The study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, looked at how different types of fear influenced colorectal cancer screening decisions in nearly eight thousand UK adults. Different experiences of fear were found to have different effects on people’s likeliness to get tested…
The findings are published in American Journal of Human Genetics. Through whole exome sequencing, researchers identified a link between a mutation in PARK2, a gene associated with early-onset Parkinson’s disease, and familial lung cancer. The researchers sequenced the exomes (protein coding region of the genome) of individuals from a family with multiple cases of lung cancer. They then studied the PARK2 gene in additional families affected by lung cancer…
To evaluate the safety, acceptability, and accuracy of the minimally invasive test compared with endoscopy for the diagnosis of Barrett’s esophagus, the researchers enrolled 1110 individuals attending 11 UK hospitals for investigational endoscopy of dyspepsia and reflux symptoms. They found that the new test correctly identified 79.9% of the 647 individuals with endoscopically diagnosed Barrett’s esophagus, and that 92.4% of 463 individuals unaffected by Barrett’s esophagus were correctly identified as being unaffected. The sensitivity of the test increased to 87.2% for patients with circumferential Barrett’s segments more than 3 cm, which are known to confer a higher cancer risk. Nearly 94% of the participants swallowed the sampling device (Cytosponge) successfully, there were no adverse effects attributed to the device, and participants who swallowed the device generally rated the experience as acceptable…
For the study, which was published in Nature Communications, the group performed whole genomic sequencing on 30 individual tumors classified as liver cancer displaying a biliary phenotype. This type of cancer originates in the liver, but is different from hepatocellular carcinoma, the dominant form of primary liver cancer, and is generally more aggressive, with poorer prognosis. …
Numerous angiopoietin-blocking therapies, which work to starve the tumour of its blood supply, are currently in clinical trials for ovarian cancer and other cancers. But despite promising earlier results, some of these therapies are not improving patient survival as much as was expected…
Dr. John S. Kuo and colleagues of University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, evaluated two “tumor-selective” fluorescent agents — called CLR1501 and CLR1502 — for their ability to differentiate brain tumors from normal brain tissue in mice…
Based on analysis of two large breast cancer databases, reduced activity of an autophagy gene, beclin 1, was related to both a higher incidence of triple-negative breast cancer and a poorer prognosis for breast cancer patients. …
Each year, the American Cancer Society compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival based on incidence data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The data are disseminated in two reports: Cancer Statistics 2015, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, and its companion, consumer-friendly publication, Cancer Facts & Figures 2015. The reports also estimate the number of new cancer cases and deaths expected in the United States in the current year. Largely driven by rapid increases in lung cancer deaths among men as a consequence of the tobacco epidemic, the overall cancer death rate rose during most of the 20th century, peaking in 1991. …
Atypical hyperplasia of the breast is a precancerous condition found in about one-tenth of the over 1 million breast biopsies with benign findings performed annually in the United States. Viewed under a microscope, atypia contains breast cells that are beginning to grow out of control (hyperplasia) and cluster into abnormal patterns (atypical)…
The combination of the chemotherapy regimen, erlotinib, with stereotactic body radiation therapy, known as SBRT, improved overall survival time to 20 months compared to historic 6- to 9- month survival times among erlotinib-only treated patients. The combination improved progression free survival – the time without the reappearance of cancer − from the historical two to four months to 14.7 months for similarly selected lung cancer patients. …