Half of bladder cancer seen in women can be linked to cigarette smoking, a National Cancer Institute study reports.

BETHESDA, MD — A wave of genetic research projects sparked by last decade’s completion of the Human Genome Project are slowly making their way to fruition. Researchers, many of whom are based at NIH, are busy teasing apart the genetic mechanisms that contribute to disease, as well as finding ways to give physicians the ability to use genomic data to directly treat patients.

WASHINGTON — VA oncology care was found to be some of the best in the nation, according to a new study looking at older men treated for cancer at VA facilities.

WASHINGTON — When Mike Partain got the news from his doctor in 2007 that he had male breast cancer, he was shocked. There was no history of breast cancer in his family and certainly not among men.

WASHINGTON—Cancer organizations were pleased that funding was not reduced for the peer-reviewed prostate, breast and ovarian cancer programs in DoD’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) in the FY 2011 Defense budget.

PITTSBURGH—In 2000, if you were a patient at the Pittsburgh VAMC and were found to have a lung nodule, it took an average of six weeks to be evaluated for lung cancer. With the possibility of being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease hanging over your head, those six weeks could seem like an eternity.

WASHINGTON—In 2005, VA initiated a Colon Cancer Care Collaborative (C4) to help improve the timeliness of follow-up after positive fecal blood occult tests (FOBT). The initiative was in reaction to studies released at the time showing considerable delays between screening and follow-up, some as long as six months to a year.

WASHINGTON—If there is one fact that Marianne Elliott, chair of the U.S. Military Cancer Institute (USMCI) Institutional Review Board (IRB), wants investigators to know, it is that the USMCI’s new cancer research review board is “open for business.”

WASHINGTON—With a number of conflicting studies over the last five years looking at the effect of delays between positive colon cancer screenings and the subsequent colonoscopy that could confirm a diagnosis of colorectal cancer (CRC), VA researchers have struggled to determine exactly how a holdup of care effects outcomes.

WASHINGTON—Screening for colorectal cancer traditionally has been done on a per-visit basis at the VA. A patient comes in and, based on the physician’s recommendation, undergoes a test for the disease.