Tag Archives: toronto

New prostate cancer screening guideline recommends not using PSA test — ScienceDaily

“Some people believe men should be screened for prostate cancer with the PSA test but the evidence indicates otherwise,” states Dr. Neil Bell, member of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care and chair of the prostate cancer guideline working group. “These recommendations balance the possible benefits of PSA screening with the potential harms of false positives, overdiagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.” For men with prostate cancer diagnosed through PSA screening, between 11.3% and 19.8% will receive a false-positive diagnosis, and 40% to 56% will be affected by overdiagnosis leading to invasive treatment…

No apparent link between sleep apnea and cancer: Large study

Studies have postulated that obstructive sleep apnea may be linked to cancer because of low levels of oxygen in the blood. “There is a need for a sufficiently large cohort study with a long enough follow-up to allow for the potential development of cancer that adjusts for important potential confounders, examines common cancer subtypes and has a rigorous assessment of both obstructive sleep apnea and cancer,” writes Dr. Tetyana Kendzerska, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women’s College Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., with coauthors. To understand whether obstructive sleep apnea is associated with cancer development, researchers undertook a study of 10 149 patients with the disorder who underwent a sleep study between 1994 and 2010. …

Gut microbes turn carbs into colorectal cancer, study shows

“Because hereditary colorectal cancer is associated with aggressive and rapid tumor development, it is critical to understand how major environmental factors such as microbes and diet interact with genetic factors to potentially affect disease progression,” says senior study author Alberto Martin of the University of Toronto. “Our study provides novel insights into this question by showing that gut bacteria interact with a carbohydrate-rich diet to stimulate a prevalent type of hereditary colon cancer.” Carbohydrates account for about half of the daily caloric intake of adults on a western-style diet, and previous studies have linked carbohydrate-rich diets to colorectal cancer in humans. This type of cancer is also frequently associated with mutations in a tumor suppressor gene called APC as well as the MSH2 gene, which plays a critical role in repairing DNA damage…

Cancer study maps decade of discovery to potential anticancer agent — ScienceDaily

“What began with the question ‘what makes a particular aggressive form of breast cancer cells keep growing?’ turned into 10 years of systematic research to identify the enzyme PLK4 as a promising therapeutic target and develop a small molecule inhibitor to block it,” says Dr. Mak, Director of The Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network. …