(Posted: 11/01/2012) - Completing the second phase of the 1000 Genomes Project, a multinational team of scientists reports that they have sampled a total of 1092 individuals from 14 different populations and sequenced their full genomes.

(Posted: 10/30/2012) - Two studies led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found that proton therapy preserves the quality of life, specifically urinary and bowel function, in men treated with this targeted radiation modality for prostate cancer.

(Posted: 10/30/2012) - Elderly women with early-stage breast cancer live longer with radiation therapy and surgery compared with surgery alone, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found. The researchers, who collected data on almost 30,000 women, ages 70 to 84, with early, highly treatable breast cancer enrolled in a nationwide cancer registry, are reporting their findings at the 54th annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The University of Maryland is home to the Greenebaum Cancer Center.

(Posted: 10/30/2012) - Not all women diagnosed with operable breast cancer present with a single tumor; some have multifocal disease appear in the breast—which means multiple tumors all arising from the same primary tumor. Others face a diagnosis of multicentric disease, where multiple tumors have formed independently in the breast. Standard radiation treatment is not tailored to the number of tumors found in the breast, so patients with multifocal or multicentric disease do not receive radiation after mastectomy and if they undergo lumpectomy, they receive the same dose and extent as patients presenting with a single mass. A team of Fox Chase physicians conducted a retrospective study designed to investigate those differences in outcomes. They found no statistically significant difference in overall survival or distant recurrence, where the cancer spreads to other organs or tissues. However, local recurrence—having cancer return to the same area from which it was surgically removed—occurred more than 2.5 times more often among patients with multifocal/multicentric disease, compared to patients with a single tumor.

(Posted: 10/30/2012) - Survivors of many common cancers enjoy a mental and physical health-related quality of life equal to that of adults who have not had cancer, but survivors of other cancers are in poorer health, according to results published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Researchers from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, home to the Wake Forest Comprehensive Cancer Center, and from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey, a large survey conducted by the CDC to track trends in illness and disability in the United States. They identified a cohort of 1,822 cancer survivors and compared them with 24,804 adults with no history of cancer.

(Posted: 10/29/2012) - For the first time, researchers at the University of California, Davis, home to the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, have watched single strands of DNA being prepped for repair. The research, published this week in the journal Nature, has implications for understanding the origins of breast cancer.

(Posted: 10/29/2012) - Implementing measures to ensure radiation therapy protocols are followed not only decreases deviations, but it can also improve overall survival in cancer patients, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital researchers suggest in a first-of-its kind study presented during a plenary session at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 54th Annual Meeting in Boston. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is home to the Kimmel Cancer Center.

(Posted: 10/29/2012) - An oral rinse of the antidepressant doxepin significantly eased pain associated with oral mucositis in patients receiving radiation therapy for cancers of the head and neck, a study led by Mayo Clinic found. The findings were presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology annual meeting in Boston.

(Posted: 10/28/2012) - Doxorubicin, a 50-year-old chemotherapy drug still in widespread use against a variety of cancers, has long been known to destroy heart tissue, as well as tumors, in some patients. Scientists have identified an unexpected mechanism via the enzyme Top2b that drives the drug's attack on heart muscle, providing a new approach for identifying patients who can safely tolerate doxorubicin and for developing new drugs. A team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports its findings about the general DNA-damaging drug in the journal Nature Medicine.

(Posted: 10/28/2012) - Rectal cancer is more likely to spread to the lymph nodes in younger patients, according to new findings that Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers presented on October 29 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s 54th Annual Meeting. The results—which are the first of their kind—suggest that doctors should search for spreading more aggressively in these patients.