Category Archives: Cancer

Scientist Prue Hart: ‘Sunburn causes havoc in the skin – we should avoid it’

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The inflammation researcher explains the health benefits and dangers of soaking up the sun

Prof Prue Hart is head of the inflammation research group at the Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Australia, which studies the beneficial effects of sunlight exposure on our health and whether these are the result of UV-induced vitamin D or other molecules produced in our skin upon exposure to sunlight.

What exactly happens when the sun hits our skin?
Sunlight is made up of three components: there’s the visible light that gives colour to everything we see; infrared light, which provides the heat; and ultraviolet (UV) light, which is probably the most important for our health.

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Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

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Diagnostic tool being piloted by NHS England shows ‘impressive results’ in spotting tumours in early stages

A simple blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer before any clinical signs or symptoms of the disease emerge in a person is accurate enough to be rolled out as a screening test, according to scientists.

The test, which is also being piloted by NHS England in the autumn, is aimed at people at higher risk of the disease including patients aged 50 or older.

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Water of death: how arsenic is poisoning rural communities in India

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‘A crisis is brewing’, experts warn, with contaminated water exposing villagers to increased risk of cancer and affecting children’s brain development

Nine members of Pankaj Rai’s family have died from cancer over the past 20 years. But the 25-year-old farmer from Bihar only found out their deaths were likely a result of arsenic poisoning when his father got sick.

In 2017, Pankaj took his father, Ganesh Rai, to the Mahavir Cancer Institute & Research Centre in Patna. Ganesh had stage 4 kidney cancer. But Dr Arun Kumar, a scientist at the institute, identified the severe skin lesions on his body as signs of arsenic poisoning.

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How a cancer diagnosis inspired a fresh outlook for one young musician

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At the age of just 22, the very last thing you want to hear is that you have stage 4 cancer, but for some people the only response is to tackle it head on – which is just what Ellie Edna Rose-Davies did

I barely noticed it at first. A bump on the right side of my neck, small but definite. I was 22 and had no health issues (I’d never even broken a bone), so I didn’t think much of the lump. But my boyfriend was concerned, so I made an appointment to go to the GP.

For the next few months, I would see and feel more lumps spreading up my neck, and even larger ones under my armpits. I went to the doctor three times, where I was told: “It’s not cancer” and that I had “nothing to worry about”.

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Tracey Emin on beating cancer: ‘You can curl up and die – or you can get on with it’

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As she starts to rebuild her life after surgery, the artist shares her unflinchingly honest cancer self-portraits, talks about seeing dead people in hospital walls, and explains why she’s buying herself a punchbag – and kittens

‘I’m smiling and talking to you,” says Tracey Emin, sitting at her kitchen table. “But it’s not always like this.” We’ve been delaying this conversation until she finally felt well enough. She has been spending a lot of time in bed, just resting. On the phone, she sounded weak, but today she is indeed smiling, getting excited as she speaks – the Tracey who I have been fortunate enough to get to know.

“Now I’ve got a terrible pain in my legs, it’s unbearable. That’s why I’ve been in bed. I’m determined to go for a walk later because I hardly ever go out. I have a urostomy bag, so I have a major disability. The more well I get, the more annoying it is. Previously it was all right because I was on morphine. But now I want to do things and I can’t.”

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Early findings show new drug could be ‘gamechanging’ for brain cancer treatment

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Using ipatasertib, researchers say some brain cancers could potentially be made vulnerable to immunotherapy agent

Two people with advanced brain cancer of the sort that led to the death of the MP Tessa Jowell have responded well in a small trial to an experimental combination of chemo and immunotherapy drugs. In one case, the life-threatening tumour seems to have disappeared.

Doctors at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital in London cautioned that this was very early research but said it was unusual to have such a good response in patients in an early trial.

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‘Brilliant and versatile’ Observer and Guardian journalist Sarah Hughes dies at 48

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Hughes’ work ranged from hard-hitting overseas reports, to sport and television writing as well as candid accounts of coping with cancer

Tributes have been paid to Sarah Hughes, the Observer and Guardian journalist who has died from cancer.

Hughes, a mother of two, was a hugely respected journalist whose work ranged from hard-hitting and acclaimed overseas reportage, to the television and entertainment writing that she went on to specialise in.

