Women diagnosed with breast cancer should either get exercising or keep exercising. This is the message from a new study in Springer’s Journal of Cancer Survivorship by Catherine Alfano and colleagues at the Ohio State University1. The study of over 500 women who had survived breast cancer highlights how physical activity, and more specifically the intensity and amount of physical activity you do before and after cancer treatment, can affect future symptoms and your quality of life. [click link for full article]

Logan Spector, Ph.D., a University of Minnesota Cancer Center researcher, has received a $1.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to lead the largest and most comprehensive study to date on the causes of pediatric osteosarcoma.Osteosarcoma is a cancer of the bone that usually affects the long bones of the arm or leg. It is the most common cancer of the bone in children under 20 years of age in the United States. [click link for full article]

Women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) treated using muscle-derived stem cell injections to strengthen their sphincter muscles experience long-term improvements in their condition, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. [click link for full article]

By correlating images of cancerous liver tissue with gene expression patterns, a research team led by a radiologist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine has developed tools that may some day allow physicians to view a CT image of a cancer tumor and discern its genetic activity. [click link for full article]

Researchers at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute describe in this week’s issue of Science a new candidate breast-cancer susceptibility gene. The Rap80 gene is required for the normal DNA-repair function of the well-known breast cancer gene BRCA1. Cancer-causing mutations in the BRCA1 protein cause it to fail to bind to the Rap80 protein. [click link for full article]

Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center will honor its patients and families May 29 and 30 at its annual National Cancer Survivors’ Day event, “Celebration of Life.” This two-day celebration is hosted by the cancer center’s CompleteLife program and includes a health fair on both days from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. [click link for full article]

ADVANCE (Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron MR Controlled Evaluation), a landmark, six-year trial has now closed the part of the study that aims to investigate the effect of Preterax, a blood pressure lowering agent containing a fixed -dose combination of the ACE inhibitor perindopril and the diuretic indapamide, on the risk of macro- and micro- vascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. [click link for full article]

Cosmetic genital surgery may be fuelling women’s insecurity about their body and their body parts, argue two senior doctors in this week’s BMJ. They believe that women should be warned about the risks of cosmetic genital surgery, and that alternative solutions to concerns about the appearance of their genitals should be developed. [click link for full article]

Reforms introduced as a result of the Sally Clark case could lead to a halving in the number of cases of unexplained infant deaths and a positive legacy emerging from tragedy, says a feature in this week’s BMJ. Sally Clark was arrested in 1998 for the murder of her two infant sons. She was imprisoned but won her appeal in 2003. She died in March this year. [click link for full article]

When parents treat their children differently, siblings and parents often have very different ideas about what’s happening and why, says a University of Illinois study. And there can be as many points of view as there are family members. [click link for full article]