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Acute radiation dermatitis (ARD)—characterized by red, sore, itchy or peeling skin—affects up to 95% of people undergoing radiation treatment for cancer. Researchers have found that many cases of ARD involve a common skin bacterium and that a simple, low-cost treatment can prevent severe cases. "Until now, ARD was assumed to result simply from the skin being burned by the radiation," said Beth N. McLellan, M.D. Staphylococcus aureus (SA) bacteria, often shortened to "staph," typically live harmlessly on the skin. But they can cause infections if the skin is broken by a cut. Courses of radiation therapy increase the risk for...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Cancer painfully ends more than 500,000 lives in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The scientific crusade against cancer recently achieved a victory under the leadership of University of Missouri Curators’ Professor M. Frederick Hawthorne. Hawthorne’s team has developed a new form of radiation therapy that successfully put cancer into remission in mice. This innovative treatment produced none of the harmful side-effects of conventional chemo and radiation cancer therapies. Clinical trials in humans could begin soon after Hawthorne secures funding. “Since the 1930s, scientists have sought success with a...

A diet of flaxseed shows protective effects against radiation in animal models66.87.6.32 PHILADELPHIA - Flax has been part of human history for well over 30,000 years, used for weaving cloth, feeding people and animals, and even making paint. Now, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that it might have a new use for the 21st century: protecting healthy tissues and organs from the harmful effects of radiation. In a study just published in BMC Cancer, researchers found that a diet of flaxseed given to mice not only protects lung tissues before exposure...

ORLANDO — Fewer than half of childhood cancer survivors who are deemed to be at high risk of secondary breast, colon, and skin malignancies follow cancer-screening and surveillance recommendations as adults, according to a new analysis of the large, longitudinal Childhood Cancer Survivors Study. High-risk survivors were the least compliant with colonoscopy recommendations: Only 11.5% of 794 survivors who were considered vulnerable for colorectal cancer had a colonoscopy during the 5 years before they were surveyed, Dr. Paul Nathan reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Skin cancer is the most common radiation-associated second malignancy...

'Radioactive' Woman Shuts Down Russian Airport Terminal Thursday, July 24, 2008 An airport terminal in Vladivostok, Russia was evacuated Thursday after a ‘radioactive’ woman set off an alarm. The woman had just arrived from a flight from Seoul, South Korea when a radiation alarm went off forcing security officers to shutdown the terminal, Interfax news agency reported. The alarm was eventually called off when officials discovered the source of the scare was the woman. According to the news agency, she had just received radiation therapy.

Stem Cells can Reduce the Side Effects of Radiation Therapy LEIPZIG, Germany, October 6 /PRNewswire/ -- A treatment with adult stem cells can reduce the side effects of radiation therapy in mice and rats. Numerous presentations at the 25th Annual Congress of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) show that tissue damaged by radiation heals faster after stem cell therapy. "Stem cell research will have many consequences for various fields of medicine", predicts Catherine Verfaillie, Director of the Stem Cell Institute of the University Leuven (Belgium), in a review lecture during the Presidential Symposium of the ESTRO...

RADIATION CAUSES BONE LOSS The scientific world has been shaken by a report from Clemson University that a single therapeutic dose of radiation can cause appreciable bone loss. Senior author Ted Bateman, PhD, a professor of bioengineering, and his South Carolina colleagues showed that when mice were given a dose of just two Gy (two gray, a radiation dosage formerly designated as 200 rads), between 29 and 39 percent of their interior bone mass was destroyed.It did not particularly matter which kind of radiation the mice were exposed to. Gamma rays, protons, high-speed carbon and iron nuclei all had a...

HOSPITAL patients were given radiation treatment at a nuclear reactor without proper authorisation or supervision by a doctor, according to newly declassified documents. Memos sent by Scottish Office officials in 1967 noted that the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) was concerned that proper procedures were not being followed when some patients were treated at the Scottish Research Reactor Centre in East Kilbride. At one point in the late 1960s, up to 30 people a day were being treated at the centre. Patients were given small doses of an iron isotope and vitamin B12 containing cobalt iron in connection with work on...

Radiation treatment is being prescribed for more and more breast cancer patients, including women who would have been told just a few years ago that they could skip it. The added therapy mostly affects those women who are treated with mastectomy and chemotherapy, and have fairly good prognoses at what is called Stage 2 cancer. But cancer experts and doctors are divided over whether these women really need radiation to improve their chances of survival. For some, radiation may enhance their prospects of preventing a recurrence of their breast cancer. But whether that translates into increases in the chances for...