health - "cancer"

Avastin, which can cost as much as $100,000 a year, has become one of the most popular cancer drugs, but studies show it prolongs life by only a few months.

(European Society for Medical Oncology) Counting the number of tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer can accurately predict how well they are responding to treatment, new results show.At the ESMO Conference Lugano organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology, researchers showed that changes in the number of circulating tumor cells predicted the outcome after chemotherapy in this hard to treat cancer.

Cervical cancer screening needs to take into account a partially-vaccinated population and new technologies, according to an editorial published in the latest edition of Medical Journal of Australia. Dr Annabelle Farnsworth, from Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology, said that although Australia has an enviable record in the control of cervical cancer, there are real benefits in incorporating new knowledge and associated technologies into screening and management of the disease.

The number of people surviving some of the most common types of cancer for at least five years has doubled since the National health Service was founded 60 years ago. Comparisons have shown that survival for colon cancer has risen dramatically from 18 per cent to 47 per cent while breast cancer survival has more than doubled from 37 per cent to 77 per cent between 1946 and 1998.

Janet Guttsman is bureau chief for Reuters in Canada, and has worked for the company in Germany, Russia and the United States. When she's not running the Canadian news file, she enjoys long bicycling trips in Canada and beyond. In the following story, she writes of the support she received online after a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer.

(European Society for Medical Oncology) Men who develop breast cancer are often not treated until the disease has spread to the point that treatment becomes difficult, new results show. Although most breast cancer patients are women, men make up roughly 1 percent of cases, Dr. Marina Garassino from the Orion Collaborative Group reports at the ESMO Conference Lugano, organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology.

As the population of the United States has gotten older, and more women are aware of breast cancer, the number of cases discovered is increasing.

American cancer Society - Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are testing anon-surgical technique that may help doctors monitor how well non-smallcell lung cancer patients are responding to treatment. Using a deviceknown as a CTC-chip to analyze circulating tumor cells from patients'blood samples, the scientists were able to identify whether patientshad genetic mutations that would make them less likely to respond tocertain therapies.

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Avastin, which can cost as much as $100,000 a year, has become one of the most popular cancer drugs, but studies show it prolongs life by only a few months.