May 2012

Scientists turn patients’ skin cells into heart muscle cells to repair their damaged hearts: first report

For the first time scientists have succeeded in taking skin cells from heart failure patients and reprogramming them to transform into healthy, new heart muscle cells that are capable of integrating with existing heart tissue. The research, which is published online in the European Heart Journal [1], opens up the prospect of treating heart failure […]

Highly targeted irradiation as good as whole breast radiotherapy in early stage cancer

Barcelona, Spain: Using a concentrated, highly targeted dose of radiation to the breast has equally good results as irradiating the whole area, with no adverse effects on survival and a much better cosmetic outcome, Hungarian researchers have found. Reporting the ten-year results of a randomised trial, Professor Csaba Polgár, MD, Director of the Centre for […]

Un estudio demuestra que la radioterapia de altas dosis es eficaz para combatir los cánceres de mama localmente avanzados que ahora tienen mal pronóstico

– La radioterapia radical eliminó completamente los tumores locales de un 82,50% de las pacientes tratadas, que no habían respondido a la quimioterapia ni a la terapia hormonal – Las pacientes que sí respondieron a la quimioterapia también se benefician de esta nueva técnica, que permitiría reducir el número de extirpaciones de pecho – El […]

Uno de cada cuatro cánceres de garganta en España está causado por el virus del papiloma humano, transmitido por vía sexual oral

– Los datos son el resultado de un estudio conjunto de cuatro hospitales españoles, que se presenta en el 31.º Congreso de la Sociedad Europea de Radiología Terapéutica y Oncología (ESTRO) en Barcelona – La infección de este virus, de transmisión sexual oral, es la causante del 26,7% de los cánceres de orofaringe estudiados en […]

Researchers discover cheap and simple way of overcoming poor response to radiotherapy caused by low haemoglobin levels: results from a randomised trial in head and neck cancer

Barcelona, Spain: Patients with head and neck cancer and a low haemoglobin (Hb) level do not respond well to radiotherapy and therefore both control of their tumour and disease-free survival are compromised. Now researchers from The Netherlands have found that the problems caused by low Hb in these patients can be overcome by the use […]

Throat cancer patients who are positive for the human papilloma virus (HPV) respond better to radiotherapy alone than HPV-negative patients

Barcelona, Spain: New findings from a large Danish database of cancer patients suggest that, even though the human papilloma virus (HPV) can trigger throat cancer, patients who are HPV-positive and are light smokers, or don’t smoke at all, have a good response to treatment using radiotherapy alone, without the addition of chemotherapy with its consequent […]

3-D image guided brachytherapy helps avoid hysterectomies for cervical cancer patients

Barcelona, Spain: Delivering radiotherapy directly to cancer of the cervix using 3-D imaging techniques is effective at controlling the return and spread of the disease and, in most cases, avoids the need for hysterectomies, according to research presented at the World Congress of Brachytherapy [1 & 2]. Dr Renaud Mazeron said that a review of […]

Stem cell sparing radiotherapy for head and neck cancer may avoid salivary gland damage

Barcelona, Spain: Researchers believe they may have found a way to avoid damaging salivary glands during radiotherapy treatment for head and neck cancer – a discovery that could improve the quality of life of 500,000 patients a year worldwide with the disease. Presenting their findings to the 31st conference of the European Society for Radiotherapy […]

Intrauterine devices (IUDs) provide the most effective emergency contraception

Intrauterine devices (IUDs) should be used routinely to provide emergency contraception, according to the authors of the first systematic review of all available data from the past 35 years. They found that IUDs had a failure rate of less than one per thousand and were a more effective form of emergency contraception than the “morning […]