http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The growth and spread of breast cancer tumors may be delayed with a promising treatment that combines two innovative strategies: blocking the enzyme needed to "energize" cancer cells and infusing a potent drug directly into the tumor, with minimum exposure to healthy tissues, indicate researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, Ill. http://phys.org/news220606637.html Medicine & Health Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:20:02 EST news220606637 Lymph node dissection, the current standard surgical treatment for localized non-small cell lung cancers, may be unnecessary in certain screen-detected early stage cases , according to a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO), the official journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. http://phys.org/news218174340.html Medicine & Health Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:01:53 EST news218174340 A drug that is currently used to help treat bone metastases in patients with lung cancer could also be useful at an earlier stage of treatment, to prevent the cancer from spreading in the first place, Italian researchers have found. http://phys.org/news217828928.html Medicine & Health Fri, 25 Feb 2011 04:20:02 EST news217828928 A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) study has identified a new role for an important enzyme in preparing lung tissue for the development of metastases. Published in the early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report describes how focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is involved in producing areas of vascular leakiness in lung tissue – known to be part of the premetastatic process – and increases expression of a molecule that attracts cancer cells to potential metastatic sites. http://phys.org/news217082990.html Medicine & Health Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:50:40 EST news217082990 Among patients with early-stage breast cancer that had spread to a nearby lymph node and who received treatment that included lumpectomy and radiation therapy, women who just had the sentinel lymph node removed (the first lymph node to which cancer is likely to spread from the primary tumor) did not have worse survival than women who had more extensive axillary lymph node dissection (surgery to remove lymph nodes found in the armpit), according to a study in the February 9 issue of JAMA. http://phys.org/news216405901.html Medicine & Health Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:20:01 EST news216405901 The FDA has approved a New Drug Application (NDA) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, for a new strength of a previously approved drug, Sodium Fluoride F18, for use in bone scans. In contrast to Technetium-99m (Tc-99m), which has been the only approved radioactive tracer for bone scans, Sodium Fluoride F18 is not subject to the supply problems that have led to recent nationwide shortages of Tc-99m. http://phys.org/news215786276.html Medicine & Health Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:20:06 EST news215786276 Researchers have found that a novel form of personalized therapy that genetically engineers a patient's own anti-tumor immune cells to fight tumors could treat metastatic melanoma and metastatic synovial cell sarcoma, representing a potentially new therapeutic approach against these and other cancers. http://phys.org/news215714057.html Medicine & Health Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:34:52 EST news215714057 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers may be a step closer to improving the detection of metastatic tumors in an organism - in real time - using a non-invasive approach that pairs an imaging agent with a genetic element that only expresses itself when it is in cancer cells. http://phys.org/news211702753.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Dec 2010 06:19:30 EST news211702753 A remarkable discovery into how tumour cells invade normal tissue should lead to vital diagnostic tools and help develop strategies to stop the spread of cancer cells. A new study by scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill University reveals that the surface of aggressive tumour cells lack the strong molecular 'glue' responsible for binding normal cells together. This allows tumour cells to break away, detach from their neighbors, and spread to other regions of the body. http://phys.org/news211467633.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:02:03 EST news211467633 For patients with breast cancer and bone metastases, denosumab delayed skeletal-related side effects five months longer compared to those on zoledronic acid, according to results presented at the 33rd Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. http://phys.org/news211210953.html Medicine & Health Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:00:01 EST news211210953 Nearly one-fifth of all metastatic breast cancer patients develop brain metastases and have significantly shorter overall survival than patients who do not have brain involvement. One way to improve the affected patients' survival might be to prevent the brain metastases from arising in the first place. With that in mind, researchers have been working on a predictive model that accurately identifies these high risk patients. Now, Veeraiah Siripurapu, M.D., and colleagues from Fox Chase Cancer Center have verified several factors -- including high tumor grade, negative progesterone receptor status, and inflammatory breast cancer -- that are associated with an increased risk. http://phys.org/news211124489.html Medicine & Health Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:41:43 EST news211124489 (PhysOrg.com) -- Too often, patients with ovarian cancer or mesothelioma develop metastases that spread within the abdominal cavity, and when that occurs, the chances of surviving beyond five years drops to less than 40%, even after surgical removal of the metastatic tumors. http://phys.org/news209902739.html Nanotechnology Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:10:01 EST news209902739 A new process for creating a personalized vaccine may become a crucial tool in helping patients with colorectal cancer develop an immune response against their own tumors. This dendritic cell (DC) vaccine, developed at Dartmouth and described in a research paper published this week in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, was used after surgical resection of metastatic tumors to try to prevent the growth of additional metastases. http://phys.org/news209816809.