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THURSDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- A drug based on compounds extracted from cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage could offer a potent and safe treatment against melanoma, Penn State College of Medicine researchers say.

The in vitro study, reported in the journal Carcinogenesis (Vol. 27, pp. 32-42), showed that vitamin D, in the form of the highly active 1alpha, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25-VD), inhibited the function of protease enzymes that are involved in tumour invasion. "We found that 1,25-VD decreased matric metalloproteinases (MMP-9) and cathepsins (CPs), while it [also] increased the activity of their counterparts, tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) and cathepsin inhibitors," wrote lead author Bo-Ying Bao from the University of Rochester and Taipei Medical University. "Mechanistic studies showed that 1,25-VD did not suppress MMP-9 expression at the transcriptional level, but reduced its mRNA stability," said Bao.

Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three cases.\nPadayatty SJ, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A, Hoffer LJ, Levine M.\nCMAJ. 2006 Mar 28;174(7):937-42.\nPMID: 16567755 \ndoi:10.1503/cmaj.050346.

"CHICAGO (Reuters) - Post-menopausal women who have three to four alcoholic beverages a week of any sort have a significantly higher risk that their breast cancer will come back, U.S. researchers said Thursday."

Tightened security at airports has created new problems for medical patients, who may be subjected to embarrassing public pat-downs after imaging machines detect devices or implants related to their health.

Scientists in Japan recently studied some of the glyconutrients from spinach and found they inhibited destruction of DNA, cancer cell growth, and tumor growth. They used the nutrients to suppress the growth of colon adenocarcinoma in mice. After a two week period of ingesting the nutrients, a 56.1% decrease in solid tumor volume occurred without any side effects. And the nutrients reduced the ability of tumors to supply themselves with blood which they need to fuel their growth. Markers of cell proliferation were drastically reduced. (Lipids, August, 2008)

A ground-breaking Canada-wide clinical trial led by Dr. Katherine Borden, at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of the Universit de Montral, has shown that a common anti-viral drug, ribavirin, can be beneficial in the treatment of cancer patients. Published in the journal Blood (First Edition), the study demonstrates that ribavirin suppresses the activities of the eIF4E gene in patients. This gene is dysregulated in 30 percent of cancers including breast, prostate, head and neck, colon and stomach cancer.

Researchers at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that a widely used anti-diabetic drug can boost the immune system and increase the potency of vaccines and cancer treatments. Their findings will be published June 3 in the journal Nature. The discovery was made by Dr. Russell Jones, an assistant professor at McGill's Goodman Cancer Centre and the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Yongwon Choi, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and postdoctoral fellow Erika Pearce, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania. They discovered that the widely prescribed diabetes treatment metformin increases the efficiency of the immune system's T-cells, which in turn makes cancer and virus-fighting vaccines more effective.

What if we didn't try to cure cancer, but simply kept tumors from growing too big? That's what radiologist Robert Gatenby of the Moffitt Cancer Center proposes this week in the journal Nature. Gatenby argues that high doses of powerful chemotherapies wreak havoc on a patient's immune system and foster the rapid regrowth of chemoresistant cancers that doctors have no hope of fighting.  So instead of curing cancer, he suggests doctors aim to stabilize the tumor at a tolerable size. In practice, this would mean that doctors identify a target size for an individual tumor that gives the patient the best quality of life.  Then, they will regularly monitor the tumor's growth with medical imaging equipment like a PET/CT scanner (see photo), and regulate doses of anticancer drugs to maintain it at a precise volume.

ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) - Using a highly sensitive new test, scientists in Europe are reporting "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

University of Illinois researcher Elizabeth Jeffery has learned how to maximize the cancer-fighting power of broccoli. It involves heating broccoli just enough to eliminate a sulfur-grabbing protein, but not enough to stop the plant from releasing an important cancer-fighting compound called sulforaphane. The discovery of this sulfur-grabbing protein in the Jeffery lab makes it possible to maximize the amount of the anticarcinogen sulforaphane in broccoli.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2009) - New research from Trinity College Dublin published in this month's Annals of Surgery points to a potentially significant advance in the treatment of patients undergoing major cancer surgery. The study was carried out by the oesophageal research group at Trinity College Dublin and St James's Hospital. A randomised controlled trial showed omega-3 fatty acids given as part of an oral nutritional supplement resulted in the preservation of muscle mass in patients undergoing surgery for oesopahageal cancer, a procedure normally associated with significant weight loss and quality of life issues.

Women who are vitamin D deficient when they are diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely to have their disease spread and are more likely to die than women who have adequate vitamin D levels, new Canadian research says. The study found that women who were vitamin D deficient were 94 per cent more likely to have their cancer metastasize (spread) and 73 per cent more likely to die. The research was led by Dr. Pamela Goodwin, a breast cancer researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. The study analyzed blood samples and disease outcome from more than 500 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1989 and 1995. Women were followed up for an average of 11 years.

"SCIENTISTS have shown that a new class of cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors, currently being tested in clinical trials to treat breast and ovarian cancer could have dramatic results when used to treat other solid tumours, according to work presented at the NCRI Cancer Conference today. "

A U.S. government requirement that vitamin C or one of its close relatives be added to hot dogs, to reduce the amount of nitrites found in this popular food, may not have lowered the rate of colon cancer cases after all, a new study suggests.