Cancer Blog

This weekend you can expect to see thousands of bikes on the roads of Massachusetts. Approximately 5,500 cyclists from 36 states and 8 countries are expected to ride in this year's Pan-Massachusetts Challenge.

The goal of the event, now in its 29th year, is to raise $34 million for cancer research and treatment.

Beginning in 1980, the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge started with a handful of cyclists (36 to be exact) who successfully raised more than $10,000 for cancer research.  By the mid 1990's the popularity of the PMC increased to more than 1,000 riders raising $3.5 million.

According to a PMC press release, the annual bike-a-thon raises and contributes more than twice the sum of any athletic fundraising event in the country.

For more information on the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, visit PMC.org.

According to a statement released by his press office, the growth that Republican presidential candidate John McCain had removed from his upper right cheek on Monday shows no evidence of skin cancer.

McCain, who has a history of melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, downplayed the visit explaining that he visits his dermatologist every three months for routine visits because of his increased risk of a subsequent melanoma.

Many skin cancer experts had predicted that the growth would be benign, or that if it was malignant, it would be a non-melanoma form of skin cancer such as squamous cell or basal cell carcinoma. Squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas account for over a million cancer diagnoses a year, according to the American Cancer Society.

A resident of Austin, Texas is offering quite a financial incentive to anyone who discovers a cure for breast cancer. 48-year-old Mike Dewey says he will award $1 billion to the first person who finds a cure for the disease.

After learning that his daughters were at a greater risk of developing breast cancer following his wife's battle with the disease, Dewey created a nonprofit foundation to fund the award.

According to an ABC News article, Dewey's foundation has already raised $90,000 in donations and $22 million in pledges from businesses around the world.

Dewey's wife Barbara successfully overcame her breast cancer following surgery.

For more information, visit DeweyFoundation.org.

It's easily mistaken for a real-life Barbie car, and it's not the most masculine-looking ride either, but Patrick Rangel's hot pink 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo convertible does have hydraulics.

Rangel, 38, tells The Lawrence Journal-World that he transformed his college ride into a dedication to his wife Carrie, who received a breast cancer diagnosis just two weeks after they were married.

From the white and pink interior with pink ribbons stitched on, to the "Breast cancer survivor" license plate holder, it is clear, this car has a purpose.

The purpose, according to Patrick: "I think the car is going to make people think, 'Hey, I can relate to that car and I can relate to the person driving it because they are young like me, so maybe I should actually take the time and check myself for breast cancer too.'"

The car just recently made its debut at Lawrence Memorial Hospital where Patrick dropped Carrie off for the 10th annual Betsy Beisecker Memorial Tea, a benefit for breast cancer awareness.

The couple plan to sport the vehicle at other breast cancer events and parades.

According to the results of a Phase I clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a once-a-day pill was able to  significantly shrink the tumors of men with advanced prostate cancer that had not responded to other forms of treatment.

The pill, Cougar Biotechnology Inc's abiraterone, delayed a worsening of the disease by a median of 400 days. All the volunteers in the study had an aggressive form of prostate cancer in which some researchers believe the tumor tissue is able to produce its own supply of the hormones that fuel the disease. Abiraterone targets an enzyme called CYP17, which researchers believe plays a role in this process.

In the study, 70 to 80 percent of the men showed declines in prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, levels and their tumors shrank,  even when the cancer had spread to other parts of the body.

According to researchers, some volunteers have been on abiraterone for over two years, and were able to control the disease with minimal side effects. Those side effects included fatigue and weight gain.

Abiraterone is now in Phase III trials and the hope is that the drug will be on the market in 2011.