UK researchers have developed a 3D laboratory model of human breast cancer, specifically ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The model, complete with normal cells and tumor cells, should help experts understand how the disease develops in its early stages, and it could replace the need for experiments in animals.

About one in five breast cancers in the UK start out as DCIS. Researchers wanted to learn more about how the early cancerous changes in cells develop into larger tumors, and they chose to fashion a 3D test tube model because it is more complex than a layer of cells in a Petri dish.

Once this experiment is proved successful, it could reduce and perhaps replace animal studies.

"With breast cancer, there is an urgent need to move away from animal research models because their similarity to human cancer can be so poor," says one expert who explains this model could help revolutionize breast cancer research -- because unreliable research costs time, money, and lives, both animal and human lives.

When Dr. Jian-Wei Gu went to Mississippi to study the cardiovascular system and the process of blood vessel growth, he had no idea he'd make national headlines about his research into the world of cancer.

Gu, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, says his discovery of the mechanism by which alcohol consumption causes tumor growth was purely accidental.

And extremely significant.

Scientists have known for a hundred years about the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. A study from Paris in 1910 showed that 80 percent of patients with cancer of the esophagus or gastric track were alcoholics. More recently, scientists have found correlations between alcohol consumption and cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, large bowel, and even the breasts. Yet lab experiments have always failed to show the effects in animals that investigators knew to be true in humans.

Until now.

It seems past studies used too much alcohol -- in concentrations of 20 percent -- and the animals just wasted away while showing no tumor growth. But when Gu used concentrations of one percent -- about one to two drinks per day in humans -- to study blood vessel growth, he detected stimulated tumor growth in both chick embryos and mice. Thus, his cancer discovery was born.

Gu has further concluded that melanoma cancers in mice grew significantly faster and larger in the mice who consumed the equivalent of one or two alcoholic drinks a day than the mice receiving no alcohol.

Gu's findings, now confirmed by other scientists, are evidence of what many have long suspected -- alcohol, even in moderation, increases cancer risk.

Lung cancer tumors in mice are shrinking -- with the help of a hormone important in the control of blood pressure.

This new discovery, led by scientists at Wake University School of Medicine, suggests some drugs used to manage blood pressure might also prevent or treat lung cancer.

This all came about when it was noticed that lung cancer rates were lower among those treated for high blood pressure with angiotensin-converting enzyme, or ACE, inhibitors. These drugs, including Capoten and Lotensin, increase levels of angiotensin-(1-7) in the bloodstream.

In studies, the angiotensin-(1-7) hormone caused a 30 percent decrease in tumor volume in mice. Tumors in mice not treated with the hormone more than doubled.

This study, published in the journal Cancer Research, is the first demonstration of the effect in animals.

Environmental groups claim some children's bath products contain a suspected cancer-causing chemical in amounts that reach or exceed safe limits. The chemical in question -- 1,4-dioxane -- is found in products made by companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Disney, Kimberly-Clark, and Gerber, says David Steinman, head of the environmental publishing company Freedom Press.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls this chemical, already known to cause cancer in animals, a probable human carcinogen. But there is no real regulation on the petroleum-derived chemical and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only recommends cosmetic companies limit the concentration of 1,4-dioxane to 10 parts per million (ppm).

Studies show Johnson's Kids Shampoo Watermelon Explosion contains the maximum recommended level of 10 ppm. They also reveal that Kid Care's Hello Kitty Bubble Bath contains 12.3 ppm of the chemical. And two adult shampoos have been found to have twice the recommended level of this chemical that is typically a manufacturing by-product.

It's been reported that nearly 57 percent of all baby soaps contain 1,4-dioxane. But Iris Grossman, director of communications at Johnson and Johnson, stresses that all of her products are within FDA limits.

Cancer is not the only risky link to children's bath products. It seems these items are also linked to early puberty development. And this is concerning because a fast-paced growth rate combined with children's porous skin increases susceptibility to toxins that can enter the bloodstream. One breast cancer expert says an increase in breast cancer risk is linked to toxic exposures during the formative years of life.

I took my boys yesterday for a tour of the University of Florida's Department of Entomology and Nematology. Translation for these little boys -- ages five and three -- involves one simple word. Bugs. They love bugs, hunt for bugs, capture bugs, and reluctantly set them free because I coax them into allowing these itty bitty creatures to continue living with their "mommies and daddies." I have a soft spot for all living beings -- bugs included.

We learned some crazy facts about bugs yesterday -- insects is the proper term really. We learned there is one cockroach that can live for seven days without its head. We learned there are two types of Madagascar cockroaches living in a lab in the very same building we visited that if set free, would reproduce so quickly they would become a major pest problem in the state of Florida. And we learned that of all animals on this planet, most are insects. But not only did we learn some crazy facts, we -- well, Joey -- shared a crazy fact too.

