Results tagged “study” from Cancer

DURHAM, N.C. -- Avastin, a relatively new type of drug that shrinks cancerous tumors by cutting off their blood supply, can slow the growth of the most common and deadly form of brain cancer, a pilot study conducted at Duke University Medical Center has found.
The study marks the first time that Avastin has been tested against brain tumors, the researchers said. The drug, whose chemical name is bevacizumab, currently is used to treat lung and colorectal cancers.

The researchers tested the effectiveness of Avastin in conjunction with a standard chemotherapy agent in patients with recurrent cancerous brain tumors called gliomas. They found that the two drugs together halted tumor growth up to twice as long as comparative therapies. Though gliomas remain incurable in nearly all cases, the combined drug therapy may buy precious time and preserve physical and mental function longer for patients facing this grim diagnosis, the researchers said.

American cigarette warning labels might be more effective if they were big and graphic -- like those in some other countries, according to a new study.

The news appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

In the study, researchers surveyed nearly 15,000 adult smokers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia to test the effectiveness of the warning labels used in those four countries. The surveys were conducted between 2002 and 2005.

Capsaicin -- the compound that makes chili peppers spicy -- can kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells, with no side effects, according to a new study by researchers at Nottingham University in the UK.

The study, led by Dr. Timothy Bates, found that capsaicin killed laboratory-grown lung and pancreatic cancer cells by attacking tumor cells' source of energy and triggering cell-suicide.

"This is incredibly exciting and may explain why people living in countries like Mexico and India, who traditionally eat a diet which is very spicy, tend to have lower incidences of many cancers that are prevalent in the Western world," Bates said.

The risk of sunbed users developing skin cancer may have trebled over the last decade as sunbeds get stronger, claims a new report.

Sunbeds emit stronger radiation than ever before, and 83 per cent of them exceed the recommended limits. It is estimated that cancer caused by sunbeds could be killing up to 100 people a year.

In the UK, 5,990 people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year, and there are 1,600 deaths from the disease.

Drinking, or even immersing yourself in, chlorinated water may increase your risk of bladder cancer, says a new study.

The new study is the first to suggest that chlorine is harmful to humans when ingested or absorbed through the skin, according to study leader Cristina M. Villanueva of the Municipal Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona and her colleagues.

Chlorine itself is not harmful, but its byproducts increase the risk of cancer. Trihalomethanes are the most prevalent by-product, and they can be absorbed into the body through the skin or by inhalation. When THM is absorbed through the skin or into the lungs, they hold stronger carcinogenic properties because they aren’t detoxified through the liver, Villanueva and her team found in their research.

Study to compare immunogencity of GSK’s cervical cancer candidate vaccine, CERVARIX® , to Merck’s Gardasil® 

Issued — Thursday 18 January 2007, London, UK & Philadelphia, PA - GlaxoSmithKline announced today the initiation of the first study of its kind designed to compare the immunogenicity of its cervical cancer candidate vaccine, CERVARIX®, versus Gardasil®. The primary objective of the head-to-head trial is to compare the immune responses to HPV types 16 and 18 in U.S. women 18 to 26-years-old. Secondary objectives include evaluating the immune responses to HPV 16 and 18 in women 27 to 35-years-old and 36 to 45-years-old. In addition, the study will compare immune responses to other cancer-causing HPV types. Initial study results are anticipated 12 months after studyenrollmentis completed, and extended follow up will continue for another 17 months.

THURSDAY, Jan. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Many cancer studies that rely on what scientists call genetic microarrays have critical flaws in their analyses or their conclusions.

This means doctors are taking this flawed research and using it as the basis of treatment for cancer patients -- treatments that may adversely affect patient outcomes.

That's the surprising conclusion of a new study by researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute that's published in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Seventy-four percent of men treated with a combination of radiation seed implants and external beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer are cured of their disease 15 years following their treatment, according to a study released in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology-Biology-Physics, the official journal of ASTRO.

This study was conducted by the physicians at the Seattle Prostate Institute. Doctors wanted to look at the combination of seed implants and external beam radiation therapy, two different types of radiation therapy, to prolong the long-term disease cure rates for prostate cancer. Over the course of 15 years, doctors followed 232 men with early-stage prostate cancer who received a course of external beam radiation therapy followed by permanent seed implants a few weeks later. Sixty-five percent of these patients had T2b-T3 disease and the entire group had an average pre-treatment PSA of 15 ng/ml.

