Shorter courses of radiation therapy may be in order for women with early-stage breast cancer. And the largest study to test this suggests the abbreviated treatment time in no way affects risk of recurrence.

Often, the greatest hassle of radiation is getting to and from appointments, every weekday, for many weeks. With less frequent visits, life could get a whole lot easier.

Dr. John Dewar of the University of Dundee in Scotland led a two-part study of nearly 4,500 women in the United Kingdom to test courses of radiation and found five years later that cancer recurrences were low -- about two to five percent -- for women who received both longer and shorter durations of therapy. There were so few recurrences -- 158 -- that doctors believe the treatments are equivalent. They just can't say this with certainty yet.

This is great news for patients traveling great distances to their treatment facilities. Other benefits of shorter radiation timelines are less swelling and shrinkage of breast tissue and less enlargement of blood vessels.

Testicular cancer, cancer in one or both of the testicles, usually occurs in young men and will strike about 8,250 of these men this year. About 370 men will die.

A man's lifetime risk of developing this cancer -- that typically shows up in only one testicle -- is 1 in 300, securing it as one of the less common cancers in the United States. The chances of dying from testicular cancer are 1 in 5,000, making it one of the most curable forms of cancer. Yet it is still the most common form of cancer in men ages 15-34. It is also a cancer commonly characterized by denial and embarrassment. As a result, it is one of the least mentioned cancers.

About ten years ago, Oregon State University researchers took an interest in hops. In particular, the flavonoid compound xanthohumol found in hops. Although xanthohumol was first discovered almost 100 years ago, no one was aware of the possible health benefits of the compound. In the last ten years, Fred Stevens, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry in OSU's College of Pharmacy, as well as a Linus Pauling Institute researcher -- with a team of researchers -- have been able to determine that hops might be effective in the prevention of cancer. In the latest published research paper, the researchers are stating that beer looks promising in prostate cancer prevention and prevention of prostate enlargement. Before you get excited at the prospect that drinking beer is cancer prevention, according to the research, you would need to drink more than 17 beers to consume the same amount used in the study. Or you could travel to Germany.

There is a microbrewed beer manufactured and distributed in Germany that is xanthohumol-enhanced, and contains ten times the normal amount of the compound found in regular beer. The beer is not available outside of Germany. Researchers think that a drug containing a highly concentrated amount of xanthohumol might be an effective treatment for cancers in the future.