EU advises all girls need cervical cancer vaccines

All girls in Europe should be immunised against the human papillomavirus (HPV) that causes cervical cancer and current vaccine coverage rates are far too low, European Union health officials said on Wednesday.
In new advice about tackling the virus, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said that while 19 out of 29 countries in the region had introduced HPV vaccine programmes, vaccination rates were as low as 17 percent in some. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide, with about 500,000 new cases and 250,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Virtually all cases are linked to genital infection with HPV, the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract. British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) and U.S. rival Merck & Co (MRK.N) make the only two HPV vaccines licensed for use in Europe. Merck's Gardasil targets four strains of HPV - two responsible for cervical cancer and two that cause the less serious condition of genital warts - while GSK's Cervarix shot targets only the two cancer strains.

Breaking Discovery: Tissue Biopsies on their way out

No Tissue Biopsy for cancer detection : Simple blood plasma assay (a liquid biopsy) may be the method of cancer detection in future

Blood plasma,  the straw-colored liquid component of blood that normally holds the blood cells in whole blood in suspension contains dissolved proteins, glucose, clotting factors, mineral  ions,  hormones  and carbon dioxide and DNA. Plasma of cancer patients contains cell-free tumor DNA that carries information on tumor mutations and tumor burden. Though individual mutations have been probed earlier, for the first time a method has been  developed  ( by a team of researchers from UK) for tagged-amplicon deep sequencing (TAm-Seq) which resulted in  screening  5995 genomic bases for low-frequency mutations. Using this method they  identified cancer mutations present in circulating DNA at allele frequencies as low as 2%, with sensitivity and specificity of >97%.They identified mutations throughout the tumor 

suppressor gene TP53 in circulating DNA from 46 plasma samples of advanced ovarian cancer patients. They also  demonstrated use of TAm-Seq to noninvasively identify the origin of metastatic relapse in a patient with multiple primary tumors. In another case, they identified in plasma an EGFR mutation not found in an initial ovarian biopsy. They further used TAm-Seq to monitor tumor dynamics, and tracked 10 concomitant mutations in plasma of a metastatic breast cancer patient over 16 months. This low-cost, high-throughput method could facilitate analysis of circulating DNA as a noninvasive “liquid biopsy” for personalized cancer genomics.

[Reproduced from  Future Genomics ]

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Cancer genome atlas

The National Cancer Institute (USA)and the National Human Genome Research Institute (USA) launched The Cancer Genome Atlas program to create a comprehensive atlas of the genomic changes involved in more than 20 common types of cancer. This large-scale, high-throughput effort is being carried out by a network of more than 100 researchers at many organizations across the Unitred States. The overarching goal of TCGA is to further scientific understanding of the genomic changes in cancer, thereby improving the ability to diagnose, treat and prevent this devastating disease. All data generated by the TCGA research network are made rapidly available to the research community through the TCGA Data Portal.

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Reduce your weight and have vigorous physical activity to reduce Breast cancer risk

VIGORUS PHYSICAL ACTIVITY REDUCES BREAST CANCER RISK IN POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN

In a large scale study using 32,269 women Scientists from National Cancer Institute (USA) found  an inverse association between physical activity and postmenopausal breast cancer i.e women with more vigorus physical activity have a reduced  risk for breast cancer. But this reduction was not there in overweight women and is there only lean women (normal weight). There is no relation between the reduced risk and  by hormone receptor status. Physical activity is  suggested to  act through underlying biological mechanisms that are independent of body weight control.

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GOOD NEWS: DECLINE IN DEATH DUE TO MOST COMMON CANCERS IN USA

Declining Cnacer Deaths: 

Overall cancer death rates have been declining among children since the 1970s and among adults since the 1990s. Death rates from all cancers combined decreased from 1999 to 2008, continuing a decline that began in the early 1990s, among men and among women in most racial and ethnic groups. Death rates decreased from 1999 to 2008 for most cancer sites, including the 4 most common cancers (lung, colorectum, breast, and prostate). The incidence of prostate and colorectal cancers also decreased from 1999 to 2008. Lung cancer incidence declined from 1999 to 2008 among men and from 2004 to 2008 among women. Breast cancer incidence decreased from 1999 to 2004 but was stable from 2004 to 2008.  Trends in death rates for the most recent 10-year period (1999-2008) show an average 1.7% decrease per year among men and an average 1.3% decrease per year among women as well as among children ages 0 to 19 years. Death rates decreased 1.5% per year among children ages 0 to 14 years. Death rates for 11 of the 17 most common cancers among men and for 14 of the 18 most common cancers among women (lung, colon and rectum, kidney, brain, stomach, oral cavity, leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and myeloma among both men and women; prostate and larynx among men; and breast, ovary, urinary bladder, esophagus, and gallbladder among women) decreased during the most recent 10-year (1999-2008) and 5-year (2004-2008) periods.

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