News digest – suffocating tumours, standardised tobacco packs, skin cancer and more

This week’s cancer news

• The big science story this week came from our labs. Our researchers found a way to stop cancer cells coping with low oxygen levels, which could open the door to new treatments that suffocate tumours. We looked in-depth at the research here.
• The major public health story came from Australian shores, where new research showed that plain cigarette packs encourage smokers to quit. This underlines just how wrong our Government is to put their decision on standardised tobacco packaging on hold. Here’s our news story, and this is the BBC’s take.
• Our research showed that one third of people diagnosed with throat cancer are infected with a form of the HPV virus. The Guardian has more detail.
• Good news – more than eight in 10 people with the most serious form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, now survive their disease. The Independent has more info.
• A radioactive drug can improve survival rates in men whose prostate cancer has spread to their bones, as well improve their quality of life. Read our news story.
• Our scientists found a link between higher levels of sex hormones and an increased risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women. Here’s our press release.

And finally

• Research confirmed the link between a woman’s cancer risk and her height. Medscape has more info. The link could be related to a woman’s genes, the levels of hormones and growth factors in her blood, or simply be down to taller bodies generally having more cells.