Regular Doctor Visits Are Key to Melanoma Defense

Doctors are more likely to find malignant skin cancer at an early, treatable stage than is the patient's spouse, friend or the patient himself, a recent study showed, indicating that visiting the doctor regularly is a wise health precaution. (Read more about Regular Doctor Visits Are Key to Melanoma Defense)

 - Regular Doctor Visits Are Key to Melanoma Defense

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Ginger Appears to Relieve Chemotherapy-Related Nausea

Simple ginger root seems to dramatically ease the nausea caused by cancer chemotherapy, a recent study demonstrated. The research, which was revealed at a news conference sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), validates what has been standard practice in homes around the world, namely, that taking ginger ale or ginger tea relieves an upset stomach. The study - the largest to date showed that taking a quarter - to a half-teaspoon of ginger a day reduced nausea symptoms by at least 40 percent.
(Read more about Ginger Appears to Relieve Chemotherapy-Related Nausea)

 - Ginger Appears to Relieve Chemotherapy-Related Nausea

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Fertility Drugs Raise Cancer Risk

Taking medications to enhance fertility appears to increase the chance of developing uterine cancer in particular, as well as some other forms of the disease, according to a very large, long, recently completed study. Drugs that stimulate ovulation have been used for more than three decades to help women who have difficulty conceiving, who are undergoing in vitro fertilization, or who are donating or selling their eggs. But the drugs’ effect on health has never been clarified.

 - Fertility Drugs Raise Cancer Risk

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High-Red-Meat Diet Raises Mortality Risk

Americans who consume large amounts of red and processed meats face a greater likelihood of death by cancer or heart disease, a recent study found.
   
The research was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, and is the largest study of its kind, with over a half-million subjects.

 - High-Red-Meat Diet Raises Mortality Risk

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Cellular "Danger Receptor" Alerts Immune System to Cancer

    A chemical “danger receptor” on certain specialized cells senses the cell death characteristic of bodily injury or malignant tissue and then mobilizes the body’s immune system to repair the flaw, a recent study has revealed.

    The results, which were reported in the journal Nature, may explain the mechanism behind some cancer-fighting drugs that partly work by stimulating an immune response. The scientists, based at Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, in Britain, speculated that knowledge of the receptor could assist in developing strategies to use the immune system to shrink tumors.

 - Cellular "Danger Receptor" Alerts Immune System to Cancer

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 - Racial Gap in Cancer Mortality Stubbornly Persists

Racial Gap in Cancer Mortality Stubbornly Persists

In statistics almost unchanged from those in 1981, blacks have been found to be significantly more likely to develop and die of cancer than whites, a recent study revealed. And blacks, once diagnosed with cancer, don’t live as long as their white counterparts.

In a study co-authored by Ahmedin Jemal, strategic director for cancer occurrence at the American Cancer Society (ACS), it was shown that while cancer death rates have fallen for everyone in recent decades, the gap between whites and blacks is about the same as 28 years ago.

 - Racial Gap in Cancer Mortality Stubbornly Persists

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Gene Makes Drinkers More Prone to Colon Cancer

Some one in five Americans have a gene variant that makes them about two to three times more likely to develop colon cancer if they are relatively heavy drinkers, a recent study has found.

'If people drink alcohol chronically and have a certain genetic background, then they have an increased risk for large intestinal cancer - colorectal cancer - if they drink over a certain amount of alcohol every day," said study co-author Helmut K. Seitz, a professor of medicine at Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany. (Read more about Gene Makes Drinkers More Prone to Colon Cancer)

 - Gene Makes Drinkers More Prone to Colon Cancer

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Technique Finds Hard-to-Spot Breast Tumors

A new system nimbly finds tumors masked by dense breast tissue that mammograms ordinarily can't spot - and at half the cost and with a vastly lower rate of false positives. The technique, known as Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI), is especially targeted at the nearly one-fourth of women above 40 who have dense breast tissue, which allows malignancies to lie hidden until it's too late. What's done with MBI is simply to inject a radioactive tracer into the breast. It's absorbed by the cancer cells, and the resulting "glow" is picked up by special cameras. The body excretes the tracer within a day.

 - Technique Finds Hard-to-Spot Breast Tumors

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Skin Cancer May Lead to Other Cancers

A new study suggests that people who have had non-melanoma skin cancer may be at increased risk of developing other cancers, including those that affect other parts of the body. Previous research has already found a link between skin cancer and an increased risk of developing melanoma, a rarer but more malignant form of skin cancer. The study is the work of Dr. Jiping Chen of the National Cancer Institute and is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

 - Skin Cancer May Lead to Other Cancers

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Vitamin C Has Potential to Slow Cancer

An injection of a high dose of vitamin C may be able to impede the growth of cancer, according to US scientists. The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found vitamin C to halve the size of brain, ovarian, and pancreatic tumors in mice. However, Cancer Research UK says that large vitamin C doses may interfere with other cancer treatment.

 - Vitamin C Has Potential to Slow Cancer

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