Category Archives: Infections

Leaders team up to combat cancer worldwide

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Indian beedies

There needs to be international action on tobacco

Today, leaders from cancer organisations across the world – from Australia to Argentina, and Taiwan to Turkey – have issued a joint statement about how to address the growing burden of cancer worldwide.

It’s the first time that so many eminent cancer scientists and policy makers, from so many nations, have spoken with one voice about what needs to be done to combat cancer – in the poorest as well as the richest nations.

The statement comes off the back of a consensus meeting of 25 leaders of cancer organisations, chaired by our Chief Executive, Dr Harpal Kumar, and Professor Harold Varmus, Director of the US National Cancer Institute.

It aims both to raise the profile of global cancer issues, and to act as an urgent clarion call to action. The report is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine – but we’ve summarised its key points below. Continue reading →

NCRI conference session: global inequalities in cancer

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Over half the world’s cancer deaths occur in developing countries

Despite common (mis)conception that cancer is a ‘modern’ disease of Western society (which we’ve discussed here), well over half of the world’s cancer deaths happen in developing countries. But it’s true that many cases of cancer are linked to our lifestyles. And, as people in the poorer countries of the world start living longer and adopting more Western lifestyles, cancer rates will rise.

And while breakthroughs in prevention, diagnosis and treatment are made in the richer parts of the world, too often their benefits don’t reach the world’s poorest.

For example, eight out of 10 cancer patients in Africa have no access to radiotherapy, while endoscopies, biopsies, chemotherapy and pain relief are also too often unavailable.

This growing problem was the subject of a pivotal session at this year’s NCRI conference.  We heard from three leading experts working to improve cancer outcomes across the world – Cancer Research UK’s Professor Max Parkin, Dr Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and Dr Rajendra Badwe from the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai.

Continue reading →

Expert opinion: “Now we need to plan for first-line HPV testing”

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  • Cancer Research UK-funded screening expert, Professor Peter Sasieni, gives us his thoughts on an important development in cervical cancer research
Professor Peter Sasieni

“Plans should be made for the roll out of HPV testing nationally”

New research from the US, published last night in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, has significant implications for the NHS cervical screening programme.

The headline finding, as Cancer Research UK reports on its newsfeed  is that testing a woman’s smear samples for the human papillomavirus (HPV) predicts who is likely to go on develop early signs of cervical cancer up to 18 years later.

And the study, which involved 4,000 women, showed the power of testing samples for the virus was much greater than the existing test – cytology – which looks down a microscope for abnormal cells.

This is not surprising. But it is new, and extremely important, as we’ll see below.

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News digest – curry extract and bowel cancer, infections and cancer, brain tumours and more

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It's news time

  • We launched a clinical trial (press release) to test whether curcumin – an extract from the curry spice turmeric – could improve treatment for advanced bowel cancer. This doesn’t mean curry cures cancer (as we pointed out here), or that people with bowel cancer should take curcumin supplements. But this early-stage trial could help us find out whether curcumin’s promise in the lab could be translated into patient benefit.
  • Around one in six worldwide cancers – two million new cases every year – are caused by infections, according to a French study published on Wednesday and covered on our news feed and the BBC. Eighty per cent of these cases occur in less developed parts of the world, where measures to prevent and treat infections are not always widely available. (On a related note, it’s worth reading Olly’s post on the ‘blame game’, and this post by Ed Yong, on why we need to be careful about how such stats are explained). Continue reading →

Healthy Resolutions 2012 – what’s new?

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Healthy living is worth it

It’s mid-January, and while many resolutions will still be going strong, some may have already fallen by the wayside. But it’s worth sticking to those healthy plans. Living a healthy life can make you feel more energetic and relaxed, and can reduce the risk of developing cancer.

As ever, the past year’s been a busy one in the field of lifestyle and cancer prevention. In this post we take a look back over the year and pick out some of the exciting developments in research, policy and campaigns.

Some findings have hinted at new information, whilst others have strengthened our existing knowledge. And others have not so much found an answer, as posed new questions.

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The causes of cancer you can control

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Can cancer be prevented? Decades of research have shown that a person’s chances of getting cancer depends on a mishmash of their genes and their environment, but also certain aspects of their lives, many of which they can control.

Today saw the publication of a landmark Cancer Research UK-funded review by Professor Max Parkin, outlining the latest evidence behind the preventable causes of UK cancers.

As our press release says, these latest calculations, based on predicted cases  for 2010, show that smoking, diet, alcohol and obesity are behind more than 100,000 cancers. This is equivalent to one third of all cancers diagnosed in the UK each year.

And this figure further increases to around 134,000 when taking into account all 14 lifestyle and environmental risk factors analysed in this study.

There’s more in-depth information about the statistics on our website, and our healthy living pages explain the take-home messages from the research.

But to help make sense of the vast quantity of information contained in the 91-page report, we’ve also put together a graphic that shows the proportion of cancers that can be prevented through lifestyle changes. It’s worth spending a minute or so looking at the key to understand how to interpret the graphic (which you can download as a larger PDF version).

Attributable risk infographic

Continue reading →

Podcast: Red tape, HPV testing, and the latest brain tumour research

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Cancer Research UK podcast logo

Click on the image to listen to the latest podcast

In this month’s podcast we discuss a new prostate cancer drug that has been licensed in the UK and investigate how red tape is hindering European cancer trials.

New research shows that HPV testing could save thousands of women from having unnecessary cancer tests, and we take a look at a new study investigating whether beta-blockers could prevent cancer spread. Plus, should fair-skinned people take vitamin D supplements?

Finally, we say goodbye to Harry Moseley – an amazing 11 year-old who recently lost his fight against brain cancer – and take a look at some of the latest research into brain tumours.

Listen now through the player below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Or click here to download the podcast as an mp3.

Also, the podcast is available on iTunes to subscribe and download for free.

Alternatively, go to the main podcast page on our website, where you can hear the show directly through our own Flash player. And there’s also a full transcript of the podcast available here.

We hope you enjoy it – please do let us know what you think of the podcast in the comments below, or email us at podcast@cancer.org.uk.

Kat