Findings Provide Clues for Treating Thousands of Patients Diagnosed Each Year
Although leukemia is one of the best studied cancers, the cause of some types is still poorly understood. Now, a newly found mutation in acute myeloid leukemia patients could account for half of the remaining cases of adult acute leukemia with an unknown origin.
“The molecular biology of leukemia has been studied for the last 20 years and we thought we had found most of the common genes for leukemia,” comments senior author Craig B. Thompson, MD, director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. “Now we’re able to point to a distinct type of mutation for half of the remaining leukemias for which we didn’t know the cause and between one-quarter and one-third of leukemias in older patients.” The findings are described online this week in Cancer Cell.
Read more: Penn Researchers Find Genetic Link to Leukemias with an Unknown Origin
Tumors can arise from different cell types in the pancreas, depending on the circumstances, according to MIT cancer biologists.
People living in volcanic areas may be at a higher risk for thyroid cancer, according to a new study published online November 5 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Researchers have identified a gene that may play a role in the growth and spread of a childhood cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, which develops in the body's soft tissues. The finding has revealed a potential new target for the treatment of this disease. The study, by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, components of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues at The Children's Hospital in Westmead, Australia, and the Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, was published online Oct. 5, 2009, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
by Monya Baker
by Monya Baker