Breast cancer test approved
A genetic test to determine whether a breast cancer patient is likely to respond to treatment with the drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The SPOT-Light HER2 CISH kit helps calculate how many copies of the HER2 gene, which regulates the growth of cancer cells, are in tumor tissue. A healthy breast cell should have two copies of the HER2 gene, but patients with breast cancer may have many more. Since the gene signals cells when to grow, divide and make repairs, too many copies may cause cells to grow and divide too rapidly. The drug Herceptin targets HER2 protein, helping stop the growth of such cancer cells in breast cancer patients overproducing that particular protein.
The Invitrogen Corp. of Carlsbad, Calif., produces SPOT-Light. San Francisco-based Genentech manufactures Herceptin.
Thick skin tumors more dangerous
The thicker the skin cancer tumor, the more likely it will spread or recur, according to a new study.
German research in the August edition of The Lancet Oncology found that cutaneous squamous-cell carcinomas of increased tumor thickness were almost five times more likely to spread, compared with thinner lesions.
A suppressed immune system also quadrupled the likelihood of the cancer spreading, say the team from Eberhard Karls University in Tubingen. They also found that tumors located at the ear were almost four times more likely to spread than tumors elsewhere. Finally, increased horizontal size more than doubled the odds of the cancer spreading or reoccurring.
The study looked at 615 patients who had surgery for skin cancer between 1990 and 2001 at a single German site.
Seniors having more sex than ever
The last quarter-century has seen a dramatic rise in the frequency of sex among the 70-year-old set, whether married or unmarried. And as a bonus, seniors today (particularly women) say they’re much more satisfied with their liaisons than the previous generation.
Swedish researchers reviewed surveys conducted between 1971 and 2001 among more than 1,500 healthy 70-year-olds and found that among married men in the latest poll, 68 percent said they were having sex, compared with 52 percent in 1971, while among married women the number had risen from 38 percent to 56 percent. Among unmarried men, the jump went from 30 percent to 54 percent, while among unmarried women the observed bump was from just under 1 percent to 12 percent.
Women seemed to make the most headway in terms of increasing their sexual satisfaction. While men expressed more positive attitudes about sex in 1971, by 2001 the gender difference had evaporated.
The findings are reported online in the British Medical Journal.
