Tag Archives: national

‘Signatures’ of genetic mutations in colorectal cancer: Discovery may advance diagnosis, treatment

The technological tour de force, described in the current issue of the journal Nature as the first integrated “proteogenomic” characterization of human cancer, “will enable new advances” in diagnosing and treating the disease, the scientists concluded. “It’s a first-of-its-kind paper. I think it’s a very important advance in the field,” said senior author Daniel Liebler, Ph.D., Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and director of the Jim Ayers Institute for Precancer Detection and Diagnosis at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. The research team, representing Vanderbilt and six other institutions, is part of the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), sponsored by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)…

U.S. cervical cancer rates higher than previously reported, especially among older women, African-American women

Previous research finds an age-standardized rate of about 12 cases of cervical cancer per 100,000 women in the United States, with the incidence reaching a peak at age 40-44 and then leveling off. However, these estimates included women who had hysterectomies in which the lower part of the uterus, the cervix, was removed. By excluding these women, who are no longer at risk of developing this cancer, from their analysis, the researchers calculated a rate of 18.6 cases of cervical cancer per 100,000 women. They found the incidence increased steadily with age and peaked at a higher rate and at an older age, specifically in women 65-69 years old…

More than two-thirds of healthy Americans are infected with human papilloma viruses

Researchers say that while most of the viral strains so far appear to be harmless and can remain dormant for years, their overwhelming presence suggests a delicate balancing act for HPV infection in the body, in which many viral strains keep each other in check, preventing other strains from spreading out of control. Although infection is increasingly known to happen through skin-to-skin contact, HPV remains the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It is so common that experts estimate nearly all men and women contract some strain of it during their lives. …

Negative HPV test may predict lower cervical cancer risk than a negative Pap

In a comparison of the three strategies, Julia C. Gage, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, and colleagues analyzed data from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) large integrated health delivery system, which screened women age 30-64 since 2003 with both HPV and Pap testing. Data were available through 2012, and over 1 million women were screened at approximately 3-year intervals, with a mean follow-up time of 4.36 years. For each testing strategy, they estimated the cumulative risk of cervical cancer after a negative test result. …

Tool helps guide brain cancer surgery

The Purdue-designed tool sprays a microscopic stream of charged solvent onto the tissue surface to gather information about its molecular makeup and produces a color-coded image that reveals the location, nature and concentration of tumor cells. “In a matter of seconds this technique offers molecular information that can detect residual tumor that otherwise may have been left behind in the patient,” said R. Graham Cooks, the Purdue professor who co-led the research team. …