CHICAGO -- Although cancer recurrence may be the overriding fear for many survivors, nearly half of survivors from a recently presented study died from other conditions. These results indicate survivors could potentially benefit from a more comprehensive, less cancer-focused approach to their health, according to lead researcher Yi Ning, M.D., Sc.D., assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and community health at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and associate research member at VCU Massey Cancer Center in Richmond, Va. Ning presented the results at ...

CHICAGO — A combination of nab-paclitaxel and carboplatin for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer may be a promising option for patients ineligible for treatment with bevacizumab, according to data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held here March 31 - April 4. "The combination of carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel demonstrates promising efficacy with tolerable toxicity in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) ineligible for therapy with bevacizumab," said Gregory A. Otterson, M.D., professor of internal medicine, co-director of the thoracic oncology ...

The trailer for a new British film reveals an edgy and sophisticated work of cinematography which will likely interest wide audiences in the United States as well as the UK. Stunning music, scenes, acting, and photography combine to make this a gem in the genre of independent films. Vampire Zoo has been written as a 6 part TV series and also a feature film. The creative team behind Vampire Zoo is comprised of a coalition of filmmakers - Clockwork Productions, JTMR Films and Foot in the Door Productions - who are attempting to raise the funds to make the project independently ...

CHICAGO — Eating cruciferous vegetables after breast cancer diagnosis was associated with improved survival among Chinese women, according to results presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held here March 31 - April 4. "Breast cancer survivors can follow the general nutritional guidelines of eating vegetables daily and may consider increasing intake of cruciferous vegetables, such as greens, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli, as part of a healthy diet," said Sarah J. Nechuta, M.P.H., Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. She ...

CHICAGO — Patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with the androgen inhibitor abiraterone and who had high baseline hormone levels had longer overall survival compared with patients with low hormone levels, according to data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held here March 31 - April 4. If confirmed, these data mean that levels of hormones, specifically adrenal androgens, may provide physicians with another way to predict the efficacy of therapy in patients with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to Charles J. Ryan, ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ – Underage female drinkers have been at a growing risk of fatal car crashes in recent years -- so much that they've caught up with their male counterparts, according to a study in the May issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Back in 1996, the U.S. had a gender split when it came to underage drinkers' odds of being involved in a fatal car crash: at any given blood-alcohol level, young men had a higher risk of a fatal crash than young women did. But by 2007, the new study found, that gender gap had closed. The exact reasons are not clear. ...

Allegations of widespread, sustained torture and other human rights violations by the Government of Sudan and Janjaweed forces against non-Arabic-speaking civilians are corroborated in a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine. In the study medical forensic experts reviewed the medical records of patients seen at a clinic in Darfur. The authors, co-led by Alexander Tsai based at Harvard University and Mohammed Eisa based at Physicians for Human Rights, both in Cambridge, USA, conclude: "The widespread, organized, and sustained pattern of attacks documented in our ...

A study in this week's PLoS Medicine suggests that increasing height and, among women who have never taken menopausal hormone therapy, increased body mass index are risk factors for developing ovarian cancer. These findings are important as in high income countries, the average height and average body mass index of women have increased by about 1 cm and 1 kg/m2 respectively per decade. These findings suggest that if all other factors that affect ovarian cancer risk had remained constant, the increases in height and weight among women would have resulted in ovarian cancer ...

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Peter Bloland and colleagues from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lay out the agency's priorities for health systems strengthening efforts. To guide its support of public health in low- and middle-income countries around the world, the CDC proposes to focus its investments on strengthening six key public health functions that would contribute the most towards health systems strengthening efforts as a whole and have the greatest impact on improving the public's health. These include ensuring the availability of critical ...

CHICAGO, IL (April 3, 2012)––The hormone estrogen may help promote lung cancer— including compounding the effects of tobacco smoke on the disease—pointing towards potential new therapies that target the hormone metabolism, according to new research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 on Tuesday, April 3 by scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "This research provides the link between estrogen and tobacco smoke," says study author Jing Peng, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate in the lab of Margie L. Clapper, Ph.D., also a co-author on the paper. The ...

The world's first fiberglass working boat, Polaris, was built by SHING SHENG FA BOAT BUILDING CO., LTD. (SSF), one of the boat builders who's been manufacturing and customizing boats for more than 41 years. SSF is recognized as a pioneer in designing and manufacturing workboats and vessels. Their workboats are designed specifically to achieve various challenges in order to present the best. SSF has been building workboats including fishery trials, oceanographic survey ships, oil spill prevent boats, patrol working boats, river working boats, etc. And their strong working ...

CHICAGO, IL (April 3, 2012)––Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia have come one step closer to developing the first treatment to target a key pathway in lymphoma. The new findings will be announced at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 on Tuesday, April 3. "It's an exciting time to be involved in lymphoma treatment and research," says study author Mitchell Smith, M.D., Ph.D., director of Lymphoma Service at Fox Chase. "There's a new understanding of the disease, and new drugs to treat it. I am optimistic that over the next couple of years treatments will continue ...

CHICAGO – The addition of a screening ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to annual mammography in women with an increased risk of breast cancer and dense breast tissue resulted in a higher rate of detection of incident breast cancers, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA. "Annual ultrasound screening may detect small, node-negative breast cancers that are not seen on mammography. Magnetic resonance imaging may reveal additional breast cancers missed by both mammography and ultrasound screening," according to background information in the article. ...

