Body

The demand for radiotherapy across all European countries will increase by an average of 16% between 2012 and 2025, with the highest expected increase being for prostate cancer cases (24%), according to a new study published in Radiotherapy and Oncology [1].

These projections come from a new study by HERO, the Health Economics in Radiation Oncology project of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology. The results will also be presented at the ESTRO 35 conference [2], to be held in Turin, Italy, from Friday 29 April - Tuesday 3 May 2016.

Magnetic nanovortices in magnetite minerals are reliable witnesses of the earth's history, as revealed by the first high-resolution studies of these structures undertaken by scientists from Germany and the United Kingdom. The magnetic structures are built during the cooling of molten rock and reflect the earth's magnetic field at the time of their formation. The vortices are unexpectedly resilient to temperature fluctuations, as electron holographic experiments in Jülich have verified.

Arthritis and other inflammatory conditions could be helped by new insights into how the immune response is switched off.

Scientists have discovered how compounds produced by the body's immune system help to dampen inflammation and prevent damage to healthy tissues.

Their findings suggest that therapies based on these compounds could help to treat rheumatoid arthritis, which occurs when the immune system attacks the joints, causing pain and swelling.

A new study by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Medical Center shows that eating vegetables and fruits grown in soils irrigated with reclaimed wastewater exposes consumers to minute quantities of carbamazepine, an anti-epileptic drug commonly detected in wastewater effluents.

Although often considered a weed, due to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, willow herb has long enjoyed a solid reputation for easing problems of the prostate gland and urinary tract. New tests confirm that combining some of the commonly used antibiotics with great willow herb extracts may be beneficial in treating bacterial and fungal infections as well.

A collaborative Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) co-led team has found proof-of-concept evidence for a potential cancer treatment that leverages microparticles and mesenchymal stem cells. The researchers devised an approach to stably internalize chemotherapy loaded microparticles into cells. With the help of a powerful prodrug - developed by collaborators at JHU - that is specifically activated by prostate cells, the researchers effectively targeted and killed prostate cancer tumor cells in proof of concept experiments.

(PHILADELPHIA) - Pancreatic cancer is on track to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths by 2020. These statistics are due, in part, to pancreatic cancer's resistance to most targeted cancer therapies. Working with pancreatic cancer cells, researchers have now found a mechanism that could be responsible for the cancer's resistance to at least one targeted approach.

Scientists from Mississippi State University have found that treating soybean seeds with neonicotinoid pesticides (imidacloprid or thiamethoxam) provides higher yields in southern U.S. states. The results of their study, which are published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, contrast with a 2014 report from the U.S. Environmnental Protection Agency, which stated that neonicotinoid seed treatments offered no economic benefits.

Removing an immunomodulatory protein called osteopontin improves the symptoms of mice with muscular dystrophy by changing the type of macrophages acting on damaged muscle tissue, according to a paper published in The Journal of Cell Biology. The study, "Osteopontin ablation ameliorates muscular dystrophy by shifting macrophages to a pro-regenerative phenotype" by Joana Capote and colleagues, adds support to the idea that osteopontin inhibitors could be used to treat patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Researchers at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research have discovered that the neutrophils of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients release oxidized DNA from their mitochondria that can stimulate an unwanted immune response.

Nearly nine of 10 Americans have relied upon healing prayer at some point in their lives, praying for others even more than for themselves, according to a study by a Baylor University epidemiologist.

"The most surprising finding is that more than a quarter of all Americans have practiced laying on of hands -- and nearly one in five has done so on multiple occasions," said Jeff Levin, Ph.D., M.P.H., University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health and director of the Program on Religion and Population Health at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion.

A rare malignancy known as squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCCA) is on the increase, and now researchers have reported results of the first-ever phase II clinical trial results for treatment with the immunotherapy drug nivolumab.

Tecnalia's Pharmaceutical Development laboratory conducts the selection of the candidate polymers and topical antiseptics necessary to obtain a stable, safe and effective formula in the form of a transparent bioadjesive gel specific for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.

Recently the Melanoma Research Foundation (MRF) convened a summit of internationally-renowned melanoma experts for an in-depth discussion on the current understanding of, and future recommendations for, melanoma research. The result of the comprehensive process is a new white paper entitled, "The State of Melanoma: Challenges and Opportunities," published in the latest edition of the premier melanoma journal, Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research.

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 shows that stem-like breast cancer cells secrete molecules that allow neighboring, otherwise anchored cells to metastasize. The work also implicates the hedgehog signaling pathway as an essential conduit for this information, implying that interfering downstream in this pathway could reduce the metastatic potential of the disease.