Cancer, Cancer Treatment

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have figured out why some women develop resistance to the most commonly used breast cancer drug, something that raises the risk their tumors will return, according to a study published on Wednesday.

The findings could lead to new tests to determine which women are not likely to benefit from tamoxifen and who should be given other drugs, said Jason Carroll of Cancer Research UK in Cambridge, who led the study published in the journal Nature.

Read the rest of this entry »

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 12 — As many as 35 percent of women who take tamoxifen to prevent the return of breast cancer do not respond to the drug — and now scientists think they know why.

A battle between proteins to turn a breast cancer gene off or on determines if tamoxifen works or not, the scientists report. The finding could be used to spot those women who won’t respond to the drug, and it may even lead to new therapies.

Read the rest of this entry »

When researchers look inside human cancer cells for the whereabouts of an important tumor-suppressor, they often catch the protein playing hooky, lolling around in cellular broth instead of muscling its way out to the cells’ membranes and foiling cancer growth.

This phenomenon of delinquency puzzled scientists for a long time - until a cell biologist in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine felt compelled to genetically grab the protein by the tail and then watched as it got back to work at tamping down disease.

WASHINGTON— The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it will look into concerns that a prominent toxicologist asked to render an independent verdict on a sensitive consumer safety issue may have a financial conflict-of-interest.

But an FDA official said there is no reason to believe that University of Michigan professor Martin Philbert did anything improper. The case involves bisphenol A, a chemical used to make plastics that is found in consumer goods from soup cans to baby bottles, and seen as a health risk by some.

Read the rest of this entry »