CHICAGO – Although data indicate that between 2003-2009 there was a substantial decline in the U.S. in hospitalizations for pneumonia and inpatient deaths, analysis suggests that trends in documentation and diagnostic coding, rather than improvements in actual outcomes, may explain much of the observed changes, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA. Pneumonia is a leading cause of illness and death among U.S. adults, resulting in more than 1 million annual hospital admissions and accounting for more than $10.5 billion in aggregate costs. "Given its public ...

CHICAGO – Adding the drug cetuximab to a regimen of drugs used for the treatment of patients following surgery for stage III colon cancer did not result in improved disease-free survival, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA. Patients who have surgery for removal of stage III colon cancer have a 50 percent chance of cure. Multiple trials have established the benefit of chemotherapy after surgery in reducing the recurrence risk. "Specifically, [the drugs] leucovorin, fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX or slightly different method, FLOX) provides significant ...

CHICAGO – In an analysis of a cohort that included nearly one million patients who had visited an ophthalmologist, patients who were taking oral fluoroquinolones had a higher risk of developing a retinal detachment, a serious eye condition, compared with nonusers, although the absolute risk was small, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA. "Fluoroquinolones are one of the most commonly prescribed classes of antibiotics. Their broad-spectrum antibacterial coverage and high-tissue distribution provide potency for a wide variety of community-acquired infections," ...

CHICAGO --The feasibility of selecting treatment based on individual molecular characteristics was demonstrated in a first-of-its kind pancreatic cancer clinical trial reported today by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare. The findings were announced during the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2012, March 31-April 4, in Chicago. "The most important finding is that this approach is feasible and we are encouraged by preliminary evidence that this approach may ...

Johns Hopkins investigators are testing a way to use drugs that target a cholesterol pathway to enhance the cancer-killing potential of standard chemotherapy drugs. Their tests, in mouse models of pancreatic cancer, may yield new and more effective combinations of current and possibly new anti-cancer drugs. Besides their deadly consequences, pancreatic cancer and heart disease share a connection with genetic pathways that control cholesterol and a cell signaling system known as the Hedgehog pathway. (The name refers to the shape of its mutated protein in fruit flies, ...

In a research article published April 3 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, Prof. Sylvia Cremer and colleagues at the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria show how micro-infections promote social vaccination in ant societies. Like crowded megacities, ant colonies face a high risk of disease outbreaks. These are kept in check by the ants' social immune system—a set of collective hygienic behaviours and adaptive changes in interaction frequencies that acts in conjunction with the physiological, innate immune system of colony members. Prof. Cremer and ...

Top executives at Anago Cleaning Systems hosted its 2012 annual conference for their Master Franchisees in an effort to celebrate major growth and successes in 2011, and prepare for aggressive expansion and improvement throughout each territory and the nation. New and existing Master Franchisees alike attended the two-day show that was held on March 5-6, 2012 in Orlando, Florida. The convention kicked off with opening remarks from Anago Cleaning Systems Founder, David Povlitz. Mr. Povlitz reiterated that the vision, mission, and values of the company he founded in ...

An international team of scientists has created an innovative tool for teaching the fundamentals of epidemiology—the science of how infectious diseases move through a population. The team teaches a workshop annually in South Africa that helps epidemiologists improve the mathematical models they use to study outbreaks of diseases like cholera, AIDS and malaria. Led by Steve Bellan from the University of California at Berkeley, the team created a new game as a teaching aid for the workshop. The exercise, which has proven extremely effective in demonstrating concepts in ...

Genetic mutations in cancer cells can lead to resistance to treatment, thereby potentially resulting in relapse. However, a new article, published April 3 in the magazine section of the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, suggests that the converse may also happen. Steven Frank from the University of California, Irvine, and Marsha Rosner from the University of Chicago, propose that it may often be the case that a few cells become resistant before any genetic change, and then later acquire the genes to stabilize that resistance. Why does it matter whether resistance ...

CAL Business Solutions, a Connecticut based Microsoft Dynamics GP partner, today announced that it will host the first ever New England SalesPad user group workshop. Companies using Microsoft Dynamics GP with SalesPad, an add on product for the distribution industry, will have the opportunity to come together to see new features, share ideas, network with their peers and provide input on future product developments. The user group will be held at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Cromwell, Connecticut from 8:00-11:30am on Monday May 7th. Topics on the agenda include advanced ...

New evidence points to a hormone that leaves muscles gobbling up sugar as if they can't get enough. That factor, which can be coaxed out of fat stem cells, could lead to a new treatment to lower blood sugar and improve metabolism, according to a report in the April issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. This new fat-derived hormone would appear to be a useful alternative or add-on to insulin; it can do essentially the same job, sending glucose out of the bloodstream and into muscle. "It's like you've opened the door and now the glucose can come in," said ...

Philadelphia, PA, April 3, 2012 – A new report published online today in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics systematically reviews and updates the evidence underlying the recommendation in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 to consume a diet low in energy density (ED). The report addresses the growing body of evidence linking ED, or the number of calories in a given amount of food, and body weight in adults as well as children and adolescents. The systematic review concluded that there is strong and consistent evidence in adults showing that consuming ...