Cancer blog from medicineworld.orgCancer blog from medicineworld.org adds a personal touch to the stories related to cancer. This cancer blog brings you stories of hope, stories of survivors and latest news and research related to cancer.Normalizing tumor vessels to improve cancer therapy- September 17, 2008 Chemotherapy drugs often never reach the tumors they're intended to treat, and radiation treatment is not always effective, because the blood vessels feeding the tumors are abnormal"leaky and twisty" in the words of the late Judah Folkman, MD, founder of the Vascular Biology program at Children's Hospital Boston. Now, Vascular Biology scientists have discovered an explanation for these abnormalities that could, down the road, improve chemotherapy drug delivery. Their findings were reported in...http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/8-2008/normalizing-tumor-vessels.html Too much calcium in blood may increase risk of fatal prostate cancer- September 17, 2008 Men who have too much calcium in their bloodstreams may have an increased risk of fatal prostate cancer, as per a new analysis from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin. "We show that men in upper range of the normal distribution of serum calcium subsequently have an almost three-fold increased risk for fatal prostate cancer," said Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., associate professor of cancer biology and of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest, a part of Wake.http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/too-much-calcium-in-blood-may-increase-risk.ht... Targeted radiation therapy can control limited cancer spread- September 17, 2008 Precisely targeted radiation treatment can eradicate all evidence of disease in selected patients with cancer that has spread to only a few sites, suggests the first published report from an ongoing clinical trial. In the August 15, 2008, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, (published online August 12) scientists from the University of Chicago Medical Center report that targeted radiation treatment had completely controlled all signs of cancer in 21 percent of patients who had five or fewer...http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/8-2008/control-limited-cancer-spread.html Painkillers lower levels of prostate cancer biomarker- September 17, 2008 Common painkillers like aspirin and ibuprofen appear to lower a man's PSA level, the blood biomarker widely used by physicians to help gauge whether a man is at risk of prostate cancer. But the authors of the study, which appears online Sept. 8 in the journal Cancer, caution that men shouldn't take the painkillers in an effort to prevent prostate cancer just yet........http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/painkillers-prostate-cancer-biomarker.html Black Raspberries Slow Cancer- September 17, 2008 New research strongly suggests that a mix of preventative agents, such as those found in concentrated black raspberries, may more effectively inhibit cancer development than single agents aimed at shutting down a particular gene. Scientists at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer........http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/8-2008/black-raspberries-slow-cancer.html Early stage colon cancer and gatekeeper gene- September 17, 2008 The absence or inactivation of the RUNX3 gatekeeper gene paves the way for the growth and development of colon cancer, Singapore researchers report in the Sept. issue of the journal Cancer Cell Prior studies have shown that RUNX3 plays a role in gastric, breast, lung and bladder cancers. The inactivation of RUNX3 occurs at a very early stage of colon cancer, as per the Singapore scientists' studies with human tissue samples and animal models........http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/early-stage-colon-cancer-and-gatekeeper-gene.h... Colorectal cancer screening should start at age 50- September 17, 2008 Colorectal adenomas, the precursor polyps in virtually all colorectal cancers, occur infrequently in younger adults, but the rate sharply increases after age 50. Additionally, African Americans have a higher rate of proximal, or right-sided, polyps, and may have a worse prognosis for survival if the polyps become malignant. Therefore, the results of this study further emphasize the importance of colonoscopies, which view the entire colon, for the prevention of colorectal cancer beginning at age.http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/colorectal-cancer-screening-should-start-at-ag... Nano-Sized'Cargo Ships' to Destroy Tumors- September 17, 2008 Researchers have developed nanometer-sized 'cargo ships' that can sail throughout the body via the bloodstream without immediate detection from the body's immune radar system and ferry their cargo of anti-cancer drugs and markers into tumors that might otherwise go untreated or undetected. In a forthcoming issue of the Gera number of-based chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, researchers at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT report that their nano-cargo-ship system integrates therapeutic...http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/nano-sizedcargo-ships-to-destroy-tumors.html Height linked to risk of prostate cancer development- September 17, 2008 A man's height is a modest marker for risk of prostate cancer development, but is more strongly associated with progression of the cancer, say British scientists who conducted their own study on the connection and also evaluated 58 published studies. In the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 12 scientists at four universities in England studied more than 9,000 men with and without prostate cancer and...http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/height-linked-to-risk-of-prostate-cancer.html Developing Drug to Stop Cancer Recurrence- September 17, 2008 After years of working toward this goal, researchers at the OU Cancer Institute have found a way to isolate cancer stem cells in tumors so they can target the cells and kill them, keeping cancer from returning. A research team led by Courtney Houchen, M.D., and Shrikant Anant, Ph.D., discovered that a particular protein only appears in stem cells. Until now, scientists knew of proteins that appeared in both regular cancer cells and stem cells, but none that just identified a stem cell........http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/9-2008/developing-drug-to-stop-cancer-recurrence.html |