Cancer Research Lab

In vitro fertilization (IVF) may be safely undertaken in women conservatively treated for well differentiated endometrial carcinoma, according to a report in the December Fertility and Sterility.

“Fertility preservation is a rapidly developing field, and it is important that the different available options for fertility preservation be known worldwide for every woman facing cancer treatment,” Dr. Shai E. Elizur from McGill Reproduction Center, Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, said. “Young women facing gonadotoxic treatment should be referred as soon as possible to a fertility specialist to consider fertility preservation options.”

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Misconceptions keep many patients from participating in lung cancer clinical trials, according to a report in the March Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

“Patients’ prior misperceptions about clinical trials (e.g., fear being offered a trial, assume placebo is a possibility, think they will wait to consider a trial if nothing else works, and over-confidence in standard treatment) often prevent them from making an informed decision in the first step — they automatically say no,” Dr. Gwendolyn P. Quinn from H. L. Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida.

“Physicians can lead discussions about a clinical trial by dispelling common myths,” Dr. Quinn suggests.

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Pictures of a corpse and mouth cancers will be displayed on cigarette packets in India from June in a bid to shock people into stopping smoking, health officials said on Tuesday.

Other packs will show a toddler with tubes running up his nostrils with the caption “Your smoking kills babies”, rather than the milder, pictureless warning “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health” currently displayed.

More than 2,500 Indians die every day due to diseases linked to consumption of tobacco products, according to official figures, and the health ministry admits laws banning smoking in public places have had little impact.

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Superoxide produced by Enterococcus faecalis promotes chromosomal instability in hamster cells in vitro, according to a report in the February issue of Gastroenterology.

“I like to think of our project as the colonic variation of the Helicobacter pylori and gastric cancer story,” Dr. Mark M. Huycke from University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma said. “We hypothesize that commensal bacteria play a significant role in generating chromosomal instability by abnormally activating colonic macrophages and that this leads to sporadic colorectal cancer through a bystander effect.

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“Conditional survival” is a more accurate way to portray prognosis for cancer patients than is a typical actuarial table, physicians report in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology for March.

Historically, survival has been estimated based on risk at diagnosis, Dr. Samuel J. Wang and his associates note, whereas conditional survival takes into account patients’ declining risk over time.

So if a patient is still alive 3 years after diagnosis, his chances of continued survival are better than they were during the first year, Dr. Wang, from the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and his associates explain.

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Europe’s ageing population is leading to an increase in cancer with 300,000 new cases diagnosed each year, researchers said on Wednesday.

An estimated 3.2 million people in Europe were diagnosed with the disease in 2006, compared to 2.9 million two years earlier, and 1.7 million died from the illness.

Lung cancer, most of which is caused by smoking, is the biggest killer with about 334,800 deaths, followed by colorectal, breast and stomach cancer.

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Family size and birth order significantly influence the risk of Helicobacter pylori infection, which is associated with the development of gastric cancer, according to a report in the January PLoS Medicine.

“This work provides evidence that early life environmental considerations, as reflected by family structure, affect the risk of cancer 6 to 7 decades later, quite late in life,” Dr. Martin J. Blaser from New York University School of Medicine, New York said. “This is the striking observation.”

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Men who consume 5 cups a day or more could halve risk, study finds

Drinking green tea may reduce the risk of advanced prostate cancer, according to a study by researchers at Japan’s National Cancer Center.

It said men who drank five or more cups a day might halve the risk of developing advanced prostate cancer compared with those who drank less than one cup a day.

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Microchip could help doctors tailor patient treatment, researchers say

CHICAGO – A highly sensitive microchip may help doctors detect rare traces of cancer circulating in the bloodstream, offering a way to better manage treatment, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The device can isolate, count and analyze circulating tumor cells from a blood sample, the team at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston said.

These circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, are the tiniest fragments of tumors, which are carried in the blood.

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There are many things that women can do to prevent cancer! Reducing your risk of cancer is easier than you think. Simply changing some lifestyle habits can go a long way in preventing many types of cancer.

1. Avoid Smoking and Secondhand Smoke
We hear a dozen times a day how bad cigarettes are for us and the risk of lung cancer. Why? Because smoking is the most significant risk factors for cancer that we can reduce. Did you know that smoking increases your risk factor for devloping dozens of types of cancer?

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