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Early Detection Urine Test for Prostate ...

Urine test for cancerThe reason is that the traditional prostate cancer screening test – a blood test to measure prostate specific antigen, or PSA – does not give doctors a complete picture.

Now, the University of Michigan Health System has begun offering a new urine test called Mi-Prostate Score to improve on PSA screening for prostate cancer. The test incorporates three specific markers that could indicate cancer and studies have shown that the combination is far more accurate than PSA alone.
“Many more men have elevated PSA than actually have cancer but it can be difficult to determine this without biopsy. We need new tools to help patients and doctors make better decisions about what to do if serum PSA is elevated. Mi-Prostate Score helps with this,” says Scott Tomlins, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and urology at the University of Michigan.

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Kids’ leukemia risk raised by dads who s

Kids’ leukemia risk raised by dads who smoke

Leukemia tied to fathers who smokeChildren whose fathers smoked have at least a 15 percent higher risk of developing the most common form of childhood cancer, a new Australian study finds.

“Paternal smoking seems to be real” as a risk factor, said Patricia Buffler, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the current analysis.

“The importance of tobacco exposure and children’s cancers has been overlooked until recently,” Buffler told Reuters Health. “So I think this paper is important” in adding to the growing body of evidence.

The research team, led by Dr. Elizabeth Milne at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Australia, surveyed the families of nearly 400 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Although ALL is the most common childhood cancer, it is still rare, affecting about three to five children out of every 100,000, according to the National Cancer Institute. More than 1,000 kids die of the disease every year.

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CDC recommends that boys get vaccinated ...

CDC recommends that boys get vaccinated against HPV

HPV vaccine for boysThe federal government is recommending that boys get vaccinated against HPV– but may find the virus’ connection to gay men and anal cancer a tough selling point.

On Tuesday, a Centers for Disease Control panel recommended that boys ages 9-11 be vaccinated against human papilloma virus (HPV). The CDC already recommends girls be vaccinated against HPV.

HPV can cause girls to get cervical cancer later in life; 15,000 new cases are reported annually. The CDC said that 7,000 men in the U.S. get anal cancer every year.

“Some parents may say, ‘Why are you vaccinating my son against anal cancer? He’s not gay!'” Dr. Ranit Mishori told the Associated Press.

Heterosexual boys who get the HPV vaccine will also avoid transmitting HPV to women, thereby creating what is called “herd immunity.”

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Global health experts: Healthier living ...

Global health experts: Healthier living could cut millions of cancer cases

A healthy lifestyle can help prevent cancerHealthier lifestyles and better diets could prevent up to 2.8 million cases of cancer each year, the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) said on Wednesday, calling on governments to “avoid a public health disaster.”

The number of global cancers has increased by a fifth in less than a decade to around 12 million new cases a year, and along with other chronic diseases like heart and lung disease and diabetes are the world’s biggest health challenges, the Fund said.

In a report released two weeks before a United Nations summit on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the charity said political leaders had a “once in a generation” opportunity to tackle a wave of cancer and other lifestyle diseases.

Global health experts say many deaths from NCDs, including around a third of all common cancers, could be prevented by curbing excessive alcohol intake, improving diets, discouraging smoking and promoting more physical activity.

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