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‘A letter tells someone they still matter’: the sudden, surprising return of the pen pal

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In the pandemic, many have rediscovered the sheer pleasure of writing to strangers, with new schemes spreading hope and connection around the world

A few months ago, when the rules had been sufficiently relaxed to allow friends to sit together outside, Liz Maguire had coffee with a woman she had never met. The pair had already been communicating for months, and quickly fell into easy conversation. Later on, this woman tweeted about their meeting, to which another woman replied: “You met Liz Maguire? As in the Liz Maguire?”.

The Liz Maguire is a 27-year-old American expat living in Dublin. Though undoubtedly a celebrity in her chosen field, she is not a professional, but that is simply because she is not paid to do what she loves, which is to write letters to strangers.

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Delaying second Pfizer dose leaves cancer patients at risk, say researchers

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Covid vaccination policy review urged after study finds 12-week gap leaves patients vulnerable

Delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine must be urgently reviewed for cancer patients after a single shot was found to offer inadequate protection, researchers have said.

A study from King’s College London and the Francis Crick Institute – which has not yet been peer reviewed – found that three weeks after the first jab antibody responses were found in 39% of people with solid cancers and 13% of people with blood cancer.

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The epic battle with cancer’s ‘Death Star’

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Forty years after the mutant genes that cause the deadliest cancers were discovered, drugs that target them could be approved

In the early 1980s, Channing Der was just beginning his career as a scientist at Harvard Medical School when he happened upon a discovery that would change the course of cancer research. At the time, the holy grail of cancer biology was discovering so-called oncogenes – genetic switches that can turn a normal cell into a cancer cell – in the genomes of tumours. But while teams of scientists had thrown everything at it for the best part of a decade, their efforts had proved fruitless. One by one, they were beginning to accept that it might be a dead end.

Der found himself assigned to test 20 different genes that had been identified as possible oncogene candidates. His question was simple: did any of them actually exist in tumours in a form that was different from normal cells?

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Nearly half with cancer symptoms in the UK did not see GP in first wave of pandemic

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People avoided seeking medical help during first lockdown because they did not want to burden NHS

Almost half of those who had a potential symptom of cancer during the pandemic’s first wave did not see a GP, even when they coughed up blood or developed a lump, a new study shows.

People held off seeking medical help because they did not want to waste health professionals’ time, add to the pressure on the NHS or go to hospital in case they caught Covid-19.

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CT scan catches 70% of lung cancers at early stage, NHS study finds

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Exclusive: early detection hailed as ‘major breakthrough’ for treatment of Britain’s deadliest form of cancer

Thousands of lives could be saved if people at risk of developing Britain’s deadliest cancer were screened to diagnose it before it becomes incurable, a major NHS study has found.

Giving smokers and ex-smokers a CT scan uncovers cancerous lung tumours when they are at an early enough stage so they can still be removed, rather than continuing to grow unnoticed, it shows.

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UK-US Brexit trade deal ‘could fill supermarkets with cancer-risk bacon’

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Fears of illness over nitrites used in US but currently banned in Britain and EU

British stores could be flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham from the US, marketed under misleading labels, as the result of a transatlantic trade deal, says the author of a new book based on a decade of investigation into the food industry.

The meat has been cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, a practice not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it increases the risk of bowel cancer. But it is allowed in the US, where the product is often labelled as “all natural”. The powerful US meat industry is likely to insist that the export of nitrite-cured meat is a condition of a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, which the UK government is under intense pressure to deliver.

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Experience: I got married with months to live

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The only photos were taken on my phone by an oncology nurse, but they reflect the joy we were feeling

I met Emma at a horrendous “mingling event” one wet spring evening in 2015. We connected immediately, and after a couple of dates I think we both knew we had a future together. By Christmas, Emma had moved out of her flat in Hove and into the house I lived in for my job, as site manager for a Brighton primary school. We’d talked about wanting kids on our very first date; we were both in our mid-30s and it seemed important to be upfront.

Our son, Archie, was born in 2018 and by the time he was toddling he was like my shadow, following me as I fixed things and helping put away tools. It never occurred to me I might not get to see him grow up. I’ve always been fit and healthy, and when I suddenly started losing weight last summer my first thought was, “Great – now I won’t need to spend so much time at the gym.” But I was losing my appetite, too, and soon people were saying, “James, what’s up? You don’t look great.”

