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Data from a five-year study suggests that limited-field radiation therapy (radiation directed at the tumor site) may be as effective as whole-breast radiation therapy in preventing breast cancer recurrence in women treated with breast-conserving surgery. The study appears in the August 20 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Whole-breast radiation therapy is part of standard treatment for women with early-stage breast cancer who have undergone breast-conserving surgery. However, it has never been clear how much tissue surrounding the tumor bed needs to be irradiated, and whole-breast radiation therapy has been associated with both acute and chronic toxicity.

People with short telomeres, as measured in white blood cells, appear to be at an increased risk for certain cancers, according to a study in the August 20 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study found that, compared with people with longer telomeres, people with shorter telomeres had a higher risk for bladder, head and neck, lung, and renal cell cancers–cancers that are associated with cigarette smoking.

Researchers report that the rigorously high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet known as the ketogenic diet, shown to reduce or eliminate difficult-to-control seizures in children with epilepsy, significantly raised children’s cholesterol and levels of lipids and lipoproteins in the blood.

There’s a lot said about a woman’s ticking biological clock, but male biology doesn’t age as gracefully as men might like to think. By analyzing sperm from men of various ages, scientists from the McKusick-Nathans Institute for Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins have discovered that older men’s sperm is more likely to contain disease-causing genetic mutations that also seem to increase a sperm’s chances of fertilizing an egg. The findings, which appear in the advance online section of the American Journal of Human Genetics, emerged during efforts to explain why a rare genetic disease is more common in children born to older fathers.

Women who take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or aspirin during pregnancy increase their risk of miscarriage by 80 per cent, finds a study in this week’s BMJ. Researchers in California interviewed 1,055 pregnant women immediately after their pregnancy was confirmed. They asked the women about their drug use since they became pregnant, their reproductive history, known or potential risk factors for miscarriage, and sociodemographic characteristics. They found that use of NSAIDs during pregnancy increased the risk of miscarriage by 80%.