compounds lowers the risk of breast cancer in women after menopause. These compounds are called phytoestrogens and they attach to the receptors for the female sexual hormone estrogen. The studies shows the therapeutic effects of these compounds. Now, Heidelberg researchers want to know if phytoestrogens have any influence on the course of breast cancer development. The researchers found that the women with the highest enterolactone levels had a 40 percent lower risk of death, when compared to patients with the lowest enterolactone levels. Additionally, when scientists factored in the prevalence of metastasis and secondary tumors, the found a similar conclusion: Women with the highest enterolactone levels also had a lower risk for such an unfavorable disease progression. Read more Every one lakh women in the state, 20 are diagnosed with cervical cancer. The figures may not be shocking but doctors are seeing a pattern in the dreaded disease rural women are more prone than their urban counterparts. Cervical cancer a type of cancer which occurs when abnormal cells on the cervix (lower part of the uterus) hits women in the age group of late 20s to early 40s. Hygiene factor and lifestyle are two key reasons behind rural women being more vulnerable to this form of the ailment. Good news is that rate of cervical cancer is slowly going down in India, says Dr Moni Kurikose, director of surgical oncology, at the Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center. Read more Scientists have discovered a link between stress and the growth and spread of cancer. Published in the online edition of the prestigious International Journal of Cancer. The researchers found that a neurotransmitter neuropeptide Y or NPY released in response to stress, accelerates cell growth and cell migration. The spread of cancer cells from the breast to other parts of the body makes the disease lethal. In their research, Jackson and Medeiros looked at a branch of the nervous system known as the sympathetic nervous system. When its activated during stress, the sympathetic system communicates with cells through the release of neurotransmitters, including NPY. They looked specifically at breast cancer because the female breast has a high density of sympathetic nerves. Read more People recently diagnosed with lung cancer are at higher risk of having a stroke than those without lung tumors, suggests a large new study. Researchers looking at data covering more than 150,000 adults found that among those with lung cancer, 26 in every 1000 experienced a stroke each year, compared with 17 in 1000 who did not have cancer. It is also found that a less common type of stroke hemorrhagic stroke, caused by sudden bleeding into the brain occurred more often among the lung cancer patients than ischemic stroke, which is usually caused by a clot blocking blood flow to brain tissue. Some evidence suggests that excessive bleeding and blood clots, both of which can be caused by tumors, as well as chemotherapy side effects, could partly explain the apparent link between cancer and stroke, researchers note. Read more Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Alarmingly, the incidence of breast cancer is rising rapidly in India, pushing cervical cancer to the second spot. Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the tissues of the breast. It can occur either in the ducts that move milk from the breasts to the nipples or in the tissue where the milk is formed. Breast cancer is curable and the chances of the success of the treatment shoot up if the detection of the same happens in the early stages. For this, the symptoms must be thoroughly examined. Symptoms - Painless swelling (lump) in the breast or the armpit region - Nipple retraction - Nipple discharge - Change in size and shape of the breast and the nipples - Change in the look of the skin surrounding the nipples and the breast region, looking reddish in colour Prevention of breast cancer Self-examinations are important, once a month, to check the presence of any lump formation and in case any lumps or abnormatlities are found a doctor should be consulted immediately. Also a woman must undertake yearly mammogram X-rays after the age of 40. However, if there is a family history, then the mammogram is better done from the age of 35. It is believed that a mammogram can detect breast cancer at least three years before it can be palpable by clinical examination. In case of females with dense breasts, MRI should be preferred over mammogram. Read more... Scientists have found that a key cancer protein could help regulates memory formation a finding that could pave the way for Alzheimers disease treatment. Cyclin E is a well-known culprit that drives many types of solid tumors and blood cancers. The study is the first revelation that cyclin E has a crucial role in the formation of nerve connections, or synapses, in the brain. The researchers found potential evidence linking cyclin E to Alzheimers disease, because it binds to an enzyme called Cdk5 that is involved in memory.Many types of cancer cells, including breast, ovarian, colon, and blood cancers, are driven by the overexpression of cyclin E, which acts like a cars accelerator pressed to the floor, speeding the cells through their growth-and-division cycle and allowing tumors to form and spread. In the current study, co-lead author Junko Odajima, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Sicinski laboratory, showed that cyclin E in the brain attaches itself to the Cdk5 enzyme. When cyclin E molecules bind to and inactive Cdk5, synapses formation is increased, and, presumably, memory function improves. Read more A new drug is offering fresh hope for people with advanced prostate cancer, as early results of its trial showed it can prolong survival significantly. Patients who were given the new drug called Radium-223 Chloride known as Alpharadin TM found that it eased pain and caused minor side effects. It was found targeting tumours accurately using alpha radiation, which doctors conducting the study said is the most effective form of radiation to eliminate cancer because it limits damage to surrounding tissue. Read more Abiraterone acetate, which is being sold under the trade name Zytiga, has been discovered to be very effective on those in the advanced stages of prostate cancer. The drug which was developed works by blocking testosterone production in all tissues, including cancerous ones. Incidentally, testosterone (male sex hormone) triggers the growth and spread of prostate cancer. The prostate gland is part of the male reproductive system and is situated near the urinary bladder. