Magnet Beats X-Ray

Doctors diagnosed more cases of an invasive form of breast cancer using magnetic resonance imaging than with standard mammography technique, according to a study published in The Lancet today.

Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany found that out of 167 women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, often a precursor to invasive breast cancer, 92 percent were diagnosed using MRI scans, while only 56 percent were found using mammography, the diagnostic standard.

These findings suggest that MRI could improve the ability of doctors to catch the condition, which is found in 60,000 women in the U.S. each year, according to the American Cancer Society. Previous studies dismissed MRI screenings as not sensitive enough to find pre-cancer. Mammography detects about 20 percent of early, non-invasive breast cancers, the researchers said.

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Smoke gets In Your Eyes...

From Scientific American:

Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants can result in measurable levels of a toxin in workers' bodies that is known to cause lung cancer, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

They found nonsmoking workers in Oregon who worked a single shift in a bar or restaurant that allowed smoking were more likely to have a detectable level of NNK -- a carcinogen linked with lung cancer -- in their bodies than those who worked in nonsmoking establishments.

Well, this is yet another good argument to ban all smoking from these types of establishments, or at least open the window.

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BBQ Linked To Cancer

From CNN:

Postmenopausal women who like barbecued and smoked meat would be wise to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables too, a new study suggests.

Dr. Susan E. Steck of the University of South Carolina in Columbia and her colleagues found that postmenopausal women who consumed the most grilled, barbecued or smoked red meat over their lifetime have a 47 percent increased risk of breast cancer. Big meat-eaters who also skimped on fruit and vegetables had a 74 percent increased risk of the disease.

We say: I guess we could just eat all of our meat boiled and live forever according to this research!

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Exhale Your Way To Better Heatlh

From The New Scientist:

A simple breath test can sometimes detect lung cancer in patients – even those in the early stages of the disease – US researchers reported on Sunday.

The researchers developed a compact device that correctly diagnosed three-quarters of lung cancer patients in trials involving 122 people with different types of respiratory disease. The sample included 49 people with lung cancer and 21 healthy controls. However, the test also wrongly diagnosed many people with lung cancer when they did not have the disease.

The researchers say a more accurate test may be possible in principle. "The unique chemical signature of the breath of patients with lung cancer can be detected with moderate accuracy by a [colour-producing] sensor array," the researchers write.

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