When cells become cancerous, they also become 100 times more likely to genetically mutate than regular cells, researchers have found. The findings may explain why cells in a tumor have so many genetic mutations, but could also be bad news for cancer treatments that target a particular gene controlling cancer malignancy.

Group exercise sessions can help to improve the physical and psychological wellbeing of people diagnosed with breast cancer, a new BMJ study reveals today.

The first "antisense" drug to be tested in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) shows benefit in a phase III clinical trial for a specific subset of patients - those who are still sensitive to a chemotherapy drug often used to treat this cancer.

Aggressive research currently underway brings hope of dramatic advances in breast cancer management, according to a new review. Published in the March 15, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society,

Researchers believe they have discovered by chance a new way to fight colorectal cancer, and potentially cancers of the esophagus, liver and skin. Early work shows that a group of compounds called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARgamma) inhibitors may have an unexpected cancer-fighting effect, according to research published today in the journal International Cancer Research.

Cancer research and drug development are yielding more sophisticated candidate therapies, but investigators' methods to test them haven't kept pace, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. That could explain why so many experimental drugs fail in the final large and costly phase of testing, they say.

In the largest single-institution retrospective study to date, researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center have shown that giving patients both radiation and chemotherapy after completely removing invasive pancreatic cancer may improve overall survival rates. The study's lead author, a radiation oncology resident in Rochester, Michele Corsini, M.D., presented the findings Saturday, Jan. 20, at the 2007 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Giving patients with head and neck cancer a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy controls the cancer and allows many patients to avoid additional surgery to the neck, according to a study presented at the plenary session today at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Rancho Mirage, Calif., co-sponsored by the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Head and Neck Society.

A new discovery in stem cell research may mean big things for cancer patients in the future. Gary Van Zant, Ph.D., and a research team at the University of Kentucky published their findings today in Nature Genetics, an international scientific journal.

In laboratory tests on mice, researchers found that a medication often used to reduce toxic side effects of chemotherapy induced bone loss and helped tumors grow in bone. So the researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are recommending increased awareness of bone health during cancer treatments.

The investigators found that during stress, the PMR1 enzyme interacts directly with another protein called TIA-1, a key protein involved in assembling stress granules. This interaction draws the enzyme-mRNA complex into stress granules.

St. Jude researchers show genetically modified stem cells in the nervous system actively seek out even tiny tumors