Stand Up To Cancer

The president's cancer panel has called for more regulation of environmental contaminants. In its 2008-2009 report, "Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now," the panel says that environmental exposure to chemicals has not been adequately addressed and that the US needs a new policy agenda for environmental contaminants. "There remains a great deal to be done to identify the many existing but unrecognized environmental carcinogens and eliminate those that are known from our daily lives -- our workplaces, schools and homes," said the panel's chairman. "Even though we may currently lack irrefutable proof of harm, the increasing number of known or suspected environmental carcinogens compels us to action."
http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=18546&channel=140

This week's big cancer news story is, of course, the approval of prostate cancer vaccine Provenge, which uses the body's immune system to fight the disease, offering an alternative to chemotherapy. Provenge is the first of these types of therapies to win FDA approval. In this great video Q and A, the Seattle Times interviews a professor from the University of Washington School of Medicine who helped oversee clinical trials for the drug and the CEO of Biotech Stock Research on Provenge's potential impact and what the new approval means for future therapies of this kind.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011785792_provengechat04.html

Two new studies indicate that noninvasive stool DNA testing can detect two types of colorectal precancers and could play a bigger role in prevention of the disease. Stool DNA testing has higher detection rates for curable colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps than fecal occult blood tests, which are currently widely used. "This study shows that cancer and precancer in IBD can be detected noninvasively," said one study's senior investigator. "The 90 percent detection rate by stool DNA testing is remarkable . . . Given the limitations of colonoscopies in detecting these lesions, stool DNA testing could play a complementary role to improve the effectiveness of cancer surveillance."
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638618.html

According to new research out of the UK, there is no association between milk and kidney cancer. For some time, it's been thought that a relationship between the two might exist, based on epidemiological studies, but "when we used genotypes to verify this relationship, there was no corroboratory evidence," said the British study's lead author. "This does suggest that the basic findings may be subject to the kinds of biases and inaccuracies that often upset epidemiological research." Naturally, he added that research would be required "on a much larger scale in order to verify these initial findings."
http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=638777

In other food-related news, researchers have found that a compound derived from broccoli may be able to kill breast cancer stem cells in mice. The compound is called sulforaphane, and researchers found that mice who were treated with it had fewer breast cancer stem cells than those who weren't. The treated mice also couldn't generate new tumors. Before you rush to the grocery store, however, you should know that the compound's effects have yet to be tested in humans - and the amount tested was bigger than the amount anyone could consume as part of their diet.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638779.html

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

--Cat