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How race to track mystery gene with links to three cancers saved millions

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25 years ago, a mutation was discovered that makes some people susceptible to the disease, and now it has transformed treatment

Ten years ago, Tony Herbert developed a lump on the right side of his chest. The clump of tissue grew and became painful and he was tested for breast cancer. The result was positive.

“I had surgery and chemotherapy and that worked,” he said last week. But how had Herbert managed to develop a condition that is so rare in men? Only about 400 cases of male breast cancer are diagnosed every year in the UK compared with around 55,000 in women. A genetic test revealed the answer. Herbert had inherited a pathogenic version of a gene called BRCA2 and this mutation had triggered his condition.

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‘Find a part of each day to relish’: coping with cancer and Covid

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This year has challenged us all. But for Sarah Hughes it’s been particularly hard. Here, she talks about living with cancer – and letting in the light in the darkest of times

The strangest thing about having an incurable illness during a time of pandemic is the weird but unavoidable sense that everyone has finally caught up with you. As people started talking about how worried they were, how they couldn’t stop thinking about the virus, how difficult life now seemed, how isolated, the temptation to say: “Hey guys, welcome to my world” was overwhelming.

This had never felt more pertinent than last month, when social media lit up with Breast Cancer Awareness memes and pink ribbons and talk of fighting and beating the disease. For those of us with stage IV cancer such messages seem beamed in from another planet. As the campaign group MetUpUK points out, 31 people die every day from metastatic breast cancer, and countless more of us live each day with a disease that has a median survival rate of two to three years – a rate that drops considerably if you have a cancer that began as a triple negative breast cancer, as mine did. Yet our stories, which might force people to face the uncomfortable truth that we are not “winning” the “fight”, are rarely told.

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Tracey Emin on her cancer: ‘I will find love. I will have exhibitions. I will enjoy life’

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As she recovers from a brutal summer of cancer treatment, Tracey Emin takes us round her new show – and imagines spending the next 30 years painting in her pyjamas to the sound of birdsong

‘I am so lucky,” says Tracey Emin as we stand in the grand galleries of the Royal Academy. I can tell, from her brown eyes, that she’s smiling beneath her face mask. As we roam rooms painted moody blue for her new exhibition, in which her paintings, bronzes and neons are juxtaposed with the oils and watercolours of Edvard Munch, Emin adjusts her stoma bag occasionally and laughs a lot. “I’m in love with Munch,” she says. “Not with the art, but with the man. I have been since I was 18.”

This is not what I expected. Minutes earlier, walking through this London gallery’s courtyard, I felt darkness descending everywhere. England was re-entering lockdown, Biden hadn’t yet won Michigan and the last visitors to the Royal Academy for a month were heading out into the night. I expected the 57-year-old artist to be at death’s door, defeated by disease and circumstance. She is, after all, putting on an exhibition hardly anyone will see: “They sold 16,000 advance tickets but when Boris announced the second lockdown, we knew we couldn’t open.” All she can hope is that the gallery will open in December, but that is uncertain.

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Elliot Dallen, who inspired many with articles about his cancer, dies aged 31

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Dallen died hours after the Guardian published piece that reflected on facing terminal illness

The family of a young man who wrote movingly of coping with terminal cancer against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic have told of taking comfort from the huge response to his articles, after he died on Monday.

Elliot Dallen, 31, died hours after the Guardian published the second of two articles by him in which he reflected on his life and shared the lessons which he had learned.

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Researchers say blood test can detect cancer years before symptoms

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Team based in China develop test that identifies cancers up to four years before signs appear

A blood test can pick up cancers up to four years before symptoms appear, researchers say, in the latest study to raise hopes of early detection.

A team led by researchers in China say the non-invasive blood test – called PanSeer – detects cancer in 95% of individuals who have no symptoms but later receive a diagnosis.

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Kelly Preston, actor and wife of John Travolta, dies aged 57 from breast cancer

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Travolta says ‘Kelly’s love and life will always be remembered’ after revealing actor’s death after two-year illness

Kelly Preston, who appeared in the hit films Jerry Maguire and Twins, has died, her husband, John Travolta, said. She was 57.

Travolta said in an Instagram post that his wife of 28 years, who was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, died on Sunday.

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