Developed by a team of researchers at Duke University in North Carolina, USA, the “gigapixel whole-body photographic camera” is essentially three dozen cameras in one, allowing the researchers to image the entire body down to a freckle. The research will be presented at The Optical Society’s (OSA) 98th Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics, being held Oct. 19-23 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. …
In a major study, Dr Ian Frayling from Cardiff University’s School of Medicine and researchers from the University of Exeter’s Medical School assessed the effectiveness of introducing a UK-wide screening program for a genetic condition known as Lynch Syndrome. Lynch syndrome is caused by changes in genes which check the spelling in DNA. The condition increases the risk of people developing cancer, particularly bowel cancer and cancers of the womb and ovaries later in life. …
The San Diego-based company has developed an experimental treatment, called ZMapp, which contains antibodies manufactured in plants. …
“The test could allow earlier cancer detection, so helping to save peoples’ lives,” said Diana Anderson, a researcher involved in the work from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. To develop this test, Anderson and colleagues took blood samples from a group of people that included healthy individuals, cancer patients and people believed to be at a higher risk than normal to develop cancer…
A simple blood test could identify those with hypercalcaemia, prompting doctors to investigate further. The research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, analysed the electronic records of 54,000 patients who had elevated levels of calcium and looked at how many of them went on to receive a cancer diagnosis. Dr Fergus Hamilton, who led the research from the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol, said: “All previous studies on hypercalcaemia and cancer had been carried out with patients who had already been diagnosed with cancer — hypercalcaemia was seen as a late effect of the cancer. “We wanted to look at the issue from a different perspective and find out if high calcium levels in blood could be used as an early indicator of cancer and therefore in the diagnosis of cancer.” Analysis of the data from 54,000 patients found that in men, even mild hypercalcaemia (2.6-2.8 mmol l−1) conferred a risk of cancer in one year of 11.5 per cent. …
The study made a surprising finding: While most women were satisfied with their decision whether they followed it with breast reconstruction or not, patients who decided against reconstructive surgery were likelier to say they would choose to have both breasts removed again. …
“There is this group of people who think they don’t need to worry about getting cancer and believe they don’t have a high family risk of getting cancer, but unfortunately do,” said Mahon, a professor in internal medicine at Saint Louis University. Mahon says her requests for genetic testing for breast cancer have more than tripled since 2013, when actress Angelina Jolie announced she had a double mastectomy because she was at genetic risk of developing breast cancer. Older genetic screenings were for the BRCA 1 and 2 genes, which are linked to the development of breast, ovarian, prostate, melanoma, pancreatic and other cancers…
“There is this group of people who think they don’t need to worry about getting cancer and believe they don’t have a high family risk of getting cancer, but unfortunately do,” said Mahon, a professor in internal medicine at Saint Louis University. Mahon says her requests for genetic testing for breast cancer have more than tripled since 2013, when actress Angelina Jolie announced she had a double mastectomy because she was at genetic risk of developing breast cancer…
Prediabetes is a general term that refers to an intermediate stage between normoglycaemia and overt diabetes mellitus. …
An analysis of data from more than 21,000 patients attending cancer clinics in Scotland, UK, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, found that major depression is substantially more common in cancer patients than in the general population. Major depression was most common in patients with lung cancer (13%) and lowest in those with genitourinary cancer (6%). Moreover, nearly three quarters (73%) of depressed cancer patients were not receiving treatment. To address the problem of inadequate treatment the SMaRT Oncology-2 randomised trial, published in The Lancet, evaluated the effectiveness of a new treatment program called ‘Depression Care for People with Cancer’ (DCPC)…