Tag Archives: study

Previous pulmonary disease linked to increased lung cancer risk in large study

“Associations between various respiratory diseases and lung cancer have been shown in earlier studies, but few of these studies considered multiple respiratory diseases simultaneously,” said researcher Ann Olsson, PhD, of the International Agency for Research in Cancer in Lyon, France. …

Guidelines can predict early menopause in child cancer survivors, giving hope for fertility

The criteria — developed in Edinburgh — will help to select which girls should be offered the opportunity to freeze some tissue from their ovaries for use in the future. Doctors are optimistic that the frozen tissue could one day help young cancer survivors to have children of their own…

Researchers target rapid destruction of protein responsible for cancer cell resistance to therapy

“These findings may lead to a new target for chemoresistant cancer cells,” said Ruth W. Craig, PhD, professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, who is primary author of the peer reviewed article. “These cells are resistant to multiple types of standard chemotherapeutic agents because of over-expression of Myeloid Cell Leukemia-1 (Mcl-1), however, Mcl-1 expression plummets when we inhibit one particular enzyme and then cancer cells subsequently die.” The Mcl-1 protein is frequently over-expressed in cancer; it is present not only in leukemia and lymphoma but also in a host of solid tumors. …

Exercise associated with reduced risk of breast cancer in African American women — ScienceDaily

In a large prospective study of the health of black women, the Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS), researchers collected information about exercise habits, such as time spent exercising per week and type of exercise. They followed more than 44,000 African American women over a span of 16 years and observed whether they developed breast cancer. They found that women who exercised vigorously for seven or more hours each week were 25 percent less likely to develop breast cancer, compared to those who exercised less than one hour each week. …

Postmenopausal breast cancer risk decreases rapidly after starting regular physical activity — ScienceDaily

“Twelve MET-h [metabolic equivalent task-hours] per week corresponds to walking four hours per week or cycling or engaging in other sports two hours per week and it is consistent with the World Cancer Research Fund recommendations of walking at least 30 minutes daily,” said Agnès Fournier, PhD, a researcher in the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France. “So, our study shows that it is not necessary to engage in vigorous or very frequent activities; even walking 30 minutes per day is beneficial.” Postmenopausal women who in the previous four years had undertaken 12 or more MET-h of physical activity each week had a 10 percent decreased risk of invasive breast cancer compared with women who were less active. Women who undertook this level of physical activity between five and nine years earlier but were less active in the four years prior to the final data collection did not have a decreased risk for invasive breast cancer. “Physical activity is thought to decrease a woman’s risk for breast cancer after menopause,” said Fournier…

Synthetic molecule makes cancer self-destruct

These synthetic ion transporters, described this week in the journal Nature Chemistry, confirm a two-decades-old hypothesis that could point the way to new anticancer drugs while also benefitting patients with cystic fibrosis. Synthetic ion transporters have been created before, but this is the first time researchers have shown them working in a real biological system where transported ions demonstrably cause cells to self-destruct. Cells in the human body work hard to maintain a stable concentration of ions inside their cell membranes. Disruption of this delicate balance can trigger cells to go through apoptosis, known as programmed cell death, a mechanism the body uses to rid itself of damaged or dangerous cells…

Less radical procedures offer similar cancer control compared to surgery for kidney cancer patients

Dr. Thompson says radical nephrectomy — surgical removal of the entire kidney — has historically been the standard of care for management of kidney cancer; however, partial nephrectomy — surgical removal of tumors from a kidney while sparing healthy tissue -has become increasingly more common because of its nephron-sparing benefits and similar cancer control…

Gene likely to promote childhood cancers pinpointed by researchers

“We and others have found that Lin28b — a gene that is normally turned on in fetal but not adult tissues — is expressed in several childhood cancers, including neuroblastoma, Wilms’ tumor and hepatoblastoma, a type of cancer that accounts for nearly 80 percent of all liver tumors in children,” said Dr. Hao Zhu, a principal investigator at CRI, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “In our study, we found that overproduction of Lin28b specifically causes hepatoblastoma, while blocking Lin28b impairs the cancer’s growth…