Here is the brief overview about risk factors of pancreatic cancer:

Age: The risk of getting pancreatic cancer may increase as people get older. Mainly it affects the people who are in middle age and old age and rarely affects younger people. Out of 4 people 3 are more than 65 years old, whose body is prone to develop pancreatic cancer.

Diet: Diet that contains huge amount of processed meat or red meat may increase the risk of getting pancreatic cancer. These processed meats include sausages, burger patties, ham, and bacon. Regularly eating a diet, which is high in sugar and fat and low in vegetables and fresh fruits may also increase the risk. Drinking large amount of alcohol can also increase the risk.

Tobacco and smoking: Cigarette and tobacco smoke includes a large number of cancer causing chemicals such as carcinogens. Tobacco is one of the major risk factor for getting this cancer.

Religious Background: Chances of developing this cancer are more common in Jews than the other people. This may be due to a specific inherited mutation in breast cancer gene (BRCA2) that runs in Jewish families.

Gender: This cancer most commonly occurs in men than women because men are more likely to smoke than women.

Chronic Pancreatitis: People, who have a condition like inflammation of the pancreas, swelling and tenderness over a long period of time, are more likely to develop this cancer. Having chronic pancreatitis may increase the risk of developing cancer in pancreas; this is due to a rare inherited condition known as hereditary pancreatitis.

Peptic ulcer surgery: People who have had a partial gastrectomy may have an increased risk of getting pancreatic cancer.

Diabetes: This is a disease also known as diabetes mellitus or sugar diabetes. Diabetes makes your body unable to produce required amount of insulin, which is a hormone that normally produced by the pancreas. This hormone helps the body in converting starches and sugar into the energy.

Body weight: From several studies, it is proven that being physically inactive and being overweight can also increase risk of developing this cancer.

Genetic syndrome: Inherited mutations of gene are abnormal copies of particular genes, which may be passed from parents to children. 10% of pancreatic cancers can be cause by this abnormal gene.

Occupational exposure: Over exposure at work to certain dyes, chemicals, and pesticides which are used in metal refining can increase the risk of this cancer.

Hereditary cancers are those which develop as a result of a gene fault inherited from a parent. Bowel and womb cancers are the most common forms of hereditary cancers. Fifty thousand people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel and womb cancers every year; 10 per cent of these cancers are thought to be hereditary.

The decade-long study, which involved scientists and clinicians from 43 centres in 16 countries and was funded by Cancer Research UK, followed nearly 1,000 patients, in some cases for over 10 years. The study found that those who had been taking a regular dose of aspirin had 50 per cent fewer incidences of hereditary cancer compared with those who were not taking aspirin.

The research focused on people with Lynch syndrome which is an inherited genetic disorder that causes cancer by affecting genes responsible for detecting and repairing damage in the DNA. Around 50 per cent of those with Lynch syndrome develop cancer, mainly in the bowel and womb. The study looked at all cancers related to the syndrome, and found that almost 30 per cent of the patients not taking aspirin had developed a cancer compared to around 15 per cent of those taking the aspirin.

Those who had taken aspirin still developed the same number of polyps, which are thought to be precursors of cancer, as those who did not take aspirin but they did not go on to develop cancer. It suggests that aspirin could possibly be causing these cells to destruct before they turn cancerous.

Over 1,000 people were diagnosed with bowel cancer in Northern Ireland last year; 400 of these died from the disease. Ten per cent of bowel cancer cases are hereditary and by taking aspirin regularly the number of those dying from the hereditary form of the disease could be halved.

Professor Patrick Morrison from Queen’s University in Belfast, who led the Northern Ireland part of the study, said: “The results of this study, which has been ongoing for over a decade, proves that the regular intake of aspirin over a prolonged period halves the risk of developing hereditary cancers. The effects of aspirin in the first five years of the study were not clear but in those who took aspirin for between five and ten years the results were very clear.”

“This is a huge breakthrough in terms of cancer prevention. For those who have a history of hereditary cancers in their family, like bowel and womb cancers, this will be welcome news. Not only does it show we can reduce cancer rates and ultimately deaths, it opens up other avenues for further cancer prevention research. We aim now to go forward with another trial to assess the most effective dosage of aspirin for hereditary cancer prevention and to look at the use of aspirin in the general population as a way of reducing the risk of bowel cancer.

“For anyone considering taking aspirin I would recommend discussing this with your GP first as aspirin is known to bring with it a risk of stomach complaints, including ulcers.” The research is due to be published in the Lancet Online on Oct. 28 2011.

Source: Claire O’Callaghan, Queen’s University Belfast, via EurekAlert

But when they did get breast cancer, men were caught with more advanced disease, on average, and were more likely to die from it.

“It’s not surprising that men with breast cancer present with later stages,” said Dr. Susan Dent, from the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Center in Canada, who was not involved in the new study.

“That’s just because the awareness of the fact that breast cancer can occur in men is not as acute,” she told Reuters Health. “Men aren’t as likely to think of it, and health care providers aren’t as likely to think of men having breast cancer.”

Men are most commonly in their 60s or 70s when diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Radiation exposure and diseases that increase estrogen levels – such as liver cirrhosis or Klinefelter syndrome, a genetic disorder – are among factors that raise a man’s risk.

Dent added that men should be particularly aware of breast cancer — and possibly consider getting screened for the disease — if they have a family history of it, including a predisposition to cancer caused by mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are well-known to raise women’s risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

But men with no family history should not be screened, experts agreed.

Researchers combined cancer registries from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Singapore and Geneva, Switzerland, with cases dating back to 1970. That included about 460,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer and about 2,700 men.

