AUGUSTA, Ga. – Medical College of Georgia researchers are seeking to refine cancer treatment with an anti-inflammatory plant derivative long used in Chinese medicine.

Celastrol, derived from trees and shrubs called celastracaea, has been used for centuries in China to treat symptoms such as fever, chills, joint pain and inflammation. The MCG researchers think it may also play a role in cancer treatment by inactivating a protein required for cancer growth.

The drug pazopanib (Votrient) slowed the progression of advanced renal cell carcinomaterm (RCC), a form of kidney cancer, in patients by 54% percent, according to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

(PHILADELPHIA) Researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have found a mechanism by which a hormone responsible for milk production blocks an oncogene that makes breast cancer more aggressive.

Publishing in the journal Cancer Research, the researchers discovered that prolactin, a pituitary hormone that normally stimulates breast development and milk production, in fact reduces levels of an oncogene called BCL6. The BCL6 protein has previously been shown to play a role in poorly differentiated breast cancer, which carries a poorer prognosis.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have uncovered an important link between inflammation and breast cancer stem cells that suggests a new way to target cells that are resistant to current treatments.

In a new study, scientists have searched for mutations in the gene regions of more than 100 kidney cancer samples, the largest number of samples from a single tumour type to be sequenced to date.

SAN ANTONIO – Anti-estrogens as therapy for breast cancer may also reduce the risk of death from lung cancer, according to study results presented at the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held here Dec. 9-13, 2009.

Tulane University School of Medicine surgeon Dr. Emad Kandil is one of the first in the country to perform a new form of endoscopic surgery that uses a small incision under the arm to remove all or a portion of the thyroid or parathyroid glands without leaving a scar on the neck.

High irradiances of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) should not be used over melanomas. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Cancer studied the pain relieving, anti-inflammatory 'cold laser', finding that it caused increased tumour growth in a mouse model of skin cancer.

Radiation therapy is effective in achieving local control and palliation in patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNTs), despite such tumors being commonly considered resistant to radiation therapy, according to a largest of its kind study in the November 15 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Researchers at Uppsala University, in collaboration with colleagues in Sweden and abroad, have identified an entirely new mechanism by which a specific protein in the body inhibits formation of new blood vessels. Inhibiting the formation of new blood vessels is an important aspect of, for example, cancer treatment. The study is published in the November issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Research.

Research published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology has found that intervals between lung cancer suspicion, diagnosis and treatment may be attributed to health care system discrepancies.

DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital study found that hepatitis B does not increase the risk for pancreatic cancer – and that only age is a contributing factor.

The results contradict a previous study in 2008 that suggested a link between pancreatic cancer and previous hepatitis B infection. Hepatitis B is an inflammation of the liver caused by a viral infection.

Study results will be presented at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases' Annual Meeting in Boston.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Going smaller could bring better results, especially when it comes to cancer-fighting drugs.

Duke University bioengineers have developed a simple and inexpensive method for loading cancer drug payloads into nano-scale delivery vehicles and demonstrated in animal models that this new nanoformulation can eliminate tumors after a single treatment. After delivering the drug to the tumor, the delivery vehicle breaks down into harmless byproducts, markedly decreasing the toxicity for the recipient.

Survivors have less education, lower income relative to their siblings and survivors of other cancers

WASHINGTON — Brain tumors in childhood cast a long shadow on survivors. The first study of the lasting impact of these tumors -- the most common solid malignancies in childhood -- shows that survivors have ongoing cognitive problems. They also have lower levels of education, employment and income than their siblings and survivors of other types of cancer, according to a report published by the American Psychological Association.