Medical Research

Sometimes personal experience and instinct are the greatest teachers

For the first time since stem cells were discovered by Dr. James Till and Dr. Ernest McCulloch at the Ontario Cancer Institute 50 years ago, scientists have isolated a human blood stem cell in its purest form – as a single stem cell capable of regenerating the entire blood system.

Failure to fully recognize the amount of disease at baseline may be cause for active surveillance (AS) failure, according to new data from researchers at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. They reported at the American Urological Association (AUA) 2011 Annual Meeting that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) discovered large volume disease in up to 22% of patients with low-risk prostate cancer who were managed with AS

Dr. Edzard Ernst has spent years doing what few physicians have been inclined to do: establishing an evidence base for alternative therapies. Despite the fact only 5% of the therapies he has studied have shown a benefit above and beyond a placebo, patients demand there be a future for alternative medicine, and healthcare professionals have a moral duty to find out what is effective and what is not.

CHICAGO | All women with early breast cancer should be offered regional nodal irradiation (RNI) by their physicians to improve their long-term disease-free survival, according to Canadian-led research presented at the ASCO meeting here.

CHICAGO | Canadian research shows that men with prostate cancer who are treated with intermittent courses of androgen-suppressing therapy live as long as those who receive continuous therapy.

Early stoppage may lead to worse outcomes

fMRI finds areas of the brain ‘hotwired’ together in depression