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men. The cancer can be easily identified by a simple blood test for PSA (prostate specific antigen), which is a prostate cancer marker. The levels of PSA are elevated in those with prostate cancer. Read more Treating pregnant cancer patients with powerful chemotherapy drugs appears not to harm their unborn children, but pre-term delivery to avoid subjecting them to chemotherapy does, according to a study. Scientists who studied the health and mental development of children born to mothers treated for cancer in pregnancy found they were not affected by chemotherapy, but were harmed if they were born prematurely, either naturally or by induction. Results presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary, he said the data show there is no need for pregnant cancer patients to have abortions or delay chemotherapy treatment beyond the first trimester, but stressed that doctors should avoid inducing early birth if at all possible. An estimated 2,500 to 5,000 pregnant women in Europe are diagnosed with cancer each year a diagnosis that is doubly traumatic as mothers-to-be worry that either the disease or the treatment could harm their unborn child. Read more Middle-aged men are twice as likely as women to end up with a cancer diagnosis after a colonoscopy, according to study that challenges current screening guidelines. Currently, people at average risk of colon cancer start screening for the disease at age 50, regardless of gender. The study found that around 80 55-year-old men would need to undergo colonoscopies to spot one cancer, with the same true for 65-year-old women. The same logic held for the pre-cancerous growths called advanced adenomas, which doctors also look for during colonoscopies. About one in 19 men develops colon cancer at some point and slightly fewer women do. The disease, which usually strikes older adults, is the third leading cause of cancer deaths. At 0.8 percent, the rate of colon cancer among men aged 50 to 54, for instance, was twice that found among women in the same age group. That means 125 men would need to have a colonscopy to find one tumor, versus 264 women. Read more SCIENTISTS believe they have found a clear link between eggs and prostate cancer. Researchers say men who consume three eggs a week could be 81% more likely to develop the condition. On average British people have three-and-a-half eggs each week. Experts think the damage may be done by the high amounts of cholesterol or a nutrient called choline which are found in the food. The report by the researchers said: Men who consumed two-and-a-half eggs or more a week had an 81% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer compared to men who consumed less than half an egg a week. Although additional studies are needed, caution in egg intake may be warranted for adult men. Read more Cancer experts are to carry out a major study to see if commonly used blood pressure drugs cut the risk of breast cancer spreading. Data from 800 patients has already shown those previously given beta blockers had half the chance of their cancer spreading as women who had not. Study will look at about 30,000 patients, and will report next year. If that too shows benefits from the medication, further research in which breast cancer patients would be treated with beta blockers, would follow. Doctors cannot move straight to this kind of study because they need to have more evidence there is a beneficial effect of taking beta blockers first. Breast cancer spreading to other parts of the body is the biggest cause of death from the disease. It is thought that about 30% of breast cancers spread, yet these account for up to 90% of all deaths from the disease. The early work on beta blockers found that the women who had taken them had a 71% reduced risk of a cancer-related death. Another study has also identified the biological process whereby beta blockers stop cells moving and therefore stop cancer from spreading. They do this by stopping the action of a molecule on the cell surface called the noradrenergic receptor. If this is blocked, cells cannot move to other parts of the body. Read more Scientists conducting early-stage research have found that a potential new drug from GlaxoSmithKline could treat mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL) the most common form of leukemia in babies. Most patients dont respond well to standard leukemia treatments and often the cancer comes back. The disease is caused when a gene called MLL gets fused to another gene. This disrupts the normal function of MLL by creating a new fusion protein that behaves wrongly, switching on genes that drive the development of leukemia. Using I-BET151 to treat leukemia in mice and human cancer cells in a lab, the researchers found that the chemical could halt the disease, paving the way for more research to be done in first-stage, or so-called Phase I, human trials. Read more Men who are heavy coffee drinkers are at lower risk for prostate cancer, says a study. The researchers found that those who consumed six or more cups a day were almost 20 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer over two decades than those who drank none. The study, published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute , is one of the first to link coffee consumption to a lower risk of prostate cancer. Coffee is a major dietary source of antioxidants, and other studies have suggested that drinking it is associated with health benefits, including a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Read more New research shows that the few men who develop breast cancer tend to have more advanced cases than women and to be diagnosed at an older age. But when statistics are adjusted for factors such as age, men with breast cancer are less likely to die from the disease than women are. The findings shed light on a rare disease in men, one that researchers had earlier assumed was deadlier for males. Its not clear why breast cancer is much less common in men. Women, of course, have much more breast tissue. But volume doesnt appear to affect the risk of breast cancer in women, since those with large breasts dont develop the disease more than those with small breasts. Women were diagnosed at age 62 on average and men at age 70. Men with breast cancer were less likely to live for five years than women with the disease were, but the situation reversed when researchers adjusted their statistics so they wouldnt be thrown off by differences between the two groups in terms of age and other factors. Read more In India, four to six of 1 lakh people suffer from the rare form of cancer. Health experts said there has been a rise in people suffering from pancreatic cancer in India, especially in urban cities like Mumbai. They warn that it might become a lifestyle disease soon. Pancreatic cancer has a negligible survival rate and is ranked fourth in cancer-related deaths in the US. Pancreatic cancer is of two