National Cancer Institute

Researchers have some reassuring news for the legions of coffee drinkers who can't get through the day without a latte, cappuccino, iced mocha, double-shot of espresso or a plain old cuppa joe: That coffee habit may help you live longer. A new study that tracked the health and coffee consumption of more than 400,000 older adults for nearly 14 years found that java drinkers were less likely to die during the study than their counterparts who eschewed the brew. In fact, men and women who averaged four or five cups of coffee per day had the lowest risk of death, according to a report in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Screening longtime tobacco users for lung cancer would be less costly than the widely accepted practice of screening for breast, cervical and colorectal cancers and would reduce the death toll of lung cancer by an estimated 15,000 lives a year, according to a study released Monday that is likely to ignite debate on expanding healthcare coverage for smokers. Using the financial standards generally employed by health insurance companies, a group of actuarial economists calculated that annual low-dose CT scans of middle-aged Americans who have smoked the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes every day for 30 years would cost each insured American an extra 76 cents a month.

Manny Hamelburg, 68, a retired businessman, had fought prostate cancer for years. First, he tried radiation, then a drug with side effects that nearly killed him, and finally Lupron, a drug that blocks production of testosterone, the hormone that can fuel prostate cancer. The cancer disappeared. But life was miserable. Without normal levels of testosterone, Hamelburg says, he had no energy, and "zero libido for seven years. I was like a eunuch. I was chemically castrated. Sex was just hugs."

A panel of cancer experts voted against a new use for Amgen Inc.'s Xgeva in prostate cancer on Wednesday, saying the drug's ability to slow the spread of the disease did not translate into meaningful benefits for patients. The Food and Drug Administration's cancer drug panel voted 12 to 1 that the benefits of the drug did not outweigh its risks, which included bone disease in about 6% of patients. The FDA is not required to follow the group's advice, although it often does. Xgeva is already approved to prevent fractures in cancerous bones, and for osteoporosis, in a different formulation called Prolia.

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.

A panel of cancer experts voted against a new use for Amgen Inc.'s Xgeva in prostate cancer on Wednesday, saying the drug's ability to slow the spread of the disease did not translate into meaningful benefits for patients. The Food and Drug Administration's cancer drug panel voted 12 to 1 that the benefits of the drug did not outweigh its risks, which included bone disease in about 6% of patients. The FDA is not required to follow the group's advice, although it often does. Xgeva is already approved to prevent fractures in cancerous bones, and for osteoporosis, in a different formulation called Prolia.

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.

The headlines were certainly scary enough to turn readers into vegetarians: "Sausages and Bacon Up Bladder Cancer Risk" "My Bologna Has a First Name, It's C-A-N-C-E-R. " "Cold Cut Sandwiches: A Potentially Deadly Lunch. " Fortunately for meat eaters out there, the study that prompted this week's dire warnings wasn't quite as absolute as it was made to appear. For starters, studies linking red meat consumption to cancer aren't new. But this study, published online Monday by the journal Cancer, zeroed in on a specific culprit -- processed red meat -- and a particular body part -- the bladder.

The Food and Drug Administration warned Wednesday that the diabetes drug Actos, known generically as pioglitazone, increases the risk of bladder cancer by at least 40% when used for more than a year or in higher cumulative doses. The agency said it will require changes in the label of the drug, manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceutical North America, to reflect the new findings. The action comes as a major blow to the family of diabetes medications known as thiazolidinediones, which have proved to be very effective in reducing resistance to insulin in tissues of patients with Type 2 diabetes.

If you're sitting down, you might want to stand up after reading this: Nearly 100,000 cases of cancer could be prevented in the U.S. each year if we all spent less time sitting in our cars, at our desks and on our couches. Even people who exercise daily can increase their risk of cancer by remaining sedentary for extended periods of time, researchers said Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Institute for Cancer Research focused on food, nutrition and physical activity . Using data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics , researchers estimated that up to 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer each year are tied to lack of physical activity.

