Body

While families around the world delay childbearing to later in life, cancer diagnoses are affecting people ever earlier in life. When these lifestyle trends collide, we see an increasing number of young women rendered infertile by cancer or cancer treatments.

What can be done about it? What do doctors need to know? And does a cancer diagnosis mean that a patient can never have children?

Cancers that have spread throughout the body, a process known as metastasis, are difficult, often impossible, to control. They are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

Twenty years ago, however, two University of Chicago cancer specialists--Samuel Hellman, former dean of the University of Chicago's Division of the Biological Sciences, and Ralph Weichselbaum, chairman of radiation oncology--described what they considered an intermediate and potentially treatable state between a single tumor and widespread cancer. They labelled it oligometastasis.

n a study to be presented on Feb. 5th at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in San Diego, researchers will report on the effect of a probiotic capsule intervention on maternal metabolic parameters and pregnancy outcomes among women with gestational diabetes.

In a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral pleanary session at 8 a.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting in San Diego, researchers will report that induced or augmented labor are not associated with increased odds of Autism spectrum disorder.

The discovery of the first gene causing familial scoliosis was announced by an international France-Canada research team today. "Mystery surrounds the cause of scoliosis, which is a three dimensional deformation of the vertebral column. Many researchers have been attempting to uncover the origins of this disease, particularly from a genetic point of view," explained leading co-author Dr Florina Moldovan of the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte Justine research hospital.

In a study to be presented on Feb. 6 in an oral concurrent session at 1:15 p.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in San Diego, researchers will present findings on a study of mothers and daughters where low birth weight and preeclampsia were found to reoccur in the next generation.

In a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral concurrent session at 1:15 p.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in San Diego, researchers will report on the impact of maternal glycemia on childhood obesity and metabolic dysfunction.

According to legend, if the groundhog sees his shadow on February 2nd, there will be six more weeks of winter; if not, an early spring is predicted.

Of course groundhogs – also known as woodchucks – don’t emerge at this time just to be furry weather predictors. So what’s the real reason? Research into groundhog biology shows they have other priorities in early February than mingling with the people of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

It’s Groundhog Day!

n a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral concurrent session at 1:15 p.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in San Diego, researchers will report that the use of a system that provides precise measurement of fetal decent and maternal feedback during second stage labor substantially shortens second stage and improves outcomes.

Some babies seem to have a genetic predisposition to a higher risk of being born too soon, according to researchers in a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral concurrent session at 8 a.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting in San Diego. The study titled Neonatal, not Maternal, Copy Number Variants are Associated with Spontaneous Preterm Birth found that variants in the fetus's DNA - not the mother's - may be what triggers some early births.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of the disease. The American Cancer Society's most recent estimates for 2014 show that over 46,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and more than 39,000 will die from it. Now, research led by Timothy J. Yen, PhD, Professor at Fox Chase Cancer Center, reveals that one reason this deadly form of cancer can be so challenging to treat is because its cells have found a way to sidestep chemotherapy.

Researchers at the BBSRC-supported Babraham Institute have mapped the physical structure of the nuclear landscape in unprecedented detail to understand changes in genomic interactions occurring in cell senescence and aging. Their findings have allowed them to reconcile the contradictory observations of two current models of aging: cellular senescence of connective tissue cells called fibroblasts and cellular models of an accelerated aging syndrome.

With snow comes shoveling, and with shoveling can come heart attacks. Shutterstock

Copy number variations (deletions or duplications of large chunks of the genome) are a major cause of birth defects, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disorders. Still, geneticists can definitively say how a CNV, once discovered in someone's DNA, leads to one of these conditions in just a fraction of cases.

Breast and lung cancer patients who have low levels of a protein called tristetraprolin (TTP) have more aggressive tumors and a poorer prognosis than those with high levels of the protein. Their study was published in the Dec. 26 issue of PLoS One.