types neuroendocrine cancer, a less lethal form which Jobs suffered from, and classic pancreatic which is deadly. There are more case of the former in India. The tumours are located on the head of the pancreas. They block the bile duct and cause jaundice. Read more The number of potential prostate cancer cases discovered in screening tests conducted at the fair last month. Out of 2,569 men who got the free blood test at the fair, 160 had a level of 4 or higher for prostate-specific antigen, commonly known as PSA. PSA is a protein that can indicate the presence of cancer in the prostate, a walnut-size gland below the bladder that is part of the male reproductive system. A reading of less than 4 nanograms of PSA per milliliter of blood has generally been considered medically normal. However, recent research has suggested follow-up tests are warranted for levels of 2.5 to 4. Read more Scientists have discovered a mechanism which they claim causes an aggressive type of lung cancer to re-grow following chemotherapy thus offering hopefor new therapies. The study showed that the regrowth of SCLC cells could be blocked by a drug that targets growth signals, which, in healthy cells, control organ development and repair. Blocking the signalling pathway, known as Hedgehog, could form basis of new SCLC treatments. This discovery gives us important clues for designingnew treatment approaches. By using drugs to inhibit the Hedgehog signalling, we should be able to increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy and reduce the risk of cancer relapse. Read more... Early Research Suggests Bacteria in the Mouth May One Day Help Diagnose Pancreatic Cancer. A simple saliva test may one day help doctors diagnose people with pancreatic cancer before it has spread. As of now, there is no early screening test for pancreatic cancer. There often are no symptoms until the cancer has begun to spread, which accounts for its poor survival rate. According to the study, there are differences in the types and prevalence of certain bacterial strains in the saliva of people with pancreatic cancer. The pancreas, a long, flat gland that lies in the abdomen behind the stomach, produces enzymes that help with digestion and certain hormones that maintain the proper level of blood sugar. Read more Breast cancer symptoms and causes vary widely, as with most types of cancer, and some may have few, if any, risk factors and may not experience any symptoms at all. Causes can be genetic, hormonal or environmental in nature. Both maternal and paternal family history should be considered in determining genetic risk factors, and risk is highest if the affected relative developed breast cancer at a young age, had cancer in both breasts, or is a first-degree relative such as a mother, sister, or daughter. Although a couple of abnormal genes have been linked to breast cancer, testing is expensive and rarely covered by insurance. Anyone interested in being tested for the abnormal genetic markers should discuss their risk factors with their provider. Hormonal risks include women who started menstruation at an early age, as does a late onset of menopause. Having children before 30 years of age may reduce a womans risk, while remaining childless increases risk factors, as does using oral contraceptive pills, although risk decreases progressively once the pills are stopped. Read more Lung cancer patients with diabetes tend to live longer than patients without diabetes, according to a new study due to be published in the November issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. The researchers did not offer an explanation for the tendency; they suggested it needs further investigation, and diabetes should not be considered as a reason to withhold standard cancer therapy. The results showed that: The 1-year survival rate for patients with lung cancer who also had diabetes was 43% compared to 28% for those without diabetes, The 2-year survival rates were 19% and 11% respectively, and The 3-year survival rates were 3% and 1% respectively. When they adjusted for variables such as gender, age, stage of disease, the hazard ratio for survival in patients with lung cancer and diabetes mellitus was 0.55 (95% CI, 0.41-0.75), indicating that at a point in time, nearly twice as many lung cancer patients without diabetes died compared to those with diabetes. The researchers concluded that: Patients with lung cancer with diabetes mellitus have an increased survival compared with those without diabetes mellitus. They also found that patients with diabetes had a lower rate of metastatic cancer, that is they were less likely to have tumors that had spread.At first they thought this might explain why the patients with diabetes survived longer, because most patients with lung cancer dont die from the primary tumor but from the secondary tumors. Read more... The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has predicted there will be around 1.5 million cancer patients in India by 2015, and most of them will suffer from breast cancer. Of 100 women with various cancers in Bangalore, 31.4% suffer from breast cancer. It has overtaken the number of cervical cancer cases, which initially affected a majority of women patients. As per ICMR figures (the last such study was done in 2008), the disease is on the rise at the rate of 3% every year. A decade ago, the figure in Bangalore was 16%, while it is 34.1% today. Approximately 2.5 lakh women with breast cancer are examined in India every year, of which at least 1 lakh are fresh cases. The reasons are urbanization, industrialization, changed lifestyle, unhealthy diet and other factors which lead to hormonal imbalance, said Dr Anthony Pais, head of the Breast Cancer Unit and Womens Oncology department, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre at Narayana Hrudayalaya. Unfortunately, in India most women wait for the symptom of pain. The average age for a woman to be diagnosed with breast cancer is about 47 years. There is a need to start checking once a woman touches 40. In 98% of the cases, the lump is painless, which is more dangerous, said Dr Pais. Read more A type of bacteria that cause dental decay and skin ulcers may also be linked to bowel cancer, say scientists who have found the bug in colon tumors. According to two research teams, which have discovered the pathogen Fusobacterium in bowel cancer tumours, say its not yet clear if the bug might cause cancerous changes or whether it is just an incidental finding. The two research studies looked at more than 100 samples of healthy and cancerous bowel tissue and found the presence of the bug. They discovered the link by analyzing genetic material in tumor samples. They then subtracted human genes from the mix. What remained were microbe genes. Cancers of the liver, stomach