Stand Up To Cancer

In encouraging news this week, it looks like prostate cancer is being diagnosed earlier these days, and the "race gap" between black and white stages of diagnosis has also narrowed. In the past, researchers had noted that black men tended to be diagnosed with prostate cancer at a later disease stage than white men, resulting in worse mortality rates. Study co-author Dr. Grace L. Lu-Yao says the change can be attributed in part to the more widespread use of prostate-specific antigen screening.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=8429268

Meanwhile, a team of Swiss scientists have found a way to block the growth of human color cancer cells, preventing the disease from reaching advanced stages and mestasizing to the liver. The technique involves blocking the "Hedgehog-GLI" pathway, which is used by cells to communicate with one another to determine growth and survival. "This work firmly establishes the critical action of HH-GLI in human colon cancer cells, providing the platform for preclinical and future clinical work," said the lead researcher on the project.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090826191839.htm

New research indicates that US teens and adults diagnosed with blood-related cancers are experiencing better survival rates than they did in the 80s. According to data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database, ten-year survival rates for blood-related cancers have improved by as much as 75% (in the case of chronic myelocetic leukemia). But the researchers also noted that with the exception of Hodgkin's lymphoma, young adult survival rates still lag behind those seen in children.
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/08/27/steady-improvements-seen-for-young-blood-cancer.html

According to a study in the most recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology, the much-heralded Gardasil vaccine could be useful in preventing penile cancer. Though penile cancer is uncommon in the US, accounting for less than 1% of adult male cancers, the disease constitutes as many as 10% of cancers in Africa and Asia. HPV causes around half of all penile cancer cases worldwide. "Although penile carcinoma is a rare disease, around 7,000 cases would be prevented annually by the eradication of HPV-16/18," the study's authors say.
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/08/25/hpv-vaccine-could-prevent-many-penile-cancers.html

Finally, here's some interesting new research out of Indiana University. Researchers analyzed data from over three million cancer patients looking for tends in survival based on whether the patients were separated, divorced, widowed or never married. According to the study's results, the lowest cancer survival rates were to be found among those who were undergoing a separation at the time of diagnosis, followed by those who were widowed, those who were divorced and those who had never been married.
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20090824/marital-status-affects-cancer-survival

That's all for this week, but I'll be back next Thursday with more!

--Cat