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:27:00 EST news209816809 A comparison of two strategies to determine the stage of suspected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) finds that the less invasive method is more effective at identifying a type of lung cancer that has spread, and may result in a reduction of unnecessary surgical procedures and associated adverse effects for certain patients, according to a study in the November 24 issue of JAMA. http://phys.org/news209752664.html Medicine & Health Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:38:14 EST news209752664 Scientists in Germany have developed a way of smuggling an anti-cancer drug past the protective blood-brain barrier and into brain tumours and metastases using a nanocarrier – a tiny capsule specially designed to pass through cell membranes and deliver its anti-cancer drug to the cancer cell. http://phys.org/news209271565.html Medicine & Health Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:01:53 EST news209271565 (PhysOrg.com) -- Monthly injections of the drug in breast cancer patients whose disease had spread to the bone helped reduce pain and prevent complications with less toxicity than current treatments. http://phys.org/news208791524.html Medicine & Health Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:38:57 EST news208791524 A new study published recently in Nature details the complexity of genetic variation found in pancreatic cancer cells. The ability to identify and understand the early mutations involved with the disease may lead to the discovery of new drug targets. http://phys.org/news208519332.html Medicine & Health Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:02:24 EST news208519332 When looking for new ways to treat aggressive brain cancers, an international team of scientists turned a new leaf and "discovered" the lowly daffodil. A new research study published in the November 2010 print issue of The FASEB Journal offers hope that a natural compound found in daffodil bulbs, called narciclasine, may be a powerful therapeutic against biologically aggressive forms of human brain cancers. http://phys.org/news207826468.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:50:01 EST news207826468 Researchers have identified an important signaling pathway that, when blocked, significantly decreases the spread of pediatric bone cancer. http://phys.org/news207227381.html Medicine & Health Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:09:58 EST news207227381 An ongoing Phase-II trial investigating a new, targeted therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer has generated promising early results, Italian researchers reported at the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy. http://phys.org/news206106535.html Medicine & Health Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:50:01 EST news206106535 A new drug being developed to treat potentially deadly melanoma skin cancers has shown a promising ability to shrink secondary tumors, known as metastases, in the brain in patients with advanced forms of the disease, Australian researchers report. http://phys.org/news206099043.html Medicine & Health Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:47:03 EST news206099043 While both black patients and white patients appear to benefit from end of life discussions with their physician, black patients are less likely to experience end-of-life care that accurately reflects their preferences, according to a report in the September 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. http://phys.org/news204827100.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:20:01 EST news204827100 (PhysOrg.com) -- The way melanoma cells use the immune system to spread and develop into lung tumors may lead to a therapy to decrease development of these tumors, according to Penn State researchers. http://phys.org/news204552450.html Medicine & Health Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:07:57 EST news204552450 On average, about five percent of total cancer research funding is spent on investigating metastases (the spread of cancer cells around the body) in Europe, yet metastatic disease is the direct or indirect cause of 90 percent of all cancer deaths, according to an editorial in the European Journal of Cancer (EJC). http://phys.org/news194614841.html Medicine & Health Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:41:06 EST news194614841 A research team from Hong Kong presented an unusual patient with a solitary recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the right kidney 12 years after the initial diagnosis. They illustrated the importance of considering late recurrence in patients with a history of HCC and the management of these metastases. http://phys.org/news192375564.html Medicine & Health Thu, 06 May 2010 15:00:01 EST news192375564 Whole body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) should be the imaging modality of choice for the detection of breast cancer metastases (when the cancer has spread beyond the breast) as it is highly accurate and can detect bone metastases while a patient is still asymptomatic (shows no symptoms), according to a study to be presented at the ARRS 2010 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. http://phys.org/news192305578.html Medicine & Health Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:04 EST news192305578 Scientists have uncovered what could be a very important clue in answering one of the most perplexing questions about cancer: why does it spread to the liver more than any other organ? In a new research report published in the April 2010 issue of Journal of Leukocyte Biology, scientists from New York University describe experimental results suggesting that the immune system may be the reason. http://phys.org/news189253299.html Medicine & Health Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:40:03 EST news189253299 (PhysOrg.com) -- Virtually every patient diagnosed with breast cancer or melanoma undergoes lymph node biopsy to determine if their cancer has begun spreading in the body. Taking this biopsy involves an invasive and uncomfortable procedure, and though necessary it detects metastases less than 95% of the time. To eliminate the need for invasive biopsy, and to improve upon the diagnostic sensitivity of biopsy, researchers have been working to develop non-invasive imaging techniques to identify tumor-bearing sentinel lymph nodes. http://phys.org/news188719673.html Nanotechnology Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:08:31 EST news188719673 Approximately half of Americans living with colorectal cancer will develop liver metastases at some point during the course of their disease. Radiofrequency ablation, a minimally invasive treatment that applies heat directly in the tumor causing cancer cell death with minimal associated injury to the surrounding healthy liver, contributes to prolongation of their life by nearly three years, note researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 35th Annual Scientific Meeting in Tampa, Fla. http://phys.org/news187967385.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:40:15 EST news187967385 When treating cancer, it is an advantage to know the rate of growth of the cancer tumour. The standard method currently used to determine tumour growth, however, is erroneous. This is the conclusion of scientists at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who have developed a new model. http://phys.org/news187274931.html Medicine & Health Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:40:01 EST news187274931