and cervix have all been linked to microbes, he knew. And if there is one place in the body with a lot of microbes, it is the colon microbial cells outnumber human cells there by a ratio of at least nine to one. Read more Raised levels of several hormones can triple the risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal women, a study has shown. Scientists looked at the combined effect of multiple sex and growth hormones on a womans cancer chances. They found that one hormone at higher than normal levels increased the breast cancer risk by 10% compared with having no elevated hormones. But the risk for women with five or six hormones at raised levels was doubled, while having seven or eight tripled the odds of getting cancer. Levels of the growth hormone IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1) and c-peptide, a biomarker for insulin, were also measured. Insulin acts as a growth hormone as well as regulating the bodys use of sugar. Over a period of nine years, the scientists identified 320 post-menopausal women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and not on hormone-replacement therapy. Hormone levels in the cancer patients were matched against those of women who did not develop the disease. Read more A vaccine which triggers the immune system to attack the most common type of lung cancer has shown promise in early clinical trials, say researchers. Tests on 148 patients, reported in the Lancet Oncology, showed that adding the vaccine to chemotherapy slowed the cancers progression. However, its effect on overall survival was limited and further trials are now needed. Vaccines for cancer use the same principles as vaccines against infection training the bodys own immune system. However, instead of protecting against measles or seasonal flu, these vaccines attack tumours growing in the body. The idea is that when a cell becomes cancerous and divides uncontrollably, its starts to look different. Proteins on the surface of the cells change and the immune system can be trained to spot these changes. Read more CANCER RESEARCH is trying to forge ahead in two of the most common battles in treating breast cancer the spread of cancer to other parts of the body and resistance to traditional treatments. In the early stages of the disease, the large majority of breast cancers use oestrogen to fuel their growth. The current treatments we have target this aspect with anti-hormone therapies and, as a result, has led to the extensive remissions we have witnessed in breast cancer patients over the past two decades. Unfortunately, more than a third of patients who initially responded to this treatment, will eventually develop what is known as endocrine-resistance as the disease progresses and will no longer be receptive to traditional anti-hormone therapies. Cancer stem cells make up less than 1% of the tumour mass but are thought to represent a critical cell type that are res-ponsible for many of the aggressive features of cancer including metastasis and treatment resistance. The research teams have sought to identify this rare cell population in breast tumors and determine their significance. Their findings showed the expression pattern of specific stem cell markers in breast tumors can determine the path of the disease. Read more Drinking copious amounts of coffee may reduce the risk of the most common type of skin cancer, a new study finds. Women in the study who drank more than three cups of coffee a day were 20 percent less likely to develop basal cell carcinoma, a slow-growing form of skin cancer, than those who drank less than one cup a month. Men in the study who consumed more than three cups of coffee had a 9 percent reduction in their basal cell carcinoma risk. Drinking coffee did not reduce the risk of melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, the study found. Basal cell carcinomas rarely spread to other parts of the body, and rarely return if they are promptly removed. However, any apparent health benefit that is found to come from our diet is a plus, the researchers say. Read more Most of us know someone who has had breast cancer. Some of us knew a woman who tragically died prematurely from the disease. All women, in theory, are at risk. But does that mean all women should have breast screening ? No matter what the service, its sensible to undertake reviews as we are constantly adding to our knowledge base in science and medicine. New evidence can come to light and existing advice should be reviewed in the light of the new evidence. In the case of breast screening, the conflicting evidence for breast screening isnt actually that new, its just taken a brave Professor to publicly flag up that there is an issue and allow the concept that breast screening must always be a good thing to be challenged. Part of that issue is that the public havent been given all the information on what the different levels of risk are for breast cancer, the risks of having screening, and that screening is not the same as diagnosis. The need for a review was raised by an esteemed group of scientists at the Cochrane Collaboration, who produce research on the effectiveness of healthcare. Read more Taking just two pills of aspirin a day can cut the risk of bowel cancer by almost two-thirds for those at the highest risk, research has found. Thousands of lives could be saved if people with a particular hereditary condition took aspirin daily, suggests the study. Scientists have described the results, published in The Lancet, as the icing on the cake after more than two decades of research into aspirins effect on cancer. Todays study specifically looks at the preventative effect in those with a hereditary condition called Lynch Syndrome. Despite being present in only one in 1,000 people, it is responsible for one in 30 bowel cancers. Cancer Research UK predicts the number will climb from about 298,000 in 2007 in 432,000 in 2030, which could overwhelm NHS resources. The biggest reason behind the rise is the ageing population, but changing lifestyles are also a factor. Cancers of the mouth, kidney and liver are forecast to be among the biggest risers, due in part to smoking and drinking. Read more Smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer, about one in 10 people who develop lung cancer have never smoked. Lung cancer in never smokers is an important cancer. Its the sixth leading cause of cancer. Previous estimates of how many non-smokers get lung cancer range from 14 to 21 out of every 100,000 women and five to 14 out of every 100,000 men. The fine particles in air pollution, which can irritate the lungs and cause inflammation, are thought to be a risk factor for lung cancer, but researchers had not clearly teased apart their impact from that of smoking. Pollution levels in different locations