During the study Norwegian and American researchers compared the amount of breast cancers that were found in over 100,000 Norwegian women who were being screened every two years. These women also received only one mammogram after six years. Women who have cancer and are screened an a more frequent basis have a better chance of being diagnosed early.

But the authors stated that both of their strategies should show the same number of cancers. However, doctors found 22% more breast cancers in women who received more frequent mammograms.

This increases the possibility that these mammograms discovered cancers that over time went away and did not need any treatment, says co-author H. Gilbert Welch of the VA Outcomes Group in White River Junction, Vt. Other experts have argued over the findings of this study and believe that mammograms have been proven to save many lives. The American Cancer Society urges women to receive annual screenings after they have turned 40.

Robert Smith from the cancer society believes that there are several reasons why women who are screened more often have a higher chance of being diagnosed with cancer. A single scan can miss small tumors – but many doctors have an easier time of finding cancers on repeat mammograms when they have the ability to compare the new results with older images. “It’s important that people not wonder if women lost their breasts for no reason,” Smith says. “That’s reprehensible conjecture.”

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President of the Society of Melanoma Research – David E. Fisher – argued that there is no such thing as a safe tan. He and his colleagues accused the industry of misleading consumers concerning the health benefits of tanning. “This effort to portray tanning and tanning beds as good for health ignores the fact that exposure to ultraviolet radiation represents one of the most avoidable causes of cancer,” Fisher tells WebMD. “There is no question that this exposure causes thousands of skin cancer deaths a year.”

The Indoor Tanning Association launched a nationwide campaign next Spring and a full page ad in the New York Times – which questioned the connection between sun exposure and the deadly skin cancer. The ad went on to claim that tanning allows for good health by increasing levels of vitamin D.

The exposure to ultraviolet light helps the body to produce vitamin D. Research shows that vitamin D helps to protect the body from many diseases. “Both the sun and tanning beds have been unnecessarily demonized by special interests using junk science and scare tactics,” International Tanning Association spokeswoman Sarah Longwell said.

Fisher admits that the exposure to UV rays when connected to melanoma has not been fully understood – but he believes that the tanning industry is wrong in saying that there is no link at all between the two. “Whereas genetic and other factors undoubtedly contribute importantly to skin cancer risk, the role of UV is incontrovertible, and efforts to confuse the public, particularly for the purposes of economic gain by the indoor tanning industry, should be vigorously combated for the public health,” Fisher and colleagues write in the October issue of Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research.

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“In our own mind it is a very significant advance because we have put the gene into the cells in the body. The vaccine is produced by your own cells,” Wei-Zen Wei of Wayne State University in Detroit, who led the study, said in a telephone interview. “It is made right in your body.”

Tests have shown that the vaccine has the capability to remove tumors in mice from a type of cancer known as HER2 positive cancer. HER2 positive cancer is 20 – 30% of breast cancers. The test also showed the vaccine destroy tumors that had developed a resistance to drugs that were designed to fight them.

Wei’s team created a vaccine using what they call naked DNA from genes that have the ability to produce the HER2 receptor – this is the molecular signal for the breast cancer tumors. They combined this DNA with an immune system stimulant and placed it into a ring of genetic material – which they called a plasmid. The plasmid came from a bacterium.

They then used a process that is known as electro oration. This process uses an electrical pulse to force the compound through the muscle and skin so that it can properly immunize the mice test subjects. Once the compound was safely in the leg muscles the genes would travel to cells where they would then begin to create HER2 receptors. These receptors activated immune cells called killer T-cells and antibodies.
“The immune system goes around the body to look for cancer cells,” Wei said.

When they then injected HER2-positive breast tumors into the mice, their bodies eradicated them. “Both tumor cells that respond to current targeted therapies and those that are resistant to these treatments were eradicated,” Wei said. “This may be an answer for women with these tumors who become resistant to the current therapies.”

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The doctors discovered the gene when they were decoding DNA samples from members of 10 different families who suffered from the disease. These new findings could help to advance the first genetic screening tests for those who have inherited the cancer.

Doctors diagnose 600 to 750 cases a year of the childhood cancer. About half of those cases clear up spontaneously. In the other half, the disease has a 30 percent to 40 percent survival rate.

ALK-inhibiting drugs are being tested against lymphoma and lung cancer in adults, and the Children’s Hospital researchers plan to start testing those same drugs on high-risk neuroblastoma patients in hopes that it will help many patients.

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The cells were taken from the patient, cloned, and then given back to him. In spite of the advanced stage of his cancer, which had spread to his lungs and groins, the 52 year old man was completely healthy in 60 days since the cure had started. Two years after, the former melanoma patient did not present any signs that the disease came back.

While the results sound like good news, there is a downside to the story. The treatment was given to another 8 patients, and even though some of them have shown improvement, none had his cancer disappear.

Pharmaceutical companies don’t seem to be interested in the results of this study so far. This method of treatment is based on creating a new cure for every patient, since he or she needs to be given his or her own white blood cell. The companies that are looking for creating a general cure for cancer will have to wait for other studies to be published.

The cost of this new treatment is at least $30,000 and the places where one can get it are few, because artificially growing white blood cells is a complicated process, and only a few facilities have the required equipment.

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