SCIENCE
May 22, 2012 | By Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times
The PSA test should be abandoned as a prostate cancer screening tool, a government advisory panel has concluded after determining that the side effects from needless biopsies and treatments hurt many more men than are potentially helped by early detection of cancers. At best, one life will be saved for every 1,000 men screened over a 10-year period, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. But 100 to 120 men will have suspicious results when there is no cancer, triggering biopsies that can carry complications such as pain, fever, bleeding, infection and hospitalization.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 21, 2012 | By Claire Noland, Los Angeles Times
Robin Gibb, a singer and songwriter who joined two of his brothers in forming the Bee Gees pop group that helped define the sound of the disco era with the best-selling 1977 soundtrack to"Saturday Night Fever," has died. He was 62. Gibb died Sunday after battling cancer and while recuperating from intestinal surgery, family spokesman Doug Wright announced. This spring Gibb had been hospitalized in London with advanced colorectal cancer. He had intestinal surgery in March and, after contracting pneumonia, was unable to attend the April 10 premiere in London of "The Titanic Requiem," a classical composition he wrote with his son, Robin-John, to coincide with the 100th anniversary observance of the luxury ocean liner's sinking.
NEWS
May 21, 2012 | By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times/For the Booster Shots Blog
For postmenopausal women who are obese, breast cancer is more likely. That's because fat tissue seems to behave essentially as an organ of the endocrine system, pumping out the hormone estrogen. And estrogen is a driver of many common breast cancers. But losing as little as 5% of one's body weight - 10 pounds for a 200-pound woman - drives down levels of estrogen and other hormones that raise breast cancer risk, a new study finds. In combination with weight loss, exercise drove down hormone levels even more, an effect that is likely to reduce a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.
WORLD
May 21, 2012 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and Glen Johnson, Los Angeles Times
TRIPOLI, Libya — The Libyan intelligence officer convicted in the 1988 bombing of an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, died at home here Sunday nearly three years after passions around the case were reawakened when he was freed on compassionate grounds because of what was reported as advanced prostate cancer. Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi, 60, became a symbol of state-sponsored terrorism under the late Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi. Megrahi repeatedly denied a role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans, and led to Libya's further isolation as a rogue state.
NEWS
May 17, 2012 | By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times / for the Booster Shots blog
Disco legend Donna Summer, 63, died Wednesday night, reportedly of lung cancer. As of press time, her family hadn't released details about her illness, so it was unknown what type of lung cancer she had, and how long she may have been ailing. According to the American Cancer Society , lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both women and men, killing more than 150,000 people per year -- more than colon, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers combined. In 2012, the group estimates, there will be about 226,000 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. Survival rates of people with lung cancer are low. Only about half of people diagnosed with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (the more common type)
NEWS
May 16, 2012 | By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times / for the Booster Shots blog
A new study of the protein-coding genes in 100 breast cancer tumors revealed vast differences among the cancers and highlights how complicated the disease really is, researchers said Wednesday. “A sobering perspective on the complexity and diversity of the disease is emerging,” they wrote in the online edition of the journal Nature (subscription required), which is publishing a series of studies of the genetic changes in breast cancer. The scientists, led by Michael Stratton at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England, found 73 different combinations of disease-causing mutations in the tumors, each involving up to six different genes from a set of 40 “driver genes.” Seven of the 40 individual driver genes were mutated in more than 10% of cases, but 33 others that were less common also contributed to the development of the cancers, the team reported. In 28 cases, a single mutation was enough to cause disease. The researchers identified nine new genes that caused the cancers, and also found mutations in genes that were already known to cause breast and other cancers.