The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Wednesday asked doctors to report all cases of a cancer, known as anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), so the agency can better understand the link between the disease and the silicone gel-filled breast implants.

The FDA said in a statement it had found “a very small but significant risk of ALCL in the scar capsule adjacent to the implant” after reviewing data worldwide.

The agency has learned of just 60 cases of the disease worldwide, among roughly 5 million to 10 million women with breast implants.

The FDA isn’t recommending that women with implants adjust their medical care.

Some researchers have published papers on the cancer cases in breast implants over the past three years, indicating bits of silicone can leak into cells around the implant, triggering the cancer.

The FDA pulled silicone breast implants off the market in 1992 amid worries about the connection to a variety of diseases.

But in 2006 the agency returned the implants to the market after most studies failed to find a link between silicone breast implants and diseases. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2011-01/27/c_13709927.htm

The research, conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), also indicated that almost 21.4 million new cases of the disease will be diagnosed annually in 2030.

In 2008, 7.6 million people died of cancer and there were an estimated 12.7 million new cases diagnosed, according to the research.

The IARC said the burden of cancer was shifting from wealthier to poorer nations.
Freddie Bray, a scientist in charge of the study, said that in 2008, 56 percent of new cancer cases and 63 percent of cancer deaths occurred in developing countries.

The data also suggested that lung cancer was the most common type of cancer in 2008 worldwide, while breast and colorectal cancer were the next most common forms of the illness. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-06/02/c_13328835.htm

The study, conducted by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), surveyed more than 13,000 mobile phone users in 13 countries over the past decade.

The study concluded that radio-frequency energy emitted by cell phones does not increase the risk of two main types of brain tumors, glioma and meningioma.

“The results really don’t allow us to conclude that there is any risk associated with mobile phone use, but… it is also premature to say that there is no risk associated with it,” the IARC’s director Christopher Wild was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The study did find a slightly greater risk of cancer among heavy users.

When researchers looked at the 10 percent of subjects who talked on a cell phone for at least a-half hour a day, seven days a week for ten years, they found a 40 percent increased risk of glioma.

The 21 scientists who conducted the study admitted that this finding suggested problems with the method, or inaccurate information from those who participated.

“We need to look in more depth at that finding in the context of all the other information that’s available to us before we are confident to conclude that there’s no associated risk,” said Christopher Wild. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-05/19/c_13303468.htm

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. used the cutting-edge DNA sequencing and identified the radical genomic rearrangements that occur only in tumors, not in healthy cells.

The DNA rearrangements that occur in cancerous cells are unique, which makes it easier for scientists to detect them.

The new method to detect the DNA rearrangements was dubbed PARE, for Personalized Analysis of Rearranged Ends, said Victor Velculescu, an associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University and senior author of the study.

PARE could also be used to determine if a patient’s cancer was completely removed by surgery, said the researchers.

The researchers hope PARE’s cancer detection methods will be accessible to clinicians and their patients within the next two years. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-02/19/c_13179346.htm