With a focus on shared decision making between doctors and patients, more studies needed to determine how decision aids help guide choices for cancer screening.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When it comes to a cancer diagnosis, timing can be everything – the sooner it's found, the more treatable it is. But when and how often should someone get screened?

A common cancer pathway causing tumor growth is now being targeted by a number of new cancer drugs and shows promising results. A team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have developed a novel method to disrupt this growth signaling pathway, with findings that suggest a new treatment for breast, colon, melanoma and other cancers.

WASHINGTON (April 26, 2013) – New research out of the George Washington University Cancer Institute (GWCI) focuses on the difficulties of transitioning to adulthood while dealing with the long-term and late effects of cancer and its treatment. The study was recently published in the Journal of Oncology Navigation and Survivorship, titled “Improving Cancer Survivorship for Adolescents and Adults.”

Student researchers get a new view of the dynamics of cancer cells as they metastasize

TEMPE, Ariz. – A team of student researchers and their professors from 20 laboratories around the country have gotten a new view of cancer cells. The work could shed light on the transforming physical properties of these cells as they metastasize, said Jack R. Staunton, a Ph.D. candidate at Arizona State University in the lab of Prof. Robert Ros, and the lead author of a paper reporting on the topic.

Geneva, Switzerland: Two large, landmark radiotherapy studies have shown that it is possible to treat cervical cancer effectively with high doses specifically adapted to each tumour, and with fewer serious side-effects to the surrounding normal organs.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A monoclonal antibody targeting a protein known as SFPR2 has been shown by researchers at the University of North Carolina to inhibit tumor growth in pre-clinical models of breast cancer and angiosarcoma.

Trial benefits three-quarters of patients

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As many as three quarters of advanced ovarian cancer patients appeared to respond to a new two-step immunotherapy approach -- including one patient who achieved complete remission -- according research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that will be presented today in a press conference at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 (Presentation #LB-335).

The sooner a person smokes a cigarette upon waking in the morning, the more likely he or she is to acquire lung or oral cancer, according to Penn State researchers.

"We found that smokers who consume cigarettes immediately after waking have higher levels of NNAL -- a metabolite of the tobacco-specific carcinogen NNK -- in their blood than smokers who refrain from smoking a half hour or more after waking, regardless of how many cigarettes they smoke per day," said Steven Branstetter, assistant professor of biobehavioral health.

Genomic, molecular findings by CHOP researchers will help inform personalized medicine

Pediatric researchers, investigating the biology of brain tumors in children, are finding that crucial differences in how the same gene is mutated may call for different treatments. A new study offers glimpses into how scientists will be using the ongoing flood of gene-sequencing data to customize treatments based on very specific mutations in a child's tumor.

New research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation reveals that tumours in melanoma patients deliberately create conditions that knock out the body's 'premier' immune defence and instead attract a weaker immune response unable to kill off the tumour's cancerous cells.

The study also highlights a potential antibody biomarker that could help predict prognosis and identify which patients are most likely to respond to specific treatments.