Medical News Today: Oncology News

In the vast majority of patients with advanced cancer, their muscles will gradually waste away for reasons that have never been well understood. Now, researchers reporting in the August 20 issue of Cell, a Cell Press Publication, have found some new clues and a way to reverse that process in mice...

A medical researcher at the University of Leicester has made a significant advance in the treatment of cervical cancer. Dr Paul Symonds from the Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine has demonstrated that the use of a particular drug in collaboration with radiotherapy gives significantly better results than radiotherapy alone...

For the second year in a row, The ASCO Cancer Foundation achieved Charity Navigator's coveted Four-Star rating. Of the more than 5,500 charities rated, only about 1,000 have received back-to-back four-star evaluations at least two years in a row. Charity Navigator is America's largest and most utilized independent evaluator of charities...

Patients who receive a diagnosis of the skin cancer basal cell carcinoma at a younger age-along with those who have red hair, a higher socioeconomic status and a cancerous lesion on their upper extremities-appear to be at higher risk of developing multiple cancers and require closer follow-up, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals...

Bloomberg Businessweek: An actuarial firm hired by the state of Nebraska concluded that "federal health care reform will increase the state's Medicaid costs by a total of $526 million to $766 million over the next decade, figures Gov. Dave Heineman called staggering and shocking. ...

Although the medical community has already accepted that colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is cost effective and saves lives, researchers have found that computed tomography colonography (CTC or virtual colonoscopy) not only identifies CRC but also doubles the yield of identifying significant early extracolonic (outside the colon) lesions, resulting in lives saved, according to...

When running early clinical trials for experimental new drugs across a range of therapeutic areas, demonstrating "proof of concept" is a critical milestone of the development process. It is at this stage where exploratory studies become confirmatory studies and there is a basis for studying the efficacy in a larger population...

For Cost Control, Vouchers And Medicare Don't Mix Kaiser Health News With the ambition of reducing the federal debt, Congressman Paul Ryan has offered a proposal to convert Medicare to a voucher-based program. ... Though rarely described this way, the private Medicare Advantage plans are a (voluntary) voucher system (Austin Frakt, 8/19)...

"Developing countries will bear 60 percent of the world's cancer burden by 2020 and 70 percent by 2030," according to a report released Thursday during the World Cancer Congress in Shenzhen, China, Reuters reports. These countries also lack the necessary "infrastructure ...

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. (TSX: BNC), a research-based, technology driven Canadian biopharmaceutical company, provided an update on the clinical development program for its proprietary product for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer Urocidin(TM). Bioniche and its development partner, Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc...

BSD Medical Corporation (NASDAQ:BSDM) (Company or BSD) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the Company a 510(k) clearance to market its MicroThermX Microwave Ablation System (MTX-180) for ablation of soft tissue. Clearance from the FDA of BSD's 510(k) Premarket Notification submission authorizes the commercial sale of the MTX-180 in the United States...

US Oncology, Inc., the nation's leading integrated oncology company, announced that in less than two decades it has played a role in the development of 42 novel cancer therapies approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...

Radioactive yttrium-90 labelled resin microspheres (SIR-Spheres; Sirtex Medical, Sydney, Australia) appear to be a safe and effective treatment for patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases who have failed available chemotherapy options, according to the final results of a prospective clinical multi-centre phase II trial conducted by the Italian Society of Locoregional T...

On August 3, Macquarie University Hospital (MUH) performed Australia's first Gamma Knife® surgery with its new Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ system, making it the country's first and only center capable of providing dedicated intracranial radiosurgery...

ImmunoGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMGN), a biotechnology company that develops antibody-based targeted anticancer products, today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to its lorvotuzumab mertansine (formerly IMGN901) product candidate when used for the treatment of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC)...

Men and women should educate themselves and use caution before taking nutritional supplements to reduce their cancer risks, according to experts at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center...

International leaders in the fight against cancer launched the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative (GAPRI), calling for universal access to controlled pain medication for cancer patients worldwide. Action is needed now to ease the suffering of the millions of cancer sufferers around the world who are forced to go without adequate pain treatment...

The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) invites patients, survivors and prostate cancer supporters to attend a breakfast on September 14, 2010 at 8:45 a.m. in the Courtyard of The Washington Hilton. The event, designed to celebrate progress and survivorship, is being offered free of charge to the first 250 registrants...

One third of all cancers are preventable, but urgent action is still needed from governments, individuals and the medical community to stop the rise in cancer deaths, according to leading experts attending the World Cancer Congress 2010...

Dallas businessman and philanthropist H. Ross Perot has donated $20 million to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for research to advance and design novel targeted therapies. The funds will be divided equally between two new initiatives at MD Anderson: an Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy (IPCT) and a Center for Targeted Therapy (CTT)...