Breast tumor

Scientists form the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and the University of California, Irvine in California, have found the protein interleukin-25(IL-25), amongst six factors secreted by the breast epithelial cells, to be most effective in anti-cancer activity.

"We found that normal breast cells provide an innate defense mechanism against cancer by producing interleukin 25 to actively and specifically kill breast cancer cells," said breast cancer authority and study lead Mina Bissell, of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division.

Doctors at the Apollo Hospital, who are observing the breast cancer awareness month, revealed that male breast cancer cases account for nearly one percent of the total breast cancer cases.

The occurrences might be rare, but should not be ignored, they said.

There is a growing concern for the disease in men as about 12,000 men develop breast cancer every year, and around 3,000 die from it.

Elderly men more susceptible to breast cancer

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have found that a combination of drugs given to breast cancer patients on a regular basis may help destroy tumors in a shorter period of time.

A previous research by the same team showed that a combination of drugs--doxorubicin, a chemo drug usually given to stop tumor growth, and zoledronic acid, treatment given to protect bone in advanced breast cancer--had significantly reduced the cancerous tumors when given in a particular sequence.

Mouse model studied