Best of Breast: news for week ending 18 April 2014

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New developments on Breast Cancer and Cancer, culled from Google Alerts, for the week ending 18 April 2014.

Well, I was all geared-up for a glut of news developments because the American Association for Cancer Research recently held its annual conference, and was disappointed.  Maybe the doctors are still partying away in San Diego!

image credit: revealtherapies.com

For me, the top two eyecatchers this week is a study being done on spontaneous remissions – whether there is any genetic basis behind these miracle cures – and a blood test that has been developed that can predict recurrences.  The final item is an editorial in Nature Journal about how we need a new approach to studying the genetics of cancer, it’s a long article about the Cancer Genome Atlas.  What the article is saying is that the Cancer Genome Atlas has done a great job in amassing huge amounts of data, but simply cataloguing cancer mutations in the hope of finding a pattern isn’t delivering much-anticipated breakthroughs – we need to focus on the function of these genes as well.

Five people I’ve met who’ve had spontaneous remissions …

Best of Breast: news for week ending 11 April 2014

A summary of news for the week ending 11 April 2014 from Google Alerts – Breast Cancer and Cancer. Sometimes I feel as if this whole cancer-fighting business is like a bad B-horror-movie.  There were two articles this week which made me marvel about how ingenious and indestructible cancer cells appear to be.

The first is a study which showed how cancer cells eat themselves at times of stress and come back to life … just like zombies.  The second is research which shows how different types of cancer cells can cooperate to grow tumours.  It’s almost like cancer cells have an intelligence and life of their own, and aren’t just rogue cells.

The more I investigate, the more I realise why cancer is such a badass to deal with.

On a positive note, even zombies can be killed … we just have to be smarter to outwit them.  And you know how in movies where zombies are blasted to pieces with an anti-zombie gun that’s invented by the wacky scientist … well, there’s been research into using magnetic nanoparticles that get eaten up by cancer cells and which then explode when exposed to magnetic fields!

There was an article on how copper can fuel the growth of tumours, so removing it from the body could starve the tumours.  This is not a new development, as a reader, J, has pointed out – please refer to the comments and see the studies that J has sent, dating from 2000.  It’s such a shame that this information has been around, but the treatment is not part of standard-of-care.

There’s been a glut this week in new developments and drugs (and I apologise for using the zombie article which is admittedly sensationalist) … I was intrigued by the blip, until I realised that it’s the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in San Diego which was held this week – so tune in for more amazing anti-zombie cures in the weeks to come!

Cancer cells at work. Image credit: thinkgeek.com

1.  Zombie cancer cells eat themselves to live