June 30, 2008
Quitting is hard but worth it
We normally avoid the first-person singular on this blog – Kat, Ed and I are writing on behalf of Cancer Research UK, and it’s not the place for personal rambles. But in this case we thought we’d make an exception.
Because, to misappropriate a phrase, there’s no ‘I’ in cancer, but there is a ‘me’ in smokefree (sort of), and July 1st is not only the one-year anniversary of the ban on smoking in public places – it’s also my one-year anniversary as a non-smoker.
Yes, a year ago I stubbed out my last cigarette. It was the fourth time I’d tried giving up, and I was fed up of being part of the 70 percent of smokers who want to quit.
Happily, I’m still off the fags a year later – and the fact that the UK’s now completely smokefree is a big part of the reason why.
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Cancer Prevention, Lung, Smoking | 
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Posted by Henry Scowcroft
June 30, 2008
Here’s a guest post from Dr Jo Peak, one of the Science Information team at Cancer Research UK, about an interesting paper published recently.
Why is it so difficult to ‘cure cancer’?
We often describe people who have been successfully treated for cancer as being ‘in remission’ – but not ‘cured’. This is because, sadly, cancer can come back. These relapses seem to be down to a few stray cancer cells that are left behind after treatment, which start to multiply again. This can occur many years after the initial treatment.
At the moment, doctors remain cautious in telling people that they are truly ‘cured’ of cancer, as it’s virtually impossible to be 100 per cent sure every single cancer cell has been killed off.
In recent years, researchers have begun to solve this difficult problem by showing that not all cancer cells are equal – preventing cancer’s return seems to be a case of targeting the right ones. Now researchers led by Dr Pandolfi at Harvard Medical School have discovered another piece in the puzzle.
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Cancer Treatment, Leukaemia, Scientific papers, Stem cells | 
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Posted by Jo Peak
June 26, 2008
We’ve blogged before about the discovery of new prostate cancer genes. And indeed, gene-hunting is such an exciting and busy area of science that it’s likely to feature in the news more and more often. But what, you may wonder, is the point of these studies?
It’s common knowledge that a person’s risk of cancer is affected by the genes they inherit.. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that our genes also affect the way we react to things in our environment like tobacco or alcohol. The big idea is that knowing how these genes work together, and which particular genes a person carries, will allow doctors to personalise prevention advice, screening and treatment options.
This era of personalised medicine is still a while away but the first steps towards it could be taken very soon. Paul Pharoah, one of our scientists at the University of Cambridge, has suggested how our expanding knowledge of breast cancer genes could be used in practical ways to improve early diagnosis for women at high risk of the disease.
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Breast, Cancer Research UK-funded research, Cancer in the news, Gene-environment, Genes, Patient care, Screening | 
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Posted by Ed Yong
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