Page 12 - Cancer

1.39 mn cancer cases in India in 2020, expected to jump by 12.8%: Mandaviya

The estimated number of cancer cases in the country in 2020 was 13,92,179 and it is projected to increase by 12.8 per cent, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya informed Lok Sabha on Friday citing National Cancer Registry Programme data. Responding to a question, Mandaviya said patients with cancer are getting treatment at various health facilities, including district hospitals, medical colleges, central institutes like AIIMS and private hospitals. Relevant data related to patients registered for treatment is maintained by the institutions and hospitals concerned at their own level. Under the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN), financial assistance is provided to poor patients belonging to families living below poverty line, suffering from major life threatening diseases for medical treatment at any of the super specialty hospitals/institutes or other government hospitals, Mandaviya said. Under the Health Minister's Cancer Patient Fund (a component of RAN), Rs 216. 98 lakh was utilised

Cancer screening, treatment affected due to Covid, picking up again: Govt

Cancer screenings and treatment were affected due to Covid but the screening services have gone up post-pandemic, Union Minister of State for Health Bharti Pawar informed Lok Sabha on Friday. Replying to a supplementary question in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour, she said the government is focusing on increasing screenings and early detection of cancer. "Due to Covid, cancer screenings and treatment were affected. After Covid, screenings have increased," Pawar said. She said cancer screening services are being provided through 1.5 lakh Health and Wellness Centres (HWC) across the country. Through these HWCs, 16 crore cases of oral cancer, eight crore cases of breast cancer and around 5.53 crore cases of cervical cancer have been detected, the minister said. "Whether it is rural or urban areas, these services need to be increased. In that view, we are going to increase our 1.5 lakh HWCs throughout the country and through that, we are providing very good screening services," she

A panoramic history of the cell

Pulitzer Prize winner Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Song of The Cell is a beautifully crafted exposition of the author's own lifelong fascination with the subject

A pioneer who danced to her own tune

V R Devika's biography of Muthulakshmi Reddy brings to life not just the story of India's first female student in a medical college. She was a trailblazer in many other ways

India's cancer treatment infra in rapid expansion mode as cases soar

Capacity build-up via hub-and-spoke route; experts say country would need 10,000-15,000 more day-care beds and 25,000 surgical beds if all reported patients are to avail treatment

Adult cancer survivors at higher risk of bone fractures, say researchers

Among cancer survivors 5 or more years after diagnosis, physical exercise may be related to a lower risk of fracture and that continued smoking was associated with a greater risk

Dove dry shampoo recall in US: Mkt too small, no impact likely in India

Nykaa had listed the US as the country of origin for the Dove and Tresemme dry shampoo products sold on its platform

Dove, other Unilever aerosol dry shampoos recalled over cancer risk

Unilever Plc recalled popular brands of aerosol dry shampoo, including Dove, after discovering they were contaminated with a chemical called benzene that can cause cancer

Apple watch detects rare cancer in a 12-year-old with heart rate feature

An Apple Watch has reportedly been credited with spotting a 12-year-old girl's rare cancer before she was even aware of it, with the help of its heart rate notifications feature

Bezos family donates USD 710 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre

The Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre announced a USD 710 million gift from the Bezos family, the largest gift the centre has ever received and one of the largest to go to any single cancer research organisation in recent years. The donation will fund 36 new research labs, the building of a large research facility, investments in clinical trial infrastructure and immunotherapy research over ten years, the centre said on Wednesday. Thomas Lynch, president and director of the centre, rebranded this month as Fred Hutch, but widely known as The Hutch, said he worked with Mike and Jackie Bezos, who made the gift, to understand what motivated their giving. Jackie Bezos is the mother of Amazon found Jeff Bezos, while her husband, Mike, is Jeff Bezos' stepfather. Jeff Bezos, the world's second wealthiest person, stepped down from his role as CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Lynch learned the Bezos family deeply valued collaboration in research and treatment. But don't underestimate t

Real cancer cases up to 3 times higher than reported in India: Report

Real cancer incidence level in India is estimated to be 1.5 to three times higher than reported incidence as 51 per cent patients take more than a week to conclude diagnosis, a report showed

