Latest Medical & OCAN News Articles

The Ovarian Cancer Alliance of Nevada wants to help extend your knowledge by keeping you informed about the latest happenings in this area of your health. They consist of articles not only about medical breakthroughs, but of success, hope, and actions. The following links are to articles for the current month, that have appeared in newspapers and publications from sources throughout both the U.S. and world wide, and are available with on-line editions. Each listing has a short opening paragraph of the article. The listing of the links are by date published, with the most recent found listed first.

For archived articles prior to the current calendar month, please see: Ovarian Cancer Archived News

February 2008

Feb 29, 2008 - "Ivanhoe Broadcast News", Winter Park, FL
New Ovarian Cancer Treatment?
Ovarian cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in women, but that may be changing -- a new therapy targeting a protein that causes tumors to grow may offer hope for this deadly disease. Scientists say the protein interleukin-8 (IL-8) promotes ovarian tumor growth. In a recent study, researchers found 42.16 percent of ovarian tumors had a high level of the protein. Now, researchers are testing siRNA, also known as a silencing RNA, to target the gene that produces IL-8.

Feb 28, 2008 - "Calibre - Macro World", Charlotte, NC
Investigators at University of Halle-Wittenberg publish new data on ovarian cancer
"The IMP (IGFII mRNA-binding protein) family comprises a group of three RNA-binding proteins involved in the regulation of cytoplasmic mRNA-fate (see also Ovarian Cancer). Recent studies identified IMP proteins as oncofetal factors in various neoplasias, but knowledge of a potential role in ovarian carcinomas is still lacking," scientists in Halle, Germany report.

Feb 27, 2008 - "Houston Chronicle", Houston, TX
Once-feared Thalidomide may treat ovarian cancer
Thalidomide, a drug once banned worldwide for causing birth defects, is showing promise as a possible treatment for ovarian cancer. Scientists at the University of Minnesota found that the drug slowed down progression of the disease in women with recurrent ovarian cancer.

Feb 27, 2008 - "Rutland Herald", Rutland, VT
Activists urge awareness of ovarian cancer symptom
DENVER — Nana Zeligman Sommers was always a small woman, but four years ago, she just couldn't find small enough pants. She was losing weight, shrinking so fast that friends noticed, Sommers said. "That's when it hit me that something had to be wrong," Sommers said. "I got very scared." Two weeks later, a surgeon removed two advanced tumors from her ovaries, one 5 inches across, the other nearly 7.

Feb 27, 2008 - "Cambodian Times",
Indian American finds way to shrivel ovarian cancer
A bit of RNA wrapped in a fatty nano-particle can shut down production of a protein that worsens ovarian cancer, a new study led by an Indian American has found. 'The protein interleukin-8 (IL-8) is a potential therapeutic target in ovarian cancer,' said Anil Sood of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre and co-author of the study. Findings of the study have appeared in the latest issue of the journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Feb 27, 2008 - "Checkbiotech",
Researchers identify and shut down protein that fuels ovarian cancer
M. D. Anderson-led team pinpoints blood vessel promoter's role and targets it with siRNA. A protein that stimulates blood vessel growth worsens ovarian cancer, but its production can be stifled by a tiny bit of RNA wrapped in a fatty nanoparticle, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Feb 26, 2008 - "Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News", New Rochelle, NY
Researchers identify and shut down protein that fuels ovarian cancer
A protein that stimulates blood vessel growth worsens ovarian cancer, but its production can be stifled by a tiny bit of RNA wrapped in a fatty nanoparticle, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Feb 26, 2008 - "The Healthcare Sales & Marketing Network", Newtown Square, PA
NCCN Updates Ovarian Cancer Guidelines
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is pleased to announce several new updates to the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in OncologyTM Ovarian Cancer. These changes highlight leading developments in the treatment of ovarian cancer and represent the recognized standard for clinical care in oncology in both the community and the academic practice settings.

Feb 24, 2008 - "Herald Sun", Melbourne Cite, AU
Australian women in the dark about ovarian cancer
AUSTRALIAN women remain in the dark about one of their biggest cancer killers ¿ ovarian cancer. A new survey, by the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre and the National Ovarian Cancer Network (OvCa Australia), of 2000 women shows 60 per cent wrongly believed pap tests detected ovarian cancer and 20 per cent could not name a symptom of the disease.

