Cancer, Cancer Treatment

A study that was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that vitamin B supplements did not protect people taking them from developing cancer, although past research has suggested it did have the aforementioned effect.

Lead author of the study Dr. Shumin Zhang of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, along with his team, looked at 5,442 female health-care professionals throughout the United States, all of whom had been taking a supplement including vitamins B6, B12 and B9 (also known as folic acid) daily over a period of about seven and a half years.

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A research study to recruit foreign language speaking cancer patients through Australian Cancer Registries will begin in New South Wales this month.

The study aims to assess anxiety, depression and quality of life in Greek, Chinese and Arabic speaking cancer patients in Australia. It will also document unmet needs and patterns of care throughout their cancer journey.

The University of Sydney will conduct the study in four Australian States and plan to survey 1,000 cancer patients.

MONDAY, Nov. 17 — That basic rule, “know thyself,” can help prevent a pleasant seaside vacation from turning into a skin cancer risk, Australian dermatologists report.

A detailed study of 88 Hawaii vacationers identified three groups of people with distinct characteristics and sun protection behaviors, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Dermatology by researchers at the University of Queensland:

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ST. LOUIS, Oct. 22 — Some drugs not previously considered to have potential in lung cancer treatment may, in fact, be helpful in the condition, researchers here said.

Detailed genomic analysis of 188 lung adenocarcinoma specimens revealed mutations in pathways associated with such drugs as rapamycin (Rapamune), sunitinib (Sutent), and sorafenib (Nexavar), reported Li Ding, Ph.D., of Washington University, and colleagues in the Oct. 23 issue of Nature.

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A colon cancer cell isn’t a lost cause. Vitamin D can tame the rogue cell by adjusting everything from its gene expression to its cytoskeleton.

In the Nov. 17 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Ordonez-Morn et al. show that one pathway governs the vitamin’s diverse effects. The results help clarify the actions of a molecule that is undergoing clinical trials as a cancer therapy.

Vitamin D stymies colon cancer cells in two ways. It switches on genes such as the one that encodes E-cadherin, a component of the adherens junctions that anchor cells in epithelial layers. The vitamin also induces effects on the cytoskeleton that are required for gene regulation and short-circuiting the Wnt/b-catenin pathway, which is overactive in most colon tumors. The net result is to curb division and prod colon cancer cells to differentiate into epithelial cells that settle down instead of spreading.

A new epidemiological study has found that among women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy, obese women are at an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer compared with women of normal weight.

Published in the February 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the research indicates that obesity may contribute to the development of ovarian cancer through a hormonal mechanism.

Ovarian cancer is the most fatal of gynecologic malignancies, and has a 5-year survival rate of only 37 percent. While studies have linked excess body weight to higher risks of certain cancers, little is known about the relationship between body mass index and ovarian cancer risk.

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Combining two chemotherapy drugs with two targeted therapies was safe and appeared to help patients with advanced lung cancer live longer, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

The combination of Roche and Co’s Avastin, ImClone’s Erbitux, carboplatin and paclitaxel appeared to add an average of two months to the lives of patients, from 12 months on average to 14 months, the team at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center said.

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Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered that a molecule implicated in leukemia and lung cancer is also important in muscle repair and in a muscle cancer that strikes mainly children.

The study shows that immature muscle cells require the molecule, called miR-29, to become mature, and that the molecule is nearly missing in cells from rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer caused by the proliferation of immature muscle cells.

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A broad analysis of genes has turned up 26 mutations linked with the most common form of lung cancer, several of which play a role in other cancers as well, researchers said on Wednesday.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, double the number of genes already linked with lung adenocarcinoma, a type of non-small cell lung cancer that accounts for 40 percent of the more than 1 million lung cancer deaths each year.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Common food additives known as phosphates may help lung cancer tumors grow faster, at least in mice, South Korean researchers reported on Monday.

Their tests in mice suggest the additives — found in many soft drinks, baked goods and processed meats and cheese — may also help tumors develop in the first place.

“Our study indicates that increased intake of inorganic phosphates strongly stimulates lung cancer development in mice,” Myung-Haing Cho of Seoul National University, who led the study, said in a statement.

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