Cancer Carnival #34

It's the first Friday of the month, which means it's time for the Cancer Research Blog Carnival!

May was Neurofibromatosis (NF) Awareness Month, with NF Awareness Day falling on May 20. HighlightHealth highlights the occasion with 10 things to be aware of, beginning with a description of the condition.

Neurofibromatosis (NF) is a genetically inherited disorder that predisposes individuals to the development of a variety of benign and malignant tumors in the central and peripheral nervious systems. The disorder affects neural crest cells and causes tumors to grow along various types of nerves and can also affect the development of bones and skin.

HighlightHealth also offers some preliminary coverage of the Children's Tumor Foundation's NF conference. This year's conference will feature constant updates and videos from the floor which will be accessible here. Staying with the NF theme, we also have the story of Jaqueline, a girl (now 2 years old) who was diagnosed with NF at 4 months and is now the inspiration for a children's character with the same disease.

On the topic of conference coverage, Alexey at Hematopoiesis has some coverage of the recent AACR meeting, including a link to what he describes as the most interesting talk of the meeting on the subject of cancer stem cells.

This talk was the most interesting for me maybe from the entire annual 2010 AACR meeting. Because it made me to look at cancer stem cell concept from other side - side of cancer non-stem cells.

The post offers some highlights, or you can watch the entire talk here. The AACR has over 80 hours of audio, with accompanying slides where available accessible for free on their website.

At the 23andMe blog, The Spittoon, the latest SNPwatch article profiles new genetic associations for nasopharyngeal cancer.

Researchers from Singapore, China and the United States studied about 5,000 people with NPC and 5,000 controls, as well as more than 250 families, all of southern Chinese descent. As expected, a strong genetic effect was seen in areas of the genome that encode the previously identified immune markers. But variants in three other regions were also associated with NPC risk. Two of these associations were statistically significant. The third SNP did not make the cut off, but was highly suggestive.

Click the link to find out more.

Here at the Bayblab, AC reports on a study that claims killing of cancer cells by homeopathic preparations. Is there something to it, or is this a breakdown of the peer review process? What's worse is that the paper is being flaunted by pushers of alternative medicine.

Most shockingly, according to the New Scientist, this study was mentioned in the British parliament as an argument for more funding for alternative medicine.

Nevermind the fact that it has been thoroughly picked apart again and again.

Finally, Orac revisits the issue of cell phones and cancer, commenting on a recent paper from the Internation Journal of Epidemiology.

That's it for this month's Cancer Research Blog Carnival. For older editions, visit the Carnival Homepage. Don't forget, the CRBC has subscription options; you can follow by email or RSS feed. An aggregated feed of credible, rotating health and medicine blog carnivals is also available. For a broader collection of science-related blog carnivals, sign up for the Science, Medicine, Environment and Nature Blog Carnival Twitter Feed.