Feb 24, 2008 - "The Age", Melbourne, AU
Shedding light on symptoms of a silent killer
AUSTRALIAN women are dying of ovarian cancer because they do not know the symptoms of the insidious disease or how it is diagnosed, research reveals. Dr Helen Zorbas, director of the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre, said a survey of 2000 women found 60% believed an abnormal Pap test was a sign of ovarian cancer despite the test being for cervical cancer.

Feb 24, 2008 - "Yahoo News",
Australia Ovarian Cancer Awareness Week kicks off
Ovarian Cancer Awareness Week was launched on Sunday with a message to women to learn about the warning signs of the insidious disease. National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre director Helen Zorbas says more than half of the 1,500 women in Australia diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year will not survive five years after their diagnosis.

Feb 23, 2008 - "WTHI TV - CH 10", Terre Hayte, IN
Caffeine May Lower Ovarian Cancer Risk
(HealthDay News) -- Drinking alcohol doesn't seem to boost a woman's risk of ovarian cancer, while caffeine may help protect against the disease, a new study found. In the same study, smoking cigarettes wasn't linked with an increase in the most common types of ovarian cancer but was associated with an increase in a rare subtype of the disease.

Feb 23, 2008 - "Reuters Health",
Meat, dairy diet tied to risks of breast and ovarian cancer
A new study suggests that women who eat diets rich in meat and dairy may have a decreased risk of breast cancer, while those who bulk up on fiber, fruits and vegetables show a lower risk of ovarian cancer. The findings, published in the International Journal of Cancer, add to questions surrounding the role of diet in women's risk of the cancers.

Feb 22, 2008 - "The Leamington Courier", Leamington, UK
Two women breaking the silence of killer disease
Two Leamington friends are linked by a 'silent killer' disease - and together they are determined to break that silence. Around 5,000 women die from ovarian cancer in the UK every year, but few have heard of it or know what the symptoms are. Jean Beck and Jayne Jones want to change all that. Jayne lost her sister to the disease and Jean is fighting the disease herself.

Feb 21, 2008 - "Checkbiotech",
Combo treatment best for melanoma, advanced ovarian cancer
Combining periodic infusions of antibodies with a widely used cancer vaccine appears to be more effective and less harsh with melanoma and advanced ovarian cancer patients than using either treatment on its own, a new study shows. Besides demonstrating the potential usefulness of a vaccine-and-antibody approach, the study suggests a way of refining treatments even further, based on the biological events that antibody treatment sets in motion.

Feb 19, 2008 - "Biotech Daily",
Early Stage Ovarian Cancer Detected With 99% Accuracy
A blood test has been developed with enough sensitivity and specificity to detect early stage ovarian cancer with 99% accuracy. Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of gynecologic cancer deaths in the United States and three times more lethal than breast cancer. The cancer, which came to be known as a silent killer, is usually not diagnosed until its advanced stages.

Feb 18, 2008 - "American Cancer Society, Inc.", Atlanta, GA
Late-Stage Diagnosis More Likely Among Uninsured
Uninsured or Medicaid-insured patients are far more likely to be diagnosed with an advanced stage cancer than those with private insurance, according to a new American Cancer Society study of 3.5 million cancer patients with 12 of the most common cancer types.

Also read the following: Timely Cancer Diagnosis Linked to Insurance Status

Feb 18, 2008 - "News Wise", Charlottesville, VA
Vaccine/Antibody Therapy Effective in Melanoma and Ovarian Cancer
One of the shortcomings of a therapy that uses millions of identical antibodies to boost the immune system's attack on cancer cells is that many patients whose tumors recede in response to the treatment also experience serious inflammatory problems, such as severe diarrhea and rashes. In a new study, a team led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers shows that giving periodic infusions of such "monoclonal" antibodies to patients who have received a widely used cancer vaccine unleashes a strong immune response to tumors, with less-harsh side effects.

Feb 16, 2008 - "Canada.com",
Low-fat diet cuts ovarian cancer risk by 40%
A low-fat diet may protect women from ovarian cancer, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. Researchers tracked about 49,000 post-menopausal women from around the United States for about eight years. About 40 percent of them were asked to cut nearly in half the amount of fat in their diet. The others were asked to eat their usual diet.

