(Posted: 05/18/2011) - NCI scientists whose discovery provided the technology for commercially developed HPV vaccines were honored with the prestigious Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award at a ceremony held at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, May 18, 2011.

(Posted: 05/16/2011) - Researchers have developed a more accurate method for estimating breast cancer risk for Asian and Pacific Islander American (APA) women. Most current risk estimates rely on data from non-Hispanic white women, but researchers have now come up with a statistical model that more specifically assesses risk for American women who identify themselves as Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander, or other Asian. NCI’s Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool (BCRAT) has now been updated to include the new model.

(Posted: 04/21/2011) - Prostate cancer patients in a phase 3 trial who were non-responsive to hormone therapy and received the investigational agent atrasentan in addition to a standard chemotherapy regimen, did not have longer survival or longer progression-free survival compared to the patients on the same chemotherapy regimen and a placebo. This determination was made by the trial’s Data and Safety Monitoring Committee (DSMC) based on a planned interim analysis of the trial.

(Posted: 04/15/2011) - A team led by researchers at NIH is the first to systematically survey the landscape of the melanoma genome, the DNA code of the deadliest form of skin cancer. The researchers have made surprising new discoveries using whole-exome sequencing, an approach that decodes the 1-2 percent of the genome that contains protein-coding genes.

(Posted: 04/11/2011) - While cases of the types of cancer that have been associated with AIDS progression have decreased, cases of other types of cancer are on the rise. Since the introduction of HAART therapies, cases of AIDS-defining cancers decreased threefold, whereas the combined number of all other cancers tripled.

(Posted: 03/31/2011) - Rates of death in the United States from all cancers for men and women continued to decline between 2003 and 2007, the most recent reporting period available, according to the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer. The report also finds that the overall rate of new cancer diagnoses for men and women combined decreased an average of slightly less than 1 percent per year for the same period.

(Posted: 03/23/2011) - A new study of prostate tumors has shown that a gene, FOXO3, suppresses activation of cells related to immunity and thus leads to a reduced immune response against a growing cancer.

(Posted: 03/17/2011) - Nearly 25 years after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, exposure to radioactive iodine-131(I-131, a radioactive isotope) from fallout may be responsible for thyroid cancers that are still occurring among people who lived in the Chernobyl area and were children or adolescents at the time of the accident, researchers say. An international team of researchers led by the NCI found a clear dose-response relationship, in which higher absorption of radiation from I-131 led to an increased risk for thyroid cancer that has not seemed to diminish over time.

(Posted: 03/10/2011) - The number of cancer survivors in the United States increased to 11.7 million in 2007, according to a report released by NCI and CDC. There were 3 million cancer survivors in 1971 and 9.8 million in 2001.

(Posted: 02/01/2011) - The FDA has approved a New Drug Application (NDA) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, for a new strength of a previously approved drug, Sodium Fluoride F18, for use in bone scans. In contrast to Technetium-99m (Tc-99m), which has been the only approved radioactive tracer for bone scans, Sodium Fluoride F18 is not subject to the supply problems that have led to recent nationwide shortages of Tc-99m.