Significant progress towards identifying the genetic make-up of individual tumours, hence allowing treatment choices to be made based on personalised information, was announced at the 4th European Breast Cancer Conference today. Dr. Alane Koki, Chief Scientific Officer of Ipsogen, a French biotechnology company, told a news briefing that, subject to the successful conclusion of ongoing validation studies, the Breast Cancer ProfileChipTM (BCPC) should be available for use in pathology laboratories by

Younger women who survive breast cancer have particular problems in coping with the physical and psychological after effects, even ten years later, a scientist said today. Speaking at the 4th European Breast Cancer Conference in Hamburg, Germany, Dr. Lonneke van de Poll-Franse, from the Comprehensive Cancer Centre South in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, said that there was a growing need for special programmes to be tailored to the needs of long-term cancer survivors.

Dr. van de Poll-Franse s

A shrub found in Southeast Asia can give you a rash like poison ivy; but it may also stop prostate cancer

The croton plant, long known to oriental herbalists and homeopaths as a purgative, has an oil in its seeds that shows promise for the treatment of prostate cancer – the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. The active ingredient in the oil is 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate, a compound generally known as TPA.

The finding was reported in t

The first results from the world’s only phase III trial to compare tamoxifen with the newer hormone treatment exemestane in advanced breast cancer shows that exemestane is safe, superior and lengthens progression-free survival.

The median progression-free survival for patients taking exemestane was 10.9 months compared with 6.7 months for those taking tamoxifen. Complete and partial response rates were also higher in the exemestane arm with 7.4% responding completely and 36.8% partiall

Transplanting stem cells to a diseased retina may be a method of treating certain common eye disorders in the future. In her dissertation, Lund scientist Anita Blixt Wojciechowski reports research findings that enhance the knowledge needed to make this treatment possible.

Retinitis pigmentosa is a hereditary retinal disease that affects one person in 3,500 and leads to severe vision impairment or blindness. Age-related deterioration of the yellow spot, the part of the retina that is most cru

Work by scientists in The Netherlands has contradicted the notion that breast cancer metastases behave differently to their primary tumours.

PhD student, Britta Weigelt told the meeting of the 4th European Breast Cancer Conference today (Thursday 18 March) that, contrary to what had been thought previously, any primary breast cancer cell was capable of producing secondary cancer cells, which then spread to other parts of the body. These secondary cancer cells had a strikingly similar

Researchers in Hong Kong have discovered a way to help prevent the reactivation of the hepatitis B virus in women who are being treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Dr Winnie Yeo told the 4th European Breast Cancer Conference in Hamburg: “In several developing countries, as many as twelve per cent of breast cancer patients carry the hepatitis B virus. These patients are at risk of developing HBV reactivation during chemotherapy, which is a well-known complication resulting in varyin

New findings in animals suggest a potential treatment to minimize disability after spinal cord and other nervous system injuries, say neuroscientists from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

“Our approach is based on a natural mechanism cells have for protecting themselves, called the stress protein response,” said Michael Tytell, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and the study’s lead researcher. “We believe it has potential for preventing some of the disability that occurs as a resul

Scientists report that they have identified a cellular mechanism that prevents the immune system from destroying chronic, incurable viral infections such as herpes, hepatitis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The research, published in the March issue of Immunity, explains why critical immune cells fail to act against the viral infection and demonstrates a successful intervention that facilitates elimination of the virus. The results open up exciting new avenues for design of future antiviral t

Advances in an area widely regarded in scientific circles as the ’next big thing’ – RNA interference (RNAi) – will be the major focus of a CSIRO-hosted conference on the Gold Coast in September.

The chairman of the ’Horizons in Livestock Sciences’ conference, CSIRO’s Dr Tim Doran, says RNAi research has major implications for plant, animal and human health.

“Since RNAi was first described in the 1990s, the technology has been rapidly adopted in laboratories

Microbes researchers highlight drawbacks of antibiotics

Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics can live in the human intestines for at least one year. Professor Charlotta Edlund from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and Research Professor Pentti Huovinen from the National Public Health Institute in Turku, Finland, are keen to highlight the risks involved in the excessive use of antibiotics.

In their research funded by the Academy of Finland, the two profess

Information about the genetic make-up of tumors should, in the long term, help clinicians decide on the most effective course of treatment for patients with cancer. To be most helpful these molecular data must be incorporated into a tumor classification that includes morphological and clinical information. Jules Berman describes his ideas for a new comprehensive tumor classification in BMC Cancer this week.

Berman, the Program Director for Pathology Informatics within the National Cancer

Ontario diabetics live 12 to 13 years less than people without the disease, says a new study – a finding which is one of the factors prompting the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to investigate additional strategies for diabetes management and prevention.

The study, which appeared in the February issue of Diabetes Care, is the first to assess the impact of the disease on life expectancy in the province. Life expectancy for male diabetics in Ontario is 64.7 years (77.5 in general male p

The presence of two mutated genes in bladder cancer tumors indicates there is a high risk that the cancer will continue grow and spread, said a Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) researcher in a report released today in the March 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

One of the mutated proteins – p53 – is a tumor suppressor that in its normal form prevents cell changes that can lead to cancer. When p53 binds to DNA is stimulates another gene to produce p21. Then p21 interacts with a pr

A needle-free, self-contained fentanyl patient-controlled transdermal system (PCTS) is as effective for post-surgical pain management as the traditional intravenous pump (IV), while giving patients more mobility and freeing nurses to devote more time to patient care. The study led by researchers from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, appears in the March 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The multi-center study conducte

New research published in Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture suggests that sherry may have the same health benefits as red wine. Sherry contains antioxidants that help control cholesterol levels, say Spanish scientists.

Studies by researchers at University of Seville have shown that sherry, like red wine, contains antioxidants called polyphenols, which reduce the occurrence of coronary artery disease. They work by preventing the oxidation of Low-Density Lipoproteins (LDL), which