A University of Minnesota survey shows less than half (48 percent) of parents who share this view support the use of the vaccine. Overall, however, 87 percent of Minnesotans surveyed support the vaccine use. The survey findings were published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The vaccine to immunize young women against the human papillomavirus, a sexually-transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, has not received the warm welcome public health advocates had hoped for.

Results of the FDA pivotal clinical trial for the LightTouch Non-invasive Cervical Cancer Detection Device conducted by Guided Therapeutics, Inc. (GT), indicated that the current system for diagnosing cervical disease missed the same amount of disease as a landmark study carried out by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In the new LightTouch study, 32% of cervical precancers and cancers were missed by the current method of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing and colposcopy.

China Medical Technologies, Inc. has announced that the Company has received approval for its Leukemia BCR/ABL fusion gene detection FISH Probe (the “Leukemia BCR/ABL FISH Probe”) from the State Food and Drug Administration of China (the “SFDA”). The Leukemia BCR/ABL FISH Probe is a molecular diagnostic test kit that uses DNA probes for accurate detection of Philadelphia translocation, which is a specific chromosomal abnormality associated with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study that examined mice that were given the breast cancer drugs fulvestrant and raloxifene, both of which work by preventing estrogen from functioning in cells, HealthDay News reports. The mice where genetically engineered to carry HPV, an STD strongly linked with cervical cancer. The drugs cleared precancerous growths in the cervix and prevented cancer in mice with precancerous lesions, according to the research.

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) have discovered a new drug that can destroy cancerous cells in adult leukaemia patients who have developed resistance to other treatments. During the study, PBOX-15 was found to attack and break down the skeleton in leukaemia cells in samples given by patients. It was also found to effectively treat Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL), which is the most common leukaemia in the western world in adults.

The Sahlgrenska Academy, faculty of health sciences at the University of Gothenburg, research group has discovered a new cancer gene. The gene causes an insidious form of glandular cancer usually in the head and neck and in women also in the breast. The discovery could lead to quicker diagnosis and more effective treatment. The cancer caused by this new cancer gene is called adenoid cystic carcinoma and is a slow-growing but deadly form of cancer.

GlaxoSmithKline has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Votrient (pazopanib) drug. The drug is approved for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a form of kidney cancer. The FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) had earlier voted unanimously in favor of the drug due to encouraging results from the phase III trial.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals has not received the FDA approval for the supplementary marketing application for its advanced metastatic colorectal cancer drug Fusilev. Fusilev is already approved for use after high-dose methotrexate therapy in osteosarcoma. It is also approved to decrease the toxicity and counteract the effects of impaired methotrexate elimination and of inadvertent over dosage of folic acid antagonists.

OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc said that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has given a “fast track designation” for the company’s metastatic prostate cancer drug candidate. The OGX-O11 drug, also known as custirsen sodium, when combined with first-line docetaxel (chemotherapy) treatment, has been given the designation, which is only given to drugs “that may provide a significant improvement in the safety or effectiveness of the treatment for a serious or life-threatening disease.”

Researchers at Drexel University are developing a new portable, low-cost, radiation-free breast cancer detector that can be used in a doctor’s office as a first-line to detect breast cancer in younger women and in women over 40 with mammographically dense-tissue breasts. The detector is based on piezoelectric fingers (an elastic and shear modulus sensor) developed at Drexel. In evaluations on tumor specimens, it has positively identified a 3mm tumor previously missed by mammography, ultrasound and the physician’s palpation.