Joey is five years old. He is the boy who remembers much of my breast cancer journey. He is the one who helped shave my head, the one who thought a banana would make my sick tummy feel better. He's the one who would blurt out to people we never knew very well, "My mommy is bald," the one who asked me just last night if the metal thing -- my port -- was still in my chest. When I told him it's gone, he jumped up and announced, "Yeah, it's gone!" Cancer is one of many vocabulary words housed in Joey's brain. And sometimes the word comes up unexpectedly, in strange contexts, in surprising ways. Like today.

Our bug tour guide told us that in Africa, mosquitoes transmit diseases that kill millions of people. But those with sickle cell anemia are immune to the deadly diseases due to their compromised red blood cells that somehow fend off disease. This fact prompted Joey to share with the guide, "Did you know when people have cancer, there are bugs that can kill the cancer?" Our guide listened to this crazy fact and said in a kid-friendly way, "No, I did not know that. Who told you that?" Joey told her, "I don't remember but someone told me."

I am not sure what prompted Joey to make this announcement. Perhaps he was trying to one-up the tour guide, to sound like an expert on one of his favorite subjects. Perhaps his imagination was in overdrive and he blurted out the best story he could offer. Perhaps he jumbled up a story he had heard on the topic of cancer. And perhaps he is just simply hopeful that one day, bugs will help cure cancer. And wouldn't that be nice -- a simple mosquito comes along, pierces the skin, and poof, cancer is gone.

My cancer journey would not be nearly as interesting, as enlightening, as tender if Joey was not along with me for the ride. He keeps me busy and keeps my spirits up. He keeps me grounded and keeps life simple. Best of all -- he keeps me laughing.

The National Cancer Institute started a program about a year-and-a-half ago that allowed pet owners to enroll their dogs in clinical trials when conventional treatment wasn't working. The idea was to stop giving cancer to animals, start trying to help animals who developed cancer naturally, and help humans in the process. The Comparative Oncology Program (COP) is helping change the controversial issue of medical research involving animals.

Dogs develop many of the same kind of cancers that humans develop and cancer in dogs also metastasizes more similar to humans than lab mice. Dogs are also closer in weight to humans and share the same environment. The types of cancer in dogs that could translate into results for humans include osteosarcoma, breast and prostate cancer, colon, melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, head and neck carcinoma, and soft-tissue sarcoma.

Conventional cancer treatments can cost between $4,000 and $7,000 for a dog and sometimes it can be much higher. The COP trials are expected to be very low-cost, or free. Most of the pet owners expense will be for the initial evaluation. Someone whose dog is diagnosed with cancer may be referred by their veterinarian to a local veterinary teaching hospital and if that hospital is a member of the COP consortium and is participating in a clinical trial for that dog's cancer diagnosis, the owner will have the option of enrolling their pet.

The COP Web site features a list of all of the trials sponsored at the various consortium hospitals.

In keeping with the opinion that what we need more of in this world are heartwarming stories, I found one about a cancer patient and the grouchy goose who has become his walking buddy. Bill Lytle will tell you the goose has kept him alive longer than the doctors predicted he would live.

Retirement life started off well enough. After a lifetime of earning a paycheck, Bill Lytle and his wife of 52 years, Myrna, moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Bill became one of the founding members of a walking club called the Lake City Striders in the idyllic northern town. Lytle enjoyed walking.

Then one morning Lytle woke up and discovered his skin had turned bright yellow. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the doctors told Lytle he only had a few months left to enjoy his retirement before life was done. But Lytle, who said he wasn't ready to die, kept walking. This is how he met the goose he named Mr. Waddles. The goose comes when Lytle calls for him and off they walk by the lake. It's not like the goose is a friendly goose. It snaps at everyone else but Lytle. Lytle attributes his walks and relationship with the goose for helping him to move forward each day. Lytle's wife believes the goose knows her husband is sick and has chosen to look after him on his walks. I would have to agree with both of them. Read the complete story of Father Goose here.

In 1994, the first Million Paws Walk was held to benefit the RSPCA of Queensland, Australia. Dr Cam Day, veterinarian, felt a special event involving animals of all types walking together would provide a fun day for pets and their owners and raise much needed funds for the RSPCA. In the first event, five hundred people took their dogs and cats for a stroll around suburban streets, raising almost $10,000 dollars for RSPCA's disadvantaged animals. Participation in the fundraising event has grown each year, with the most interesting entrant to the Million Paws Walk being a sheep raised in suburbia who thought it was a dog.

RSPCA Australia, who works so that animals are treated with the compassion and consideration they deserve, is a non-profit, non-government charity, dedicated to animal welfare and responsible for implementing state animal protection laws. The RSPCA holds the belief that an animal's welfare should be considered in terms of five freedoms: freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury or disease; freedom to express normal behavior; and freedom from fear and distress.

This year, one of the dogs who will be walking in the Milllion Paws Walk is 12-year-old Welsh Springer spaniel, Dylan, who is battling cancer. Bringing him to the walk will be his owner, Denise Mullins. If Dylan and Denise can show up to benefit disadvantaged pets, then the healthy younger dogs have no excuse, now do they. The challenge is on!
The Western Australia Million Paws Walk event takes place on Sunday, April 30 and then one more Million Paws Walk will take place on May 21, 2006. Visit the RSPCA website for locations and details.