Cancer Research

Metastasis is the formation of secondary tumors and a leading contributor to deaths related to cancer. The exact mechanism for how cellular function becomes broken in cells far removed from a cancer’s primary tumor have been unclear. But it's been pondered for almost a hundred years. It was postulated that metastatic cells spontaneously caused secondary tumors by fusing their cellular material with regular cells and re-establishing their errant gene expression, but spontaneous is not a concept scientists like, so the search for the real causes has been ongoing. Sequencing technology has…

A review of data on nearly 20 million people has concluded that having diabetes significantly raises the risk of developing cancer. For women the risk is even higher, not just of cancer but also leukemia and cancers of the stomach, mouth and kidney. Men, however, had less risk for liver cancer. If none of that makes sense, you see the flaws in replacing science with epidemiological statistics. Diabetes affects up to 415 million people worldwide, with estimates of up to five million deaths each year. The problem in the new paper is blanket acceptance of speculation that …

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which operates under the auspices of the U.N. World Health Organisation, is soliciting comments prior to holding an Advisory Group meeting in November to propose revisions to its Preamble. That a government group needs to get comments before even forming a group to discuss a preamble sounds like bureaucracy run wild. But the preamble articulates the mission and methods of the IARC Monographs program and an update has been long overdue. The Monographs program has been embroiled in controversy due to concerns related to its recent…

There are many different types of human papilloma virus (HPV). Some are associated with the development of cervical lesions that can become cancerous and are considered as high-risk HPV types. Two of these high-risk types (HPV16 and HPV18) account for about 70% all cases of cervical cancer worldwide. Most people who have sexual contact at some point in their life will be exposed to HPV. In the majority of women, HPV infection will be cleared by the immune system but when the immune system does not clear the virus, persistent HPV infection may lead to abnormal cervical cells which can progress…

Cancer has always been thought of as something that grows rapidly and uncontrollably, but this view may be wrong. New evidence suggests that cancer alternatively uses the “accelerator” and the “brake” in order to survive. If you plot the growth of prostate cancer tumor progression over years, you get a graph that looks something like this example of prostate cancer progression. Modified from: http://www.cell.com/trends/molecular-medicine/fulltext/S1471-4914(15)00…  The graph shows that prostate cancer cells alternate periods of rapid growth with periods of dormancy. In the above…

A recent article published in Science suggests 2 types of bacteria appear to trigger the growth of cancer cells in the colon. I was intrigued by the article since a year ago, I read a book on the powerful effect of bacteria on our lives. Called “10% Human”, the book by Alanna Collens, was an eye-opener. Essentially, the book provided proof of the powerful influence bacteria have on our bodies and incidentally many aspects of our day-to-day existence.   Knowing that bacteria may be causing colon cancer did not come as a surprise. It is, after all, an inevitable consequence of living in…

The world’s second densest metal can be used to kill cancer cells by filling them with a deadly version of oxygen, without harming healthy tissue, according to a new paper. The metal, iridium, was in the asteroid with the strongest link to the extinction of dinosaurs. When combined with organic material, the researchers showed it can be directly targeted towards cancerous cells, transferring energy to the cells to turn the oxygen (O2) inside them into singlet oxygen, which is poisonous and kills the cell - without harming any healthy tissue. The process is triggered by shining visible…

There are reasons to get an HPV vaccine - it literally prevents cancer - but consumer marketing is misstating absolute and relative risk when it comes to throat cancer. A preventive vaccine against HPV types, 6, 11, 16, and 18 has been in widespread use for a decade, and a version that also protects against five other HPV types was FDA-approved in 2014. Those vaccines won't clear existing HPV infections. The prevalence of throat (oropharyngeal) cancers attributed to the human papilloma virus (HPV) has increased in recent decades, but the risk of developing throat cancer is low. It's…

Fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a form of liver cancer mainly found among children and young people, currently has surgery as the only treatment available. But even then less than 40 percent of patients will survive beyond five years. It might help to discover what causes it. In a study published in Gastroenterology, researchers from the University of Copenhagen using mouse studies have shown that the coupling of the two genes through a mutation causes a cancer tumor to develop in the liver. The researchers have made sure the genetic composition of the mutation in the mice is…

Even small tumors can be aggressive, according to a study in patients with early stage breast cancer presented at the ESMO 2017 Congress in Madrid.  They found that nearly one in four small tumors were aggressive and patients benefited from chemotherapy. Aggressive tumors could be identified by a 70-gene signature. The MINDACT study is managed and sponsored by the EORTC in collaboration with the Breast International Group (BIG) and included 6,693 women with early stage breast cancer (lymph node negative or 1-3 lymph node positive). As previously reported, MINDACT showed that around 46%…