Body

VIENNA, Austria, 1 October 2012 – For the first time, researchers have conducted a large trial in which they tested the entire genome of individual breast cancers to help personalize treatment. They released their findings at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna.

VIENNA, Austria, 1 October 2012 – New studies that advance understanding of the optimal duration of therapy with the targeted cancer drug trastuzumab were released today at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna.

VIENNA, Austria, 1 October 2012 – New findings that highlight the challenges of managing thromboembolic events in patients being treated for cancer were released at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna.

VIENNA, Austria, 1 October 2012 – Aspirin, the everyday drug taken by countless people around the world to ward off pain and reduce their risk of developing heart disease, may have a new trick up its sleeve –-preventing cancer.

A growing body of evidence suggests that taking aspirin may reduce an individual's chances of developing colorectal cancer and perhaps other malignancies, but whether that evidence is strong enough to outweigh the risks of prescribing it to millions of healthy people is the subject of debate.

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers validated a method of noninvasive imaging that provides valuable information about interstitial fluid pressure of solid tumors and may aid in the identification of aggressive tumors, according to the results of a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A virtual monopoly held by some drug manufacturers in part because of the way treatment protocols work is among the reasons cancer drugs cost so much in the United States, according to a commentary by two Mayo Clinic physicians in the October issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Value-based pricing is one potential solution, they write.

VIDEO ALERT: Video of Dr. Rajkumar discussing the commentary is posted on the Mayo Clinic News Network.

DURHAM, N.C. – The number of clinical trials enrolling children is far lower than for adults, and the scope of research is also narrower, according to an analysis of public-access data conducted by researchers at Duke University.

The findings, reported online Oct. 1, 2012, in the journal Pediatrics, quantify an imbalance that has been observed in recent years and highlights an issue that has generated concern among health leaders and policymakers alike.

A new Yale School of Medicine study shows that cases of serious physical abuse in children, such as head injuries, burns, and fractures, increased slightly by about 5% in the last 12 years. This is in sharp contrast to data from child protective services agencies, which show a 55% decrease in physical abuse cases from 1997 to 2009.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Those who smoke and drink heavily may develop pancreatic cancer at an earlier age than those who don't, according to a study led by a University of Michigan Health System gastroenterologist.

In the study, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, heavy smokers with pancreatic cancer were diagnosed around age 62 and heavy drinkers at age 61 – almost a decade earlier than the average age of 72.

Vibration-induced white finger disease (VWF) is caused by continued use of vibrating hand held machinery (high frequency vibration >50 Hz), and affects tens of thousands of people. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Clinical Epigenetics finds that people with a genetic polymorphism (A2191G) in sirtuin1 (SIRT1), a protein involved in the regulation of endothelial NOS (eNOS), are more likely to suffer from vibration-induced white finger disease.

Human epidermal growth factor (HER2) positive breast cancers are often treated with the same therapy regardless of hormone receptor status. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research shows that women whose HER2 positive cancer was also hormone (estrogen and progesterone) receptor (HR) negative had an increased risk of early death, and that their cancer was less likely to recur in bone than those whose cancer retained hormone sensitivity.

PHILADELPHIA - The hormone prolactin is produced by the pituitary gland in the brain and then travels via the bloodstream to cells throughout the body, where it exerts multiple reproductive and metabolic effects, most notably on the breast where it is the master regulator of lactation. In recent years researchers have found that prolactin is also produced by some tissues outside the brain, however little is known about the functions of extra-pituitary prolactin or how its production is regulated in these tissues.

Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have discovered how a key molecule controls the body's inflammatory responses. The molecule, known as p110delta, fine-tunes inflammation to avoid excessive reactions that can damage the organism. The findings, published in Nature Immunology today (30 September), could be exploited in vaccine development and new cancer therapies.

CINCINNATI—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have found a new genetic mutation responsible for deafness and hearing loss associated with Usher syndrome type 1.

These findings, published in the Sept. 30 advance online edition of the journal Nature Genetics, could help researchers develop new therapeutic targets for those at risk for this syndrome.

A new study out today (Sunday 30 September) reveals that the emergence and spread of a rapidly evolving invasive intestinal disease, that has a significant mortality rate (up to 45%) in infected people in sub-Saharan Africa, seems to have been potentiated by the HIV epidemic in Africa.