The long-debunked idea that abortions can contribute to breast cancer is reappearing amid the outpouring of comments this week on Susan G. Komen for the Cure's decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood breast-health programs. Here's one comment on Komen's Facebook page: "Also! Breast cancer is linked to abortions!!! More and more studied are pointing to abortions for a huge risk factor for BC, why should SGK support something that raises the chances of what they wasn't destroyed?

Former undisputed heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, who died Monday at the age of 67 after a brief bout with liver cancer, also had diabetes -- a major risk factor associated with the disease. Diabetes has been associated with the highest percentage (34%) of cases of the most common type of liver cancer, according to research by the National Cancer Institute. (The next highest was alcohol-related disorders, with 24%). Men and older adults are at higher risk of the cancer as well.

If you're sitting down, you might want to stand up after reading this: Nearly 100,000 cases of cancer could be prevented in the U.S. each year if we all spent less time sitting in our cars, at our desks and on our couches. Even people who exercise daily can increase their risk of cancer by remaining sedentary for extended periods of time, researchers said Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Institute for Cancer Research focused on food, nutrition and physical activity . Using data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics , researchers estimated that up to 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer each year are tied to lack of physical activity.

She has had four surgeries to remove her thyroid, parathyroid and vocal cord nerve, along with muscle and tissue. Once a year, she goes to a hospital and swallows a radioactive iodine capsule to attack the remaining cancer cells — and then remains in isolation for four days. During what she calls her quarantine, she can't touch — or even be in the same room as — anyone else. The treatment causes soreness, swelling, nausea and headaches. Each year, as the ordeal approaches, she scans the Internet for support groups.

If you or someone you know discovered she had breast cancer thanks to routine mammography screening, and if you or that friend with breast cancer got treatment and today is cancer-free, it's natural to assume that the mammogram was a life-saver. But odds are, it wasn't. More likely, the cancer that was picked up by that mammogram would have been just as treatable even if it hadn't been caught until you or your friend felt a lump in the breast. It's also entirely possible that the cancer wouldn't have killed you (or your friend)

Women who inherit gene mutations that increase their likelihood of getting breast cancer now face an added worry: They may be prone to developing the disease earlier in life than their mothers and aunts did. The discovery, by a team at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was reported Monday in the journal Cancer. Harmful mutations in the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes dramatically increase a woman's chance of developing breast and/orovarian cancer, according to this fact sheet from the National Cancer Institute.  About 60% of women with a harmful mutation in BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives.  In the general population, about 12%of women will.  BRCA mutations are responsible for 5% to 10% of breast cancer diagnoses.

Men of a certain age have heard the pitch many times: If they care about their health, they really should get their PSA checked. The simple blood test, men are told, can help uncover hidden cases of prostate cancer and potentially save their lives. More than 20 million American men get their PSA measured each year. Doctors often include the test as a routine part of checkups for men older than 40, and many insurance companies flat-out require it. Cancer awareness campaigns frequently tout PSA tests as an important weapon against the disease, something like a male version of mammograms.

Continuing disclosures of scientific misconduct in an international study of breast cancer shake confidence in the medical research Establishment. And they are profoundly upsetting to millions of women and their doctors who have relied on the two-decade-long study's key, and very welcome, conclusion: that early cancer can be just as effectively treated by a lumpectomy and radiation as by a full mastectomy.

Cancer kills more men than women -- some forms more than others, finds a new study. In the new assessment of cancer data, men are more than twice as likely than women to die from lung, skin, kidney and liver cancers. Overall, not including sex-specific or breast cancers, men's death rates are 1.9 times higher than women's, according to the new research. Scientists already knew men were at higher risk for developing most cancers, but it wasn't clear if men also died more from cancer.

The Food and Drug Administration warned Wednesday that the diabetes drug Actos, known generically as pioglitazone, increases the risk of bladder cancer by at least 40% when used for more than a year or in higher cumulative doses. The agency said it will require changes in the label of the drug, manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceutical North America, to reflect the new findings. The action comes as a major blow to the family of diabetes medications known as thiazolidinediones, which have proved to be very effective in reducing resistance to insulin in tissues of patients with Type 2 diabetes.