On its website, the BBC News (11/7, Gallagher) reports on research, which suggests that “targeting just one chemical inside cancerous cells could one day lead to a single test for a broad range of cancers,” adding that “the same system could then be used to deliver precision radiotherapy.” The researchers told the National Cancer Research Institute conference they were able to detect breast cancer in mice weeks before a lump was detected. According to the article, the researchers said that “the same target chemical was also present in cancers of the lung, skin, kidney and bladder.” BBC News says that “the team, at the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology at Oxford University, were looking for a protein, called gamma-H2AX, which is produced in response to damaged DNA.”

CNN (8/7, Wynn) reported, “More than one million people currently suffer from Crohn’s disease, and thousands more are diagnosed each year.” Approximately “seven of every 100,000 people in the United States are diagnosed, most of them between the ages of 15 and 30, according to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Crohn’s is “one of the two most common inflammatory diseases.” While symptoms of the lifelong disease can be treated, there is no cure.

HealthDay (8/1, Mundell) reports, “A new study finds a strong correlation between certain genes passed down through families and the odds of multiple colon polyps discovered by colonoscopy. The findings could point the way to deciding who will benefit from gene testing when assessing risks for colon cancer.” The study, published in the August 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that “the number of colorectal polyps a patient had ‘was strongly associated’ with the presence or absence of these genetic mutations.”