Cancer

CANCER—IN ALL ITS FORMS— HAS BEEN A long-time obsession at TIME. The magazine has covered the fight against it on many fronts. These days TIME often reports on new treatments and early detection. Here are some highlights from the archive:

But Researchers at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have come up with an innovative way of giving surgeons the upper hand against these wily tumors. They have created a molecular "paint" that coats cancer cells so doctors can see the wayward cells that they may otherwise miss.
From Painting Tumors
By Alice Park
Jul. 19, 2007

And these young adults are doing much more than merely surviving. Their medical histories are rich textbooks for teaching doctors and future patients about how to overcome cancer--not just the initial dangers of the disease but also the late-stage complications of the surgery, chemotherapy and radiation that saved those young lives.
From Young Survivors
By Alice Park
Jul. 19, 2007

While breast cancer survivors Ñ like everyone else Ñ should eat healthy foods, going overboard doesn't necessarily improve your chances of avoiding a recurrence of cancer, a new study suggests.
From Good Diet May Not Help Breast Cancer
By Tracy Samantha Schmidt
Jul. 17, 2007

Nothing sounds Ñ or tastes Ñ better than the idea of eating your way out of cancer. So it's disappointing news indeed that the Food and Drug Administration has deemed that tomatoes, so rich in antioxidants and other good things such as beta carotene, may not protect against many types of cancer after all, as some earlier studies had found.
From When Tomatoes Fight Cancer
By Alice Park
Jul. 11, 2007

Tracking cancer via the blood certainly isn't new. Just as a pregnancy test can detect the proteins of a 10-day-old fetus in the mother's circulatory system, similar tests can detect proteins on cancer cells released by a tumor that is itself only dozens of cells large. Most of these migrating cells die during the journey. Others are more menacing--pioneers programmed to seed new growth in distant tissues.
From The Cancer Test
By Alice Park
Jun. 14, 2007

The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue.
From Oral Sex Can Add to HPV Cancer Risk
By Coco Masters
May. 11, 2007

The change in managing cancer reflects a series of hard-won improvements in treatment--not, alas, for every form of cancer, but particularly for breast, colon, prostate and even lung. The gains include an explosion of new drugs that are more targeted and less toxic than old-school chemotherapeutic agents.
From Living With Cancer
By Claudia Wallis and Alice Park
Mar. 29, 2007

You can stop worrying about getting brain cancer from your cell phone. A massive study of just about every private cell phone user in Denmark shows no link between gabbing on your mobile and the development of brain tumors.
From Can You Hear Me Now? Cellphones Don't Cause Cancer
By Christine Gorman
Dec. 5, 2006

But the amazing progress in the treatment of advanced cases of testicular cancer Ñ made famous by seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong Ñ has doctors wondering if maybe they have overlooked one of the body's most basic weapons in the fight against disease: heat
From The Cancer Lessons of Lance Armstrong
By Christine Gorman
Jul. 26, 2006

Investigators have found that injecting standard chemotherapy into the abdominal cavity—instead of intravenously alone—increases survival with advanced ovarian cancer by, on average, a remarkable 16 months.
From A New Old Therapy
By Christine Gorman
Jan. 16, 2006

After years of feeling that they were losing the war on cancer, doctors and researchers gathered at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in New Orleans reported last week that they finally have a deep enough understanding of the molecular underpinnings of cancer to offer patients new hope.
From Surviving Cancer
By Alice Park
Jun. 14, 2004

What surprised scientists about the study is that supplements of estrogen, unlike the combination of estrogen and progestin, did not appear to increase a woman's risk of breast cancer.
From Estrogen Redux
By Christine Gorman
Mar. 15, 2004

In a trial involving more than 5,100 women, those taking letrozole after five years on tamoxifen experienced 43% fewer cancer recurrences than those assigned to the placebo group.
From Cancer Fighter
By Alice Park
Oct. 20, 2003

A good night's sleep is right up there with chicken soup as a cure-all. But can it help someone beat cancer? A growing body of research suggests it might, according to an article in the current issue of Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
From How Sleep Can Battle Cancer
By David Bjerklie
Oct. 13, 2003

Could cancer in a child be somehow linked to breast cancer in the mom? That's the strong implication of a study presented last week at the European Cancer Conference in Copenhagen.
From Cancer: In Kids And Their Moms
By Sora Song
Oct. 6, 2003

The results of two studies published in last week's New England Journal of Medicine clearly show that taking aspirin every day — in low or high doses — reduces the number and size of polyps.
From Can Aspirin Help Prevent Cancer?
By Sanjay Gupta, M.D.
Mar. 17, 2003

While many scientists focus their attention on potential weaknesses in the cancer cell, others are concentrating on the flip side—recruiting the body's immune system to seek and destroy the renegade tissues.
From New Hope For Cancer
By Michael D. Lemonick and Alice Park
May 28, 2001

Provided it's caught in its earliest, most treatable stages, colorectal cancer is curable more than 90% of the time.
From Katie's Crusade
By Christine Gorman
Mar. 13, 2000