Thread: Virus may be cause of some prostate cancer

Virus may be cause of some prostate cancer

Virus found in 27 percent of aggressive tumors, researchers found

updated 1:10 p.m. PT, Mon., Sept . 7, 2009

WASHINGTON - A virus known to cause leukemia and tumors in animals can be found in some prostate tumors and might be one cause of prostate cancer, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

They found xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus or XMRV in 27 percent of the human prostate tumors they looked at, especially aggressive tumors.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may offer ways to better identify dangerous prostate tumors and to make drugs or vaccines to treat or even prevent prostate cancer.

"Our analysis of 233 cases of prostate cancers and 101 benign controls showed an association of XMRV infection with prostate cancer, especially with more aggressive tumors," Dr. Ila Singh of the University of Utah and Columbia University in New York and colleagues wrote.

Viruses have recently been found to cause some cancers — notably the human papillomavirus or HPV that causes cervical cancer and some cases of penile, anal and head and neck cancers.

Merck and Co. and GlaxoSmithKline now make vaccines to prevent HPV infections.

The market for a vaccine to prevent prostate cancer or for better drugs to treat it could be enormous. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide after lung cancer, killing 254,000 men a year globally.

1 in 6 at risk for prostate cancer

"The lifetime risk for developing prostate cancer is one in six in the United States, and globally, 3 percent of men die of prostate cancer," Singh's team wrote.

The researchers were scanning for genetic material from any viruses in prostate tumors.

"We found that XMRV was present in 27 percent of prostate cancers we examined and that it was associated with more aggressive tumors," Singh said in a statement.

"We still don't know that this virus causes cancer in people, but that is an important question we're going to investigate."

XMRV is a retrovirus, a kind of virus that inserts its genetic map into the cells it infects.

This act alone can kill a cell or turn it cancerous by affecting its genes. Singh said she was looking to see if this might be going on with XMRV.

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"Is the virus associated with cancers in tissues other than the prostate or in gynecologic malignancies? How is XMRV transmitted? These are all intriguing questions that deserve further exploration," the researchers wrote in their report.

Just last month, U.S. researches estimated that 1 million U.S. men had been diagnosed and treated for tumors that would never have harmed them.

"Many cases of prostate cancer are unlikely to manifest themselves during the patient's lifetime. There is a clear need for better markers to