Vedanta's medical arm ties up with Anuva for cancer research in India

Vedanta's BALCO Medical Centre (BMC), one of India's leading cancer hospitals, and Anuva, a genomics biotech company with a centre in India and backed by a UK-based hub, on Thursday jointly announced a strategic collaboration to build a Cancer Genomics Biobank for cancer research in India. Anuva and BMC aim to use this cancer bio/data bank for clinical research to identify relevant insights for precision medicine application for cancer in India. The companies said the collaboration leverages the strengths of both organisations the clinical expertise of BALCO Medical Centre and Anuva's biobanking and genomic expertise. "This is another milestone in the journey of BALCO Medical Centre towards becoming India's cancer care destination, said Jyoti Agarwal, Chairperson of BALCO Medical Centre. "Our collaboration with Anuva will bring together the best of knowledge, technology and research to serve the people of India better, through precision medicine and targeted treatment, she said.

Rakuten Medical trying to commercialise novel cancer therapy in India

India accounts for around 26 percent of all head and neck cancer cases globally

Researchers in US develop drug that marks cancer cells for elimination

The new therapy, described Sept. 12 in Cell Cancer, pulls a mutated version of the protein KRAS to the surface of cancer cells, where the drug-KRAS complex acts as an "eat me" flag

Early cancer detection with blood test may change cancer screening

Over 50 distinct cancer kinds each have a common cancer signal that new MCED tests being developed will be able to identify and pinpoint where in the body the signal originated

Joe Biden to channel Kennedy in his push for a cancer 'moonshot'

US President Joe Biden next week will highlight his plans for drastically reducing cancer deaths and boosting treatments for the disease in what he has called this generation's moonshot", the White House announced on Wednesday. Biden's speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on Monday will come on the 60th anniversary of his predecessor's speech outlining his vision for putting the first man on the moon. The White House said Biden will outline what his administration is doing to end cancer as we know it". The issue is personal for Biden, whose son Beau Biden died in 2015 of brain cancer. Biden launched the cancer moonshot the following year when serving as President Barack Obama's vice president. In February, Biden, a Democrat, set more ambitious goals for the project, including cutting the rate of cancer deaths in half in the coming 25 years and improving treatments and quality of life for those with cancer and their caregivers.

Breast cancer among men slowly on the rise & usually detected late: Doctors

The disease is now being diagnosed in relatively younger men

Cancers in adults under 50 on 'dramatic' rise globally, finds study

The incidence of cancers diagnosed before the age of 50 has dramatically increased around the world, with this rise beginning around 1990, according to a study. These early onset cancers include cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, kidney, liver, and pancreas among others, the researchers said. Possible risk factors for early-onset cancer include alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation, smoking, obesity, and eating highly processed foods, the researchers said. While adult sleep duration has not drastically changed over the several decades, children are getting far less sleep today than they were decades ago, they said. Risk factors such as highly-processed foods, sugary beverages, obesity, type 2 diabetes, sedentary lifestyle, and alcohol consumption have all significantly increased since the 1950s, which researchers speculate has accompanied altered microbiome. "From our data, we observed something called the birth cohort effect," said Shuji Ogino, a professor at the Brigham a

European Union blocks merger of US firms in cancer screening sector

The European Union's anti-trust watchdog announced on Tuesday that it is blocking the buyout of cancer-screening company GRAIL by biotech giant Illumina in a rare move by European regulators against two US companies. Illumina is a major supplier of next-generation sequencing (NGS) systems for genetic and genomic analysis, while GRAIL is a health company developing blood tests to try to catch cancer early. Illumina announced an $8 billion acquisition of GRAIL in 2020. But the European Commission, which polices competition issues, said the buyout would have enabled and incentivised Illumina to foreclose GRAIL's rivals, who are dependent on Illumina's technology, from access to an essential input they need to develop and market their own tests. Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said that it is vital to preserve competition between early cancer detection test developers at this critical stage of development. As Illumina did not put forward remedies that would have .

Explained: What is the controversy around J&J's talc-based baby powder?

Johnson and Johnson (J&J) has been facing several thousand lawsuits from women who claim that they developed ovarian cancer after using the product