
Mandatory tumour boards
The government of France takes cancer very seriously. With 150,000 deaths each year, this is the leading cause of mortality in the country. The national health system pays for 100% of the care.

The government of France takes cancer very seriously. With 150,000 deaths each year, this is the leading cause of mortality in the country. The national health system pays for 100% of the care.

About 20 years ago the first tumour boards were set up in Germany. Initiated and led by surgeons, they not only invited oncologists, radiotherapists and radiologists to conferences but also, increasingly often, pathologists.

A major new cutting edge radiotherapy treatment will be available in the UK thanks to £250 million of government funding to build two new facilities in Manchester and London, Public Health Minister Anna Soubry confirmed on August, 1.

A 2012 study analysing the care of cancer patients in the USA in 138 Veterans’ Administration hospitals (pub: Journal of the National Cancer Institute) questions the effectiveness of tumour board review. The study measured effectiveness by comparing the presence of tumour review boards with stage-specific quality of care and patient outcomes.

Milan, Italy – The 20th European Congress of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine certainly lived up to its claim as the EU’s largest event of its kind – 2,407 visitors and 4,786 delegates from 101 countries plus 82 exhibitors fanned out or arranged themselves over the event’s 3,500 square metres, Hanna Politis reports

Bladder cancer is highly challenging in terms of patient management and medical costs. As the fourth most frequent cancer in men and ninth in women in developed countries, although BC is a common disease it is still under-represented in public awareness and in cancer research .

Ultrasound may be used during breast conservation surgery, to locate tumour lesions or to place localising wires; it can also guide a lumpectomy and perform a specimen exam to ensure a lesion has been excised and to evaluate surgical margins

With the help of a commercially available CAD (computer-assisted diagnosis) programme, MRI can provide prognostic data on the development of distant metastases in the further course of breast cancer.

Statistically speaking every fourth older German man suffers from prostate cancer with the mortality rate being 60,000 patients annually

The charity Cancer Research UK reports that the number of breast cancer diagnoses in under 50-year-old women each year in the UK has exceeded 10,000 for the first time.

Sanofi and the Curie Institute, through its Curie-Cancer partnership under the Institut Carnot label, today announce the establishment of a three-year research collaboration to identify new therapeutic targets for the development of treatments for ovarian cancer.

Israel - Researchers are using breath-test technology to detect volatile organic compounds to tell whether a patient has stomach cancer.

In developed countries, bladder cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer in men and the ninth in women, and it greatly challenges patient management and cost containment. However, it is under-represented in public awareness and in cancer research.

The NHS has to overcome people’s ‘status-quo bias’ if it is to increase the number of screenings for bowel cancer.

CT scanners now nicely cover morphology. The challenge is moving to CT functional imaging without frying patients

Colon cancer remains the second most common cause of cancer-related death in the Western world with 450,000 citizens in Europe newly diagnosed and 230,000 deaths annually (Source: Globalscan 2008).

A prototype for proton and ion therapy has been used clinically in Heidelberg since 2009. Built jointly by Siemens and GSI (Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt.

IBA Group, a leader in advanced cancer diagnosis and therapy technologies, and Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) today announced their first-ever installation of a state-of-the-art, patient-centered proton therapy treatment room in the United States.

A new genre of medical tests - which determine whether a medicine is right for a patient's genes - are paving the way for increased use of personalized medicine, according to the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Meeting with EH editor Brigitte Dinkloh, Congress Secretary Professor Alexis Ulrich MD (left), Assistant Medical Director at the Clinic for General, Visceral and Transplant Surgery at the University of Heidelberg, outlined the scientific programme, discussed some impressive advances in surgical procedures, and explained why the gathering bears the slogan Surgery in Partnership.

The world’s first gene cancer therapy study of an innovative oral vaccine is underway at the Surgical Clinic of Heidelberg University Hospital.

Currently there is a truly enormous hole in the ground in the city of Wiener Neustadt, Austria, but by summer 2012 MedAustron, one of the most modern centres for ion therapy and research in Europe, is to be built here.
PBT uses a high-energy beam of particles to destroy cancer cells by more accurately targeting the affected areas and is particularly suitable for complex childhood cancers. It also increases success rates and reduces side effects, such as deafness, loss of IQ and secondary cancers.

The patient is soothed and ready for proton therapy

Excising the entire cancer tumour from the stomach prevents relapses. This procedure can now be performed endoscopically. Holger Zorn reports from the Visceral Medicine 2011 Congress in Leipzig.