Men were more likely to have disease that had spread beyond the breast by the time they were diagnosed.

In treatment, they also had less surgery and radiation compared to women, but similar rates of chemotherapy and hormone therapy.

Over the entire time period, men had a 72 percent chance of surviving breast cancer in the five years after a diagnosis — compared to 78 percent in women.

But researchers led by Dr. Mikael Hartman of the National University of Singapore found that when their cancer was spotted at the same stage and they got recommended treatment, men had a better chance than women of surviving a breast cancer diagnosis.

Hartman’s team also noted in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that previous studies have shown it typically takes a few months from when men start getting symptoms until they are diagnosed with breast cancer.

“Men who develop a breast lump delay seeing their doctor longer than a comparable woman would with similar symptoms,” Hartman wrote in an e-mail to Reuters Health.

“Male breast cancer is rare but men can develop the disease and should be aware that they should seek care if a breast lump develops,” Hartman added.

Because of recommendations for regular mammograms in women starting in the 40s or at age 50, depending on the country, many cancers are caught in women before they have any symptoms.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force, a federally-supported panel that sets guidelines for cancer screening, does not recommend regular breast cancer screening in men without symptoms.

“In total, male breast cancer is still a rare event,” said Dent. “Never would I recommend that all men routinely go out and get screened.”

Source: Fox News

In a small study, pancreatic cancer patients were found to have different levels of certain bacteria in their saliva than healthy people did. While researchers weren’t sure if the differences were linked to the cancer’s cause or were an effect, the findings suggest there could someday be an oral test that screens for pancreatic cancer, said James Farrell, a gastroenterologist at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

Currently there are no screening tests for the disease, and because it is typically caught only in its late stages, pancreatic is one of the most deadly cancers. About 95 percent of pancreatic cancer patients die within five years of their diagnosis.

Because the study was small, involving about three dozen patients, the results would have to be confirmed in a larger group of people. The study was published online today (Oct. 12) in the journal Gut.

Microbes and cancer

Farrell and colleagues began by analyzing the spit of 10 people with early-stage pancreatic cancer, which had not yet spread to other organs, and of 10 healthy people. The levels of 31 bacterial species were elevated in pancreatic cancer patients, and the levels of 25 other bacterial species were reduced, as compared with the health people.

The researchers then validated their findings in 28 additional patients with pancreatic cancer and 28 healthy people. Two bacteria species, Neisseria elongata and Streptococcus mitis, were found to be consistently different between groups.

By measuring the levels of these bacteria, the researchers could distinguish between patients with cancer and those without cancer 80 percent of the time.

The findings aren’t a surprise, said Jun Sun, a researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center who studies the interaction between bacteria and their hosts.

Bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract have been linked with human diseases, including pancreatic cancer, said Sun, who was not involved in the new study. However, this study is the first to find a link between bacteria in saliva samples and pancreatic cancer. If a biomarker in spit is found, saliva samples could offer a noninvasive way to screen for the disease, Sun said.

Prevention

Farrell said it’s possible that bacteria in the mouth trigger the immune system to release factors that, in turn, stimulate cancer in other parts of the body.

Certain bacteria also could act as protectors against cancer by preventing the growth of “bad” bacteria in the gut.

If the findings are confirmed, researchers may be able to suggest good oral hygiene as a measure to reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer, Farrell said. Right now, quitting smoking is one of the only ways known to reduce pancreatic cancer risk.

“This might be another piece of advice” for people at risk for pancreatic cancer, such as those with a family history of the disease, Farrell said.

Ferrell and colleagues have started another, larger study that will examine the spit of patients suspected to have pancreatic disease. Patients will be followed forward in time to see if bacteria in their spit are linked with pancreatic cancer risk.

Source: Fox News

The scientists have devised a method for giving drugs by inhalation to patients through a nebuliser, rather than the current approach of intravenous delivery.

The system could administer the treatment far more quickly than existing methods and without the harmful side effects associated with current systems, which can cause kidney damage.

It could also enable health authorities to deliver the drugs in smaller doses without diminution of benefit to patients.

Lung cancer and mesothelioma caused 4,147 deaths in Scotland in 2009, and deaths of women from the disease increased by 12% in the preceding decade, despite a corresponding fall of 20% among men.

Dr Chris Carter, a Senior Lecturer the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, led the research, partnered by Professor Alex Mullen and Dr Valerie Ferro. She said: “Increasing awareness of cancer risks and improvements in treatment do not alter the fact that it remains one of Scotland’s biggest killers and lung cancer is its most common form. This means that new, improved treatments are still essential.

“By delivering cisplatin, one of the most widely used drugs for lung cancer, in a vaporised form, we would be able to get it to the cancerous cells and avoid the damage to healthy cells which can be hugely debilitating to patients. It would make the treatment far less onerous for them and we hope it would help them to live longer.”

The research is an example of the pioneering work of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences in developing new medicines for illnesses and conditions including infectious diseases, cancer, heart disease, and schizophrenia. An £8 million fundraising campaign is underway for the Institute’s new £36 million building, to expand and enhance its innovative research and education in medicine discovery, development and use.

The research received funding from Scottish Enterprise’s Proof of Concept Programme, which supports the pre-commercialisation of leading-edge technologies emerging from Scotland’s universities, research institutes and NHS Boards. It helps researchers to export their ideas and inventions from the lab to the global marketplace and create new sustainable technology businesses in Scotland or license the technology to Scottish companies.

Source: Corporate Comms, University of Strathclyde, via EurekAlert