TAIPEI - One person was diagnosed with cancer every 8.4 minutes on average in Taiwan in 2003, compared with 8.5 minutes in 2001 and nine minutes in 2000, a report released yesterday by the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

The 2003 figures were calculated based on the number of cancer cases at 212 hospitals around the country with at least 50 beds.

There were 250.77 cancer patients out of every 100,000 people in Taiwan in 2003, with liver cancer and breast cancer the most common types of cancer among men and women, respectively, the report showed.

Breast cancer could be sexually transmitted, says a researcher who has found the same virus that causes cervical cancer in breast cancer tumours from Australian women.

Emeritus Professor James Lawson of the University of New South Wales and colleagues have found the same form of the human papillomavirus (HPV) associated with cervical cancer in almost half the breast tumour samples they tested.

It's the first study of its kind in Australia, although international studies have also found cervical cancer-related HPV in breast cancer cells.

ISLAMABAD - Green and black tea can slow down the spread of prostate cancer, while a highly touted antioxidant found in red wine, grapes and peanuts does not perform well as a cancer preventive, two new studies have found.

For the tea study, Susanne Henning, an associate researcher at the Center for Human Nutrition at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, assigned 20 men, all scheduled for prostate removal due to cancer, to drink either black tea, green tea or soda, five

The aim was to see if substances called polyphenols found in tea might slow prostate cancer cell growth. Other researchers have found these polyphenols induce death in cancer cells.

A CHINESE mushroom can help stomach cancer patients survive longer.

An analysis by Japanese researchers of eight studies involving 8000 patients over almost 20 years has found extract of the mushroom coriolus versicolor boosts the human immune system.

People have been using the mushroom in Asian countries since antiquity and it has become a prescription medication in Japan, said Professor Thomas Borody, director of Sydney's PSK Information Foundation and the Centre for Digestive Diseases.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China accounts for about half of the global annual death toll from stomach cancer due to the Chinese taste for pickled and smoked food and unabashed enthusiasm for smoking, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The disease kills about 300,000 people in China a year and there are 400,000 new cases reported annually, Xinhua said in a report seen on Wednesday.

Only lung and liver cancer kill more people in China, it quoted Jin Maolin, a doctor at Peking University, as saying.

A Danish study shows no rise in cancer among people who've used cell phones as long as 21 years.

The study included more than 420,000 Danes who got their first cell phone between 1982 and 1995.

Some of those people kept their phones as long as 21 years. But, on average, they had cell phone service for 8.5 years.

The study's researchers included Joachim Schuz, PhD, of the Danish Cancer Society. It tracked cancers among the cell phone users from the start in 1982-1995 through 2002.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stem cells -- the master cells that give rise to all the blood and tissue in the body -- may also be responsible for tumors, according to two separate studies published on Sunday.

Canadian and Italian researchers both found that specialized colon cancer stem cells appeared to be the sources of colon cancer tumors in mice.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature, support the idea that future cancer treatments will have to home in on cancer stem cells.

Similar findings have been seen for leukemia, breast and brain cancers, but the two studies are the first to show cancer stem cells are also responsible for colon tumors.

HealthDay News -- Certain breast cancer patients who switch to the aromatase inhibitor drug anastrozole (Arimidex) after two to three years of treatment with tamoxifen live longer and are more likely to remain cancer-free, German researchers report.

"A lot of people have been waiting to see whether aromatase inhibitors will show a survival advantage, and I think these data will assure them that 5 years of tamoxifen is no longer the standard of care; the best treatment for women with hormone-sensitive early-stage breast cancer should include an aromatase inhibitor," lead author and professor Walter Jonat, University of Kiel, said in a prepared statement.

His team published the findings online Friday in The Lancet medical journal.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Removal of the prostate, a procedure known as radical prostatectomy, and the surrounding lymph nodes may be adequate treatment for advanced prostate cancer, new research suggests. While adding radiation therapy may reduce the risk that the cancer will return, it does not seem to improve overall survival.

In approximately one third to one half of men treated surgically for advanced prostate cancer, some cancer remains outside the gland. How best to treat these men is a continuing subject of debate, Dr. Ian M. Thompson, Jr., and his associates point out in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

by Kristina Collins, The Cancer Blog

At home screening may reduce deaths from bladder cancer in men over fifty years of age. Bladder cancer is diagnosed in as many as 60,000 individuals annually in the United States and is much more common in the elderly.

Cancer of the bladder has a high cure rate if detected early enough, however, the cure rate gets much lower if the cancer spreads and metastasizes to other parts of the body. One way to diagnose the disease is to detect microscopic amounts of blood in the urine.