Cancer

Common cancer drugs may be more harmful to the brain than the tumour cells they are meant to destroy.

Doctors have announced that a chemotherapy super-cocktail given to women with breast cancer reduced deaths by more than 30 per cent, compared with standard treatment.

IBC's Nontraditional Symptoms Make It Hard to Detect Most women associate breast cancer with a lump, but there are other ways that the disease can manifest itself.

Women in KwaZulu-Natal will benefit from free health screenings this month. The health department will hold screening services at various public health facilities.

A study of more than 33,000 women published in the June issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that testing for high-risk types of the human papillomavirus (HPV) is a significantly more sensitive tool for cervical cancer screening than either conventional or liquid-based cytology (Pap testing), announced Digene Corp. (NASDAQ: DIGE).

In what officials called a major public health breakthrough, the Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved the first vaccine developed to protect women against cervical cancer.

The public is bombarded with messages about diet and cancer prevention. Unfortunately, the advice is pretty inconsistent. One day a diet prevents cancer, the next day it doesn't. In the early '90s, beta carotene (a vitamin A precursor present in fruits and vegetables) was said to prevent lung cancer. But several years later, headlines read, Beta carotene pills yield no benefit (The Post, 1996). And while people have been told for years to eat a high-fiber diet to reduce the risk of colon cancer, recently we were told High-fiber diets are not anti-cancer miracle (Montreal Gazette, 2005).

The Medicines Control Council has been urged to fast-track approval of Gardasil, the first vaccine against cervical cancer. The appeal came from the head of the South African subsidiary of Merck, the pharmaceutical company which late last year announced research results that pointed to the astonishing efficacy of the vaccine.

CHICAGO (AP) Low-income American women and women in developing countries who are tested for cervical cancer could benefit from faster, more aggressive treatment, two studies suggest.