Body

Older people globally are being denied proper access to cancer care, according to an editorial by Queen's University Belfast academic, Professor Mark Lawler of the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology.

In an editorial in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) Professor Lawler said: "there is increasing evidence from around the world that elderly patients are being 'undertreated', leading to a 'survival gap' between older and younger patients.

(WASHINGTON, March 10, 2014) – A pill that suppresses a key regulator of cancer growth may provide hope to relapsed leukemia and lymphoma patients running out of treatment options for their aggressive, treatment-resistant disease, according to three reports* published online today in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology.

Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have been instrumental in making significant improvements to the diagnostic procedure called sentinel node biopsy for melanoma patients and teaching this procedure to physicians from around the world.

New Rochelle, NY, March 10, 2014–Nearly $7 billion is spent each year in the U.S. on diagnostic testing of the estimated three million people with symptoms of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). A new blood test that detects specific genes activated in individuals with obstructive CAD could exclude the diagnosis without the need for imaging studies or more invasive tests, reducing health care costs, as described in an article in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

A new type of biomolecular tweezers could help researchers study how mechanical forces affect the biochemical activity of cells and proteins. The devices – too small to see without a microscope – use opposing magnetic and electrophoretic forces to precisely stretch the cells and molecules, holding them in position so that the activity of receptors and other biochemical activity can be studied.

Australian author on the paper, Professor Rodney Sinclair, Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne and Director of Dermatology at Epworth HealthCare said that the risk decreased significantly with increasing age, but it remains higher compared with individuals who have never had NMSC.

(SALT LAKE CITY)—Good news for lifelong exercisers: Along with its salutary effects on the heart, weight, and other facets of health, physical activity also helps to regenerate muscle mass, which tends to diminish as people age.

Fresh banana, a waft of flowers, blueberry: the scents in Shota Atsumi's laboratory in the UC Davis Department of Chemistry are a little sweeter than most. That's because Atsumi and his team are engineering bacteria to make esters -- molecules widely used as scents and flavorings, and also as basic feedstock for chemical processes from paints to fuels.

Their latest work is published March 9 in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Nearly all industrial chemicals, from artificial flavorings to paint, are derived from oil or gas, Atsumi said.

(March 10, 2014) Antibiotics are valuable, potentially life-saving tools that have significantly reduced human morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, antibiotics may also have unintended consequences from their off-target effects that may increase the risk of many long-term conditions. Recent epidemiologic studies have detected a possible link between antibiotic use in childhood and weight gain1 — with disruption to the normal gut microbiota considered the most likely cause.

(March 10, 2014) A healthy and balanced diet, as well as probiotics, have been known to be helpful in preserving gastrointestinal health for quite a long time. But it is only recently that the underlying mechanisms have become somewhat clearer. A rapidly increasing body of knowledge promises to further clarify the effects of our daily food on the gut microbiota and to indicate more targeted applications of probiotics in the near future. This was one of the topics presented at the Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit in Miami, FL, USA.

The world's most widespread test for ovarian cancer reports false-positives in 94 of 100 diagnosed cases. Now, chemists at the University of Copenhagen working with clinical researchers at University College London have developed a method able to halve the number of false-positives. When fully developed, the new test will spare a significant number of women from unnecessary worry and further testing. Furthermore, global health care providers stand to save substantial sums – just by including a test on a certain sugar molecule in tandem with the currently prevailing diagnostic test.

A team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSTL) and the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson led by Samuel Achilefu have created a pair of high-tech glasses that help surgeons visualize cancer cells during surgeries, which glow blue when viewed through the glasses.

Achilefu published the 2013 article he coauthored as part of a special section in the SPIE Journal of Biomedical Optics on fluorescence molecular imaging that details the development of the high-tech glasses (available via open access in the SPIE Digital Library).

Employers are routinely discriminating against people who stammer, rejecting them because of concerns about possible negative reactions from customers or team members, new research suggests.

A study by Dr Clare Butler, of Newcastle University Business School, published in the journal Work, Employment and Society says that people who stammer experience widespread prejudice in the jobs market.

Mortality in prostate cancer is lower in areas with frequent use of PSA testing compared with areas with little testing shows a study published online today in Journal of the National Cancer Institute by researchers from Umeå University, Sweden and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA.

The study is based on data from nation-wide, population-based registers in Sweden including the Cancer Register, The Cause of Death Register and the National Prostate Cancer Register (NPCR) of Sweden.

A new clinical study has found that erlotinib, a targeted antitumor agent, has promising potential to improve treatment for cervical cancer. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the results indicate that larger trials are warranted to determine whether the drug should become part of standard therapy for women with the disease.