Feb 15, 2008 - "Laramie Boomerang", Laramie, WY
Cancer is not a death sentence anymore
Fighting the fear that follows a cancer diagnosis, one woman says, is her reason for walking in the Relay for Life each year. “Cancer is an insidious disease,” Susan Bury, co-chair for the 2008 Relay for Life events said. “When someone says you are diagnosed, you instantly feel fear. I worked with someone who recently passed away from cancer and they told me they were scared to death.

Feb 15, 2008 - "Reuters.com", London, UK
Blood test detects ovarian cancer early
Researchers have developed what they believe is the first blood test that accurately detects ovarian cancer at an early stage. "The ability to recognize almost 100 percent of new tumors will have a major impact on the high death rates of this cancer," senior author Dr. Gil Mor, from Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, said in a statement.

Feb 14, 2008 - "WSOC TV - CH 9", Charlotte, NC
Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common type of cancer in American women and the fifth leading cause of cancer death. The American Cancer Society estimates, in 2007, about 22,430 new cases of ovarian cancer would be diagnosed in the U.S. Roughly 15,280 women were expected to die of the disease.

Feb 12, 2008 - "Med Wire News",
Reduced chemotherapy dose suitable for elderly ovarian cancer patients
Reduced-dose carboplatin/paclitaxel may be better tolerated and just as effective as the standard regimen in elderly ovarian cancer patients who are less likely to tolerate chemotherapy, preliminary study findings suggest. Amanda Nickles Fader (Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio, USA) and colleagues assessed treatment outcomes in 100 women aged at least 70 years with papillary serous ovarian or primary peritoneal cancers, ........

Feb 11, 2008 - "MediaCorp News ", Singapore
Probe shows how ovarian cancer bounces back
Researchers said on Sunday they had identified a mechanism that enables ovarian cancer dubbed a "silent killer" of women for the many lives it reaps to evade frontline chemotherapy drugs and rebound. Ovarian tumours among women who have a cancer-causing variant of a gene called BRCA2 initially respond well to platinum-based drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin. But resistance eventually builds in many cases, and doctors have been struggling to explain why.

Feb 11, 2008 - "Ascribe", Oakland, CA
Benefit of Cancer Prevention Surgery Differs Between Women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutations
The surgical removal of the ovaries has been widely adopted as a cancer-risk-reducing strategy for women with either BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. A new multicenter study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) is the first prospective examination of the impact of this procedure in which BRCA2 mutation carriers were analyzed separately from BRCA1 mutation carriers. All previous studies evaluating this approach have only examined BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers together or have limited their analysis to BRCA1 mutation carriers alone. The findings of the new study, to be published in the March 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, may have important implications for women comparing the risks and benefits of specific cancer-risk-reduction options.

Feb 02, 2008 - "CNW Group Ltd. ", Toronto, Ontario - Canada
Researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke Discover a New Method for Diagnosing Cancer
A team of researchers in the Faculté de médecine et des sciences de la santé at the Université de Sherbrooke has discovered new molecular markers for the detection of ovarian cancer. Published today in the scientific journal Cancer Research, this study, under the direction of Professor Sherif Abou Elela of the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Disease, describes a new molecular signature forthe assessment of ovarian cancer and perhaps other types of cancer.

Feb 01, 2008 - "Tulsa World", Tulsa, OK
OU team finds cancer fighter
Though years of testing remain, re- searchers hope it will one day be taken like a multivitamin. Oklahoma researchers have discovered a chemical compound that may one day become a pill that people can take daily to prevent cancer. "It was really exciting, particularly when an independent lab confirmed the results," said Dr. Doris Benbrook, principal investigator and researcher at the University of Oklahoma Cancer Institute in Oklahoma City.

Feb 01, 2008 - "Article Codex.",
Ovarian Cancer Prevention – 2008 Is Not Too Late
WomenEtcetera! a new online community for women over 50 began the year with a clear mission. “The interests and concerns of mature, modern women are our main focus,” explains Suzanne Caplan, founder and CEO of www.WomenEtcetera.com. “With ovarian cancer being such a primary – although little discussed danger – we are partnering with a high level professional group to work on this issue. If ovarian cancer is diagnosed in time the cure rate is high, and that is our goal.”