Colorectal Cancer Increasing in Young Adults

Photo courtesy: Journal of
Young Adult Oncology

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 23, 2015 – The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) among young adults ages 20-39 years has increased during the past 20-30 years, despite declining rates of CRC for the U.S. population overall, a new analysis shows.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, led by Kathryn Singh, MPH, MS, analyzed more than 231,500 CRC cases over a 22-year period, including 5,617 cases affecting young adults. The study appears online in the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology.

Coffee may protect against malignant melanoma

"A small cup of coffee" by Julius Schorzman - Own work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 20, 2015 – Could coffee protect against the most lethal type of skin cancer? A new population study shows that it may.

In a large study of 447,347 non-Hispanic white people who filled out dietary questionnaires in 1995 and 1996, researchers led by Erikka Loftfield, MPH of the National Cancer Institute, found that those with the highest intake of caffeinated coffee had a 20 percent lower risk of developing malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. The results appear in today’s JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 

Chemo nearly doubles survival rate for advanced colorectal cancer

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 14, 2015 – The survival rate of people with advanced colorectal cancer has nearly doubled since newer chemotherapies were introduced in 2001, a new study shows.

Researchers led by Chung-Yuan Hu, M.P.H., Ph.D., of the University of Texas MD Anderson Center, Houston, examined patterns of primary tumor resection (surgery) and survival in stage IV colorectal cancer in the United States. Their study appears today in the journal JAMA Surgery. 

More complete family history could better estimate prostate cancer risk

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 10, 2015 – If you are a man over 50, your doctor may ask you more questions about prostate cancer in your grandfathers and great grandfathers before ordering a PSA test at your next physical. That’s because a new study shows a more complete family history would augment the usefulness of that test. 

Researchers at the Huntsman Cancer Institute used data from the Utah Population Database, which combines genealogic and medical information for more than 7.3 million people. The goal was to create individualized risk estimates for men based on the history of prostate cancer in their first-, second-, and third degree relatives.

Older prostate cancer patients survive longer with radiation plus hormone therapy

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 5, 2015 – Adding radiation to hormone therapy saves more lives among older men with locally advanced prostate cancer than hormone therapy alone, a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology shows.

The researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania examined radiation treatment and hormone therapy in the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Medicare database. The researchers found that hormone therapy plus radiation reduced cancer deaths by nearly 50 percent in men aged 76 to 85 compared to men who only received hormone therapy.