The latest cancer news

• Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer, after she learnt she carried the BRCA1 gene, resulted in blanket coverage across the media this week. You can read about her reasons for undergoing the surgery in this courageous New York Times piece. We also answered some of the frequently asked questions about inherited breast cancer risk and the BRCA1 gene. 

• We spotted several excellent comment pieces in response to Ms Jolie’s news. She’d “done something extraordinary”, according to Hadley Freeman in the Guardian, a sentiment broadly echoed by Lisa Markwell in the Independent, who has had breast cancer herself.

• The Guardian’s data blog took a look at the bigger picture of breast cancer worldwide.

• We also published this moving article about a personal experience of being told you have the BRCA1 gene.

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The latest cancer news

• Wednesday was a sad day for public health. The worrying rumours we’d heard last week – that the government had scrapped plans to introduce plain, standardised tobacco packaging in the Queen’s speech – turned out to be true. This BBC article has more info. We wrote about why this is a blow in the fight against cancer.
• Our scientists found that genetic ‘fine tuners’ known as microRNAs control the body’s own attack against breast cancer. Read more in our press release
• US scientists uncovered why breast cancer patients with dense breasts are often more likely to develop aggressive tumours that spread. This NewsWise article has more info.
• Also across the pond, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine identified a group of proteins that are faulty in about one-fifth of all human cancers. Science Daily covered the story.

• Pharmaceutical companies agreed a substantial discount on the cost of cervical cancer vaccines for the developing world. The New York Times and the Guardian have more detail.

And finally

• We were dismayed this week by several headlines like this: “Sun’s blood pressure benefits may outdo cancer risks”. The study in question only looked at the blood pressure of 24 volunteers who sat beneath tanning lamps. It didn’t directly look at skin cancer risk and also hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet. Overexposure to UV radiation from the sun or sunbeds is the main cause of skin cancer, so we advise everyone to enjoy the sun safely.

Catch up on the latest cancer news

• For those who don’t know why we want the Government to legislate for plain standardised tobacco packaging, read this excellent Lancet Oncology article.
• We want to give children one less reason to start smoking but interestingly, our research this week showed that standardising cigarette packs also makes them less appealing to existing smokers (press release).
• Some Welsh cancer patients aren’t starting their treatment within government target times. The BBC has more detail.

• The Telegraph published an interesting article about using computers to choose cancer treatments. It’s not the stuff of science fiction, as doctors already use computer programmes to help identify the most suitable treatments for their patients.

• In another sci-fi-like story, US scientists have used radioactive bacteria to treat mice with pancreatic cancer. It’s intriguing work but as this Nature article says, there are several crucial questions that need answering before this research could be harnessed for humans.

• A small but interesting study we funded showed that women are often surprised that breast screening can lead to ‘overdiagnosis’ of cancer, but would rather go for screening than take the risk of missing a cancer that could be treated. Here’s our press release.

• The ‘breast cancer’ drug, Herceptin, could be effective in around two per cent of lung cancers, according to preliminary research reported here.

• An innovative drug development fund, provided in part by our commercial company Cancer Research Technology, backed its first major project this week. Here’s our press release, and we wrote in more detail about the science behind the promising compounds being developed – ‘MPS1 inhibitors’.

• According to a new analysis, rising cancer rates are threatening to ‘overwhelm’ Latin American countries. The BBC has this take.

• The Guardian wrote a fascinating piece about gene patenting and what they describe as “the last-ditch battle over who owns the rights to our DNA”.

• And the New York Times had a great article about how whole genome DNA sequencing will one day become the norm across health care, and the current “arms race” between US institutions to invest in DNA sequencing technologies.

• This article from the American Cancer Society is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how to distinguish between good quality and questionable quality medical research.
• The BBC’s Robert Peston looked at issues around lung cancer funding.

And finally

• We recently described how a new blood test could track tumours as they grow and evolve in the body. Picking up this theme, our blogger Dr Kat Arney has looked into this exciting new area in more depth in an Opinion piece for Al Jazeera English.