News digest – sunscreen and skin cancer, ‘immune boost’, red meat and more

• It’s going to be a bit of a scorcher this weekend. So it’s important you take heed of this week’s findings from our researchers in Manchester: sunscreen alone can’t be relied upon to protect against melanoma – the most serious form of skin cancer. So if you’re out and about, make sure you cover up and wear a hat. The findings received a huge amount of media coverage, including these articles in the Mail Online, the BBC and the Guardian (and here’s our press release).
• And our scientists also released worrying figures about sunbeds – half of all underage sunbed users have been burnt at least once, with all of the children who used unsupervised, coin-operated sunbeds reporting at least one case of sunburn. The Mail Online and the Telegraph have more.
• A new study suggesting that women who eat a lot of red meat in early adulthood might have an increased risk of breast cancer attracted a large amount of media attention this week, but very few articles (with the exception of the BBC and the Guardian) placed the study in context with previous studies – so we wrote this blog post to show why the evidence just isn’t there yet.
• There were a few stories this week about the immune system. The first, from our researchers, showed that women with breast cancer are more likely to survive for five years or more if they have a certain type of immune cell in the tissue around their tumour. ITV News picked this up, and you can read our press release for more info.
• Experimental drugs currently in trials for leukaemia may boost the immune system to help target other cancers too, according to early stage research working with mice. The Telegraph (with a slightly over-hyped headline) and the Mail Online covered the study, and we had this on our news feed.
• The Telegraph explored the fascinating ways in which the body’s immune system could be harnessed to target cancer – called ‘immunotherapy’ – something we’ve blogged about recently too.
• The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published the final guidance on making the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab (Yervoy) available as a first treatment for patients with advanced and inoperable melanoma. The Telegraph covered the announcement.
• And this month’s podcast also explores immunotherapy, as well as new pancreatic cancer research and the reliability of Wikipedia.
• Moving away from the immune system, new research found that one in five people who develop particular cancer symptoms – such as bleeding from their bottom – waited more than three months before seeing their doctor. Read more on this in the Guardian and the Mail Online.
• A report from the think tank Demos found that the NHS could save £10 million a year if more women went for cervical screening. The Telegraph covered this: we had this article on our news feed, and we blogged about how we think the cervical screening programme could be made even better (clue: it’s NOT by changing the age range).
• US researchers found that women recovering from breast cancer could be doing more exercise, which is known to improve the chance of survival. The BBC has more.
• The Guardian covered new research looking at ‘ageism’ in the NHS: life-extending surgery is less likely to be offered to people aged 75 and older who have lung cancer, but who are otherwise in good health, and whose cancer has not spread. Something we’ve been concerned about for some time.
• This interesting blog post from The Institute of Cancer Research covers how cells commit suicide – a process called ‘apoptosis’ – and how cancer cells can dodge these instructions.
• And this article from the Mail Online picked up the topic of triggering cancer cell suicide in leukaemia, but the mentions of “breakthroughs” and “paradigm-shifting discoveries” are too soon in reference to this research as it has so far only been tested on cells in the lab.
• Excellent news: the Republic of Ireland announced its plans to introduce standardised tobacco packaging, making it the first country in Europe to do so.
• And a report from Australia showed that plain packing laws, which were introduced there in 2011, have helped reduce the amount of tobacco smoked in the country.
• This strengthened the calls from over 600 medical professionals urging the UK government to speed up plans to introduce plain packs here as well. The BBC has more and we covered this on our news feed.
• Science Minister David Willetts announced £48 million of new investment to help fund research projects aimed at tackling health problems – including cancer. Our news story has more and we also had this guest post from Labour MP, Liam Byrne on his vision for science and research in the UK.
• A new study covered by the Mail Online suggests women with a large number of moles may be at a slightly higher risk of breast cancer, which could be linked to hormone levels. But the link disappeared when known breast cancer risk factors were taken into account – so don’t worry there’s nothing here to suggest moles could cause breast cancer.
• Nobel prize-winning scientist Sir Paul Nurse spoke of the potential impact Scottish independence could have on medical research. Read more in the Telegraph.
• The BBC’s Robert Peston wrote this article on the importance of early diagnosis in cancer.
• This article from the Telegraph explores our Women of Influence initiative, which we’ve also blogged about here.
• We continued our partnership with the Guardian by following Lyn, who has stage four lung cancer and is taking part in clinical trial using immunotherapy.

And finally

• It’s hard to avoid the fact that the World Cup has just kicked off in Brazil, so to get on the bandwagon with a science twist, here’s who would win the tournament if it were based on a country’s Nobel Prize haul (you’ll spot a decent result for England, helped on by two of our researchers – Sir Tim Hunt and Sir Paul Nurse – who along with Leland Hartwell, shared the 2001 prize for Physiology or Medicine).

Nick