ranged from a low of about six units to a high of 38. The levels dropped over time, however, from an average of 21 units in 1979 1983, to 14 units in 1999 2000, producing an overall average pollution level of 17 units across the study period. After the team took into account other cancer risk factors, such as second-hand smoke and radon exposure, they found that for every 10 extra units of air pollution exposure, a persons risk of lung cancer rose by 15 to 27 percent. The increased risk for lung cancer associated with pollution is small in comparison to the 20-fold increased risk from smoking. Read more Women who have a relative with breast cancer linked to the high-risk BRCA genetic mutation understandably worry about their own risk. Now, a new study suggests that women who dont test positive for the mutations are not at an extremely high risk of getting breast cancer, even if they have a relative with BRCA-related breast cancer. Their risk is similar to that of women with relatives with non-BRCA-related cancers, the new research indicates. Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation have a 5- to 20-fold higher risk of getting breast or ovarian cancer, the Stanford researchers wrote. That means a lifetime probability of up to 65 percent for breast cancer, and up to 40 percent for ovarian cancer. Women who have the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations and are cancer-free are urged to step up their screening and to begin it early, by age 25, among other measures. They may also consider a preventive mastectomy or ovary removal after childbearing is done. Read more Scientists claim to have discovered a promising tool in the fight against cancer - light, which could lead to a highly targeted treatment without damaging the surrounding tissues. Currently, treatments for cancer can be separated into three categories: blasting it with radiation, surgically removing a tumour or using drugs to kill the cancerous cells. All have side effects and scientists are trying to come up with more precise therapies. In this study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers used an antibody which targets proteins on the surface of cancerous cells. They then attached a chemical, IR700, to the antibody. IR700 is activated when it is hit by near infrared light. This wave of light can penetrate several centimetres into the skin. To test the antibody-chemical combination, researchers implanted tumours, squamous cell carinoma, into the backs of mice. They were given the drug and exposed to near infrared light, the BBC reported. Read more Monthly shots of a cancer vaccine produced encouraging results in a small, very early trial of 26 women with metastatic breast or ovarian cancer (cancer that has spread to other sites around the body), most of whom already had three or more rounds of chemotherapy. Among the 12 breast cancer patients, median survival time was 13.7 months and one patient was still alive at 37 months, when the paper was written up. Four remained stable during the course of the trial. Among the 14 ovarian cancer patients, median survival was 15 months. One woman went 38 months before her disease progressed. Side effects to the treatment were mild, mostly reactions at the injection site. (One patient developed anemia.) Though the news which was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research is encouraging, its also true that its a small, early pilot trial, and the paper didnt have a control group nor discuss how long patients would be expected to live without such therapy. Drugs take a long time to get to the clinic. Before this drug would be approved, it would have to prove its salt in larger trials, and many dont make it that far. Read more A novel type of cancer therapy appears dramatically effective in at least some patients, researchers announced Wednesday. The two-drug medication regimen represents a new treatment approach called epigenetic therapy and signals another potential avenue to eradicate tumors. Epigenetics explains molecular characteristics apart from DNA sequence that influence how genes are expressed. While gene mutations are known to cause cancer, epigenetic changes that turn genes on or off also affect disease development. The new study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery, was a small, phase-2 study of 45 patients facing almost certain death from non-small cell lung cancer. The patients had advanced disease that had spread, and they had failed to respond to several rounds of chemotherapy and other treatments. The study results still need to be replicated, and many questions remain about how the drug combination affects cells. Azacitidine is thought to block an epigenetic change known as DNA methylation that could turn on genes that fight cancer. Azacitidine is a type of chemotherapy that proved too toxic to use. But, given at very low doses in the study, patients were able to tolerate the medication. At low doses, the drug doesnt kill cancer cells the aim of traditional chemotherapy but instead appears to coax genes to switch on to fight cancerous cells. Read more Researchers found that for every 10g a day increase in fibre intake, there was a 10% drop in the risk of bowel cancer. But their analysis of 25 previous studies found that fruit and vegetables fibre did not reduce risk. A cancer charity called for more detailed research on the quantity and type of fibre to eat. Eating fibre and whole grains is known to help protect against cardiovascular disease, but experts say that any link with colorectal cancer is less clear because studies have not had consistent results. Reviewing the results of all previous observational studies in this area, researchers, Leeds and the analysed data provided by almost two million people. Their conclusion, published in the British Medical Journal, is that increasing fibre intake, particularly cereal fibre and whole grains, helps prevent colorectal cancer. Whole grains include foods such as whole grain breads, brown rice, cereals, oatmeal and porridge. A previous study which showed a reduction in risk with high intake of fruit and vegetables suggests that compounds other than fibre in fruit and vegetables could account for this result, said the authors. They also said that the health benefits of of increasing fibre and whole grains intake was not restricted to colorectal cancer. Read more Eating a high-fiber diet is linked with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer, according to new research that analyzed 25 different studies. Total fiber intake, as well as fiber from whole grains and from cereals, was most strongly linked with a reduction in colorectal cancer risk, the researchers say. Overall, the link found between fiber intake and risk reduction was small. Aunes team found a 10% risk reduction