Cancer Research

Chemotherapy has been linked to excessive mind wandering and an inability to concentrate. The condition, colloquially called 'chemo-brain,' has long been suspected. A new University of British Columbia study says it is the first to explain why patients have difficulty paying attention. Breast cancer survivors were asked to complete a set of tasks while researchers in the Departments of Psychology and Physical Therapy monitored their brain activity. What they found is that the minds of people with chemo-brain lack the ability for sustained focused thought. "A healthy brain spends some time…

A new study has discovered the trigger behind the most severe forms of cancer pain. Released in top journal Pain this month, the study points to TMPRSS2 as the culprit: a gene that is also responsible for some of the most aggressive forms of androgen-fueled cancers. The work focused on cancers of the head and neck, which affect more than 550,000 people worldwide each year. Studies have shown that these types of cancers are the most painful, with sufferers experiencing pain that is immediate and localized, while pain treatment options are limited to opioid-family pharmaceuticals such as…

Human tumors grown in mouse models have long been used to test promising anti-cancer therapies. However, when a human tumor is transplanted into a mouse, the mouse immune system must be knocked down so that it doesn't attack the foreign tumor tissue, thus allowing the tumor to grow. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study describes a new model, XactMice, in which human blood stem cells are used to grow a "humanized" mouse immune system prior to tumor transplantation. Now, with a human-like immune system interacting with a human-like tumor in this model, researchers can test anti-cancer…

What makes triple negative breast cancer more lethal in African-American women than European-American ("White") women? A new study reveals specific genetic alterations that appears to impact their prognosis and ultimately survival rates. Luciane R. Cavalli, PhD, assistant professor at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center explains: "Triple negative breast cancer is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer where limited treatment is available. These tumors are the leading cause of breast cancer death in African-American women, which are usually diagnosed at an earlier age and in more…

Much of what we know about cancer and many modern medicines that treat it grow from experiments on cancer cells but it is difficult to maintain the integrity of cell lines due to contamination or simple mistakes such as mislabeling. Later generations of a cell line may bear no resemblance to the original sample, potentially invalidating results of research performed on mistaken cells. For this reason, the National Cancer Institute maintains a library of 60 authenticated human cancer cell lines for the purposes of research, called the NCI-60. Members of the University of Colorado Cancer…

We can complain about the cost of American health care but that is the price for doctors caring too much. While in Holland doctors can just unilaterally make the decision to let a patient die, in the United States doctors will continue to recommend tests even when recommendations are that they should be done half as often. In 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended that women  be screened biennially beginning at 50 years old and continuing through age 74 but the vast majority of surgeons continue to recommend that women 40 years old or older with an average…

Obesity was associated with an increased risk for prostate cancer in African-American men and that risk grew by nearly four times as body-mass index (BMI) increased, according to a new study.  African-American men have the highest incidence of prostate cancer of any racial or ethnic group in the United States, as well as the highest rates of aggressive disease and prostate cancer death.  Wendy E. Barrington, Ph.D., of the University of Washington School of Nursing and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and co-authors compared the associations of obesity with…

Cancer mortality remains significantly elevated among African-Americans but if recent trends continue, cancer outcomes will disappear over time, according to a new analysis of "Health Equity" - defined by the US Department of Health and Human Services as the highest level of health for all people. Between 2000 and 2010, overall mortality from cancer decreased faster among African American women and men than among Caucasians but they are still not equal. In 2010, for example, the total mortality rate from cancer was approximately 20 percent higher among African-Americans than among European-…

Melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, has been increasing in incidence in adults over the past 40 years. Pediatric melanoma is rare (5 or 6 children per million) but some studies indicate that incidence has been increasing. A new study in The Journal of Pediatrics found that is not so, and the incidence of pediatric melanoma in the United States decreased from 2004-2010. Laura B. Campbell, MD, and colleagues from Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center in Cleveland, used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer…

On one side of the political spectrum in America and across a broader swath of Europe, science is controversial - especially genetic engineering. But genetic engineering has been done since humans first deduced they could shape the natural world, if anything it has gotten precise in a way that was never possible before. Now it mean even help fight against cancer - and it may do so using Salmonella, more famous as a bacteria that lives in intestines. Researchers have long known that certain strains of bacteria, including Salmonella enterica, can kill cancer cells. Specifically Salmonella…