in colorectal cancer for each 10 grams of fiber eaten a day. However, the more fiber people ate, the more risk reduction was found. The amount of fiber eaten by those who had the highest and lowest levels varied from study to study. When the researchers compared groups with the lowest fiber intake with those who ate more, they found each 10-gram a day increase in total fiber and cereal fiber was linked with a 10% reduction in colorectal cancer risk. The protective effect was seen no matter what the starting point was for fiber, he says. If you have a low intake, like 5 grams a day, and increase it to 15, it will have an effect, too. In terms of risk reduction for colorectal cancer, however, he says, the more fiber, the better. Read more Cancer, after cardiac-related deaths, is turning out to be a giant killer in India with millions of people falling prey to the disease mostly caused by tobacco and alcohol. An estimated 40 lakh cancer patients are in India and every year 5 lakh cancer deaths were being reported in the country. Oral cancer among rural women is ruling the roost as they are mostly habituated to chewing of tobacco and reverse smoking called as Adda Poga. Majority of these women were prone to cancer and they come to the physician at an advanced stage of the killer-disease. Many of them conceal the problem even from their near and dear ones until they reach the advanced stage. Several rural women also suffer from uterus cancer due to promiscuous living and unhygienic vaginal conditions, he observed. Many women fail to detect early symptoms of cervical cancer like white discharge which is taken lightly. Other symptoms include delayed healing of sores, unusual bleeding, indigestion and thickening of lump in the breast etc. For early detection of cancer, he suggested breast examination by self, going for pap smear apart from periodic health check-up including biopsy, x-ray, ultra sound scan and CT scan. Read more A news study has found that use of the contraceptive pill appears to increase risk of prostate cancer around the globe. According to the researchers, prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in the developed world and the use of the contraceptive pill has soared over the past 40 years. They then analysed the data for individual nations and continents worldwide to see if there was any link between use of the contraceptive pill and illness and death caused by prostate cancer. Their calculations showed that use of intrauterine devices, condoms, or other vaginal barriers was not associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer. But use of the contraceptive pill in the population as a whole was significantly associated with both the number of new cases of, and deaths from, prostate cancer in individual countries around the world, the analysis showed. The researchers emphasise that their research is speculative and designed to prompt further consideration of the issues. As such, their analysis does not confirm cause and effect, and therefore definitive conclusions cannot be drawn, as yet. But they refer to several recent studies, which have suggested that oestrogen exposure may boost the risk of prostate cancer. Read more Elevating its call to remove a potentially troubling plastic ingredient from canned food linings, a breast cancer advocacy group released a report Tuesday that condemned the use of Bisphenol A in food packaging. The Breast Cancer Fund, which researches links between environmental causes and the disease, chose canned foods used in Thanksgiving dinners as its target. After having 28 cans of food independently tested, the group found four samples bought in Minneapolis contained the highest levels of BPA in their respective categories. The use of BPA in consumer goods has stirred up trouble in recent years. Advocates fear that BPA, first synthesized in the 1891 as a synthetic form of the hormone estrogen, could be linked to cancer, infertility, early puberty in females, obesity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Minnesota was the first of roughly 10 states to prohibit the manufacture of baby bottles and sippy cups with BPA, but it can still be used in formula can linings and other food products. Some of the cans tested including those from Minnesota could contain levels of BPA that have been found harmful in laboratory tests, according to the report. Read more Cases of chronic lung disease and lung cancer are rapidly rising in India, remaining mostly undiagnosed until it is too late, experts say. As Thursday marked World Lung Cancer Day, doctors say changing lifestyles, smoking and air pollution have alarmingly raised the number of lung problems. Along with cancer, rising equally rapidly are cases of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease that causes acute breathing problems, also related to smoking in most cases. The biggest issue however remains that lung problems are often ignored and go undiagnosed due to lack of information. Read more Researchers have discovered a peptide that shrinks advanced tumours and improves survival rates for ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer. Its symptoms, which include nausea, bloating and abdominal pain, are vague and can be attributed to a number of ailments. Often the disease remains undetected until its well advanced, when the odds of survival are poor. Its called the silent killer because it really does sneak up on you. In addition to regressing tumours, ABT-898 essentially prunes dysfunctional blood vessels in the tumour while leaving healthy vessels intact. Read more The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on Friday revoked the approval of the drug Avastin as a treatment for breast cancer, ruling on an emotional issue that pitted the hopes of some desperate patients against the statistics of clinical trials. The commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, said that clinical trials had shown that the drug was not helping breast cancer patients to live longer or to meaningfully control their tumors, but did expose them to potentially serious side effects like severe high blood pressure and hemorrhaging. Sometimes, despite the hopes of investigators, patients, industry and even the F.D.A. itself, the results of rigorous testing can be disappointing, Dr. Hamburg told reporters Friday. This is the case with Avastin when used for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. Avastin will remain on the market as a treatment for other types of cancers, so doctors can use it off-label for breast cancer. But insurers might no longer pay for the drug, which would put it out of reach of many women because it costs about $88,000 a year. Federal officials said on Friday that Medicare would still provide coverage for the drugs use in breast cancer, though the government plans to monitor the issue and evaluate coverage options. Read more Immunotherapeutic vaccine called Rindopepimut showed positive results in prolonging survival in patients with newly diagnosed EGFRvIII-positive glioblastoma (GB), one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. 65 patients in 31 locations were choosen for the study known as ACT III. The overall historic survival rate for patients with GB selected to match those on the trial was 15.2 months. Rindopepimut targets the tumor-specific molecule, epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII). EGFRvIII is a mutated form of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) that is only expressed in cancer cells and not in normal tissue, and is a transforming oncogene that can directly contribute to cancer cell growth. Expression of EGFRvIII is linked to poor long term survival, regardless of other factors, such as extent of resection and age. EGFRvIII has been expressed in 31% of GB tumors when assessed using the Celldex PCR assay. The high level of immunity seen in vaccinated patients is again associated with loss of EGFRvIII at recurrence. Rindopepimut was generally well-tolerated with treatment duration up to more than 7 years; toxicities consisted chiefly of injection site reactions, while fatigue, rash, nausea and pruritus also occurred in >10% of patients. Activity and safety data are very consistent with previous smaller studies of Rindopepimut in GB. Read more Women who drink four or more cups of coffee a day may have a reduced risk of developing cancer in the lining of their uterus, according to a study. Researchers who looked at more than 67,000 nurses found that women who drank that much coffee were one-quarter less likely to develop endometrial cancer than women who averaged less than a cup a day, said the study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. The absolute risk that any one woman, coffee drinker or not, would develop the cancer was fairly small, with only 672 women or one percent of the study group being diagnosed with it over 26 years. While researchers could also not say for certain that coffee was the reason for the lower risk among those who drank a lot of coffee, the study adds to several others with similar results. Higher concentrations of insulin and higher lifetime exposure to estrogen have both been linked to a higher risk of endometrial cancer. Researchers looked at a number of other factors, such as differences in womens weight, since obesity is also linked to a higher risk of endometrial cancer, but that did not account for the lower cancer risk seen among coffee drinkers. Read more Deaths from mouth and throat cancer have dropped since the early 1990s, according to a new study but only among people with at least a high school education. Researchers said that may be due to higher rates of smoking and other oral cancer risks among less educated, poorer Americans, and because theyre also less likely to have access to timely health care. Similar trends have been shown in rates of death from lung and breast cancers, for example, they added. Cancer deaths declined during the 1990s and 2000s by two to five percent every year, on average, researchers found. By the end of the study period, the cancers killed three out of every 100,000 white men, six out of every 100,000 black men, and one each of every 100,000 white and black women annually. But when Chen and her colleagues broke those findings down by education level, they found the downward trends only held up among black people with at least a high school education, and only among whites whod completed some college. That throat and mouth cancers are the latest type of cancer to show such a socioeconomic pattern is one more reason to make education a priority, Chen told Reuters Health. Read more A persons genes can increase the risk of developing a type of bone marrow cancer by 30 per cent, a study has revealed. For the first time scientists have identified genes responsible for an aggressive form of the disease, called multiple myeloma. It was already known that relatives of those suffering from the incurable cancer were at increased risk, but until now, no responsible gene had been identified. It is now hoped the discovery will prompt improvements in diagnosis and treatment. Researchers used a technique called a genome wide association study to scan the DNA of 1,675 patients with multiple myeloma. The same process was also carried out on around 5,900 healthy people. When results were compared scientists discovered that two regions of the DNA that were more common in people with multiple myeloma and were therefore linked to a higher chance of developing the disease. Read more One in seven women with advanced or recurring breast cancer could benefit from having an up-to-date biopsy to determine if their treatment plans should be changed, a new study has found. Currently, women with breast cancer that spreads or returns are prescribed therapies based on biopsies done when they were first diagnosed, which are typically many years or decades old. The approach can give an outdated picture of the disease since it ignores the possibility that the cancer may have changed over time, making it unresponsive to previously effective treatments. The finding suggests there isnt a one-size-fits-all approach to treating the various stages of breast cancer. Indeed, some treatments that may not have worked on primary tumours may suddenly prove to be effective in fighting cancers that have returned, or spread to vital organs such as the lungs, liver, bones and lymph nodes. Doctors should recognize this possibility and recommend their patients get an updated biopsy so their cancer can be reassessed, the study concluded. Read more The lives of more bowel cancer patients could be saved if the NHS made more consultants available in emergencies and cancers were detected earlier, experts have said. Bowel cancer is often only detected at a late stage, frequently when a tumour causes a life-threatening emergency bleed or blockage. The report covers data from 100 NHS trusts and includes more than 28,000 cases of bowel cancer. Some form of surgical procedure was performed in 75% of cases and a major resection removal of all or part of the bowel was undertaken in 60% of patients. But the study said delays in diagnosis were having an impact on surgery rates. Late presentation of the disease may be the reason why almost 40% of patients do not receive major surgical resection of their primary disease, it said. There was some good news in the study the overall number of patients who die within 30 days of planned surgery has fallen, to 2.4% in the 12 months to July 2010 from 2.6% in the previous year. The use of keyhole surgery, which is less invasive, is also becoming more widely used, accounting for 30% of cases compared with 25% the year before. Read more Rates of one form of skin cancer may be elevated in areas with naturally high levels of the radioactive gas radon, a study suggests. But researchers caution the findings do not prove that radon raises peoples risk of the disease, known as squamous cell carcinoma a highly curable type of skin cancer. Their study looked only at wider geographical patterns, showing a correlation between an areas radon levels and rates of the skin cancer. Radon a gas produced from the decay of naturally occurring uranium in soil and water is already considered a risk factor for lung cancer. For the new study, reported in the journal Epidemiology, researchers looked at skin cancer rates across 287 postal codes in southwest England. They found that the rates of squamous cell carcinoma varied by postal code. In some areas, the yearly rate was about 35 cases or fewer per 100,000 people; in others, it was as high as 182 cases per 100,000. There was an association between an areas average household radon level and its rate of squamous cell skin cancer. In postal codes where the radon level topped 230 Becquerel per cubic meter (Bq/m3), the rate of the cancer was 76 percent higher versus areas with the lowest average radon levels. Read more Hormone-targeted therapy for prostate cancer may raise the risk of potentially dangerous blood clots. Analyzing data on more than 154,000 older men with prostate cancer, researchers found that those who received hormonal therapy had double the rate of blood clots in the veins, arteries or lungs compared to men not on the treatment. Of the 58,000-plus men taking hormonal therapy, 15 percent developed a blood clot over roughly four years, versus seven percent of men who did not receive get the therapy. A clot in the blood vessels can prove fatal if it breaks loose and travels to the lungs, heart or brain. In this study, men who developed blood clots ended up in the hospital about one-quarter of the time, the researchers report in the journal Cancer. Other potential side effects of hormonal therapy include weight gain, bone thinning, hot flashes and erectile dysfunction. And for many prostate cancer patients, experts say, the benefits of hormonal therapy are not clear. The approach is based on the fact that testosterone can fuel the growth of prostate cancer. Curbing a mans production of the hormone by surgical removal of the testicles or, far more often, medication can be helpful. Read more The latest breakthrough in cancer cell biology was made possible by the help of UWA researchers, providing critical reagents for experiments looking at the regulation of Src, a gene that produces a protein involved in cancer development. The work, entitled Autophagic targeting of Src promotes cancer cell survival following reduced FAK signalling, was published online today by Nature Cell Biology. The Src gene product is found in many different tumour types, but while the tumour cell is dependent on Src for survival, too much Src product in the wrong place can actually kill the cancer cell. Most importantly, the study revealed that inhibiting the Cbl-mediated autophagy of Src, by removing functional Cbl from the system, lead to cell death, raising the possibility of autophaghy inhibition as a means of killing cancer cells. Read more A major analysis of 123 randomized trials involving over 100,000 women with breast cancer over the past 40 years shows that modern chemotherapy regimens reduce mortality by around one third. The researchers studied the trials of various older chemotherapy regimens, finding that standard 1980s chemotherapy regimens could produce a reduction of almost a quarter in breast cancer mortality. They also studied recent trials of modern regimens vs older ones, which showed a further reduction of about one-sixth in breast cancer mortality. They conclude that modern regimens reduce breast cancer mortality rates by about a third among a wide range of patients. The reduction applies to all women, irrespective of age, how big the tumour was, whether it had started to spread to the local lymph nodes and whether it was oestrogen-receptor (ER)-positive. The risk of an ER-positive breast cancer causing death can be reduced substantially by five years of endocrine therapy, which is much less toxic than chemotherapy. Read more A bowel cancer screening program is on course to cut deaths by a sixth, say researchers studying results from the first million people tested. However, the work, published in the journal Gut, has raised concerns that the program, launched in 2006, misses tumours in certain parts of the colon. Testers checked a faeces sample for signs of abnormal bleeding. The researcher who analysed the results said money should be spent on bringing in more sensitive tests. Part of the reason for the high mortality rate is that symptoms often do not appear until cancer is advanced and harder to treat. The screening program aims to catch the tumors earlier, meaning more patients can be cured. Several million people aged 69 and over have now been screened, with approximately half of those invited taking part. Read more Women who have non-melanoma skin cancers are more likely to have smoked cigarettes as compared to women without skin cancer, a new study has claimed. Researchers investigated the relationship between cigarette sipants were recruited through Limoking and non-melanoma skin cancers, including basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCC). Smoking histories were assessed and compared between patients diagnosed with either BCC or SCC, or both, and a group of controls comprised of patients who were screened for skin cancers, but who were not diagnosed with and had no history of skin cancer. Read more An agreement between NH and Cure Thalassemia(CT) has been signed; CT can use the BMT units of NH and MSCC for its patients who want to do a Bone Marrow Trasplantation (BMT),under the daily supervision of Dr. Pietro Sodani (CT co-founder and scientific coordinator), and with the scientific advice of Prof. Lucarelli, the worldwide authority in the field of BMT for thalassemia. NH can also use the scientific advice of Dr. Sodani and Prof. Lucarelli for its thalassemia patients,but without a daily supervision. Furthemore CT,NH and MSCC will work together to: 1. significantly reduce the cost of the BMT 2. do research in the field of BMT both for matched donor and haploidentical BMT A joint co-ordination committee,whose chairman is Dr. Devi Shetty (NH and MSCC Founder and Chairman),consisting of executive of both the institutions has been formed which will oversee the overall functioning of the BMT Unit. Cure Thalassemia is a Social Business which provides affordable Bone Marrow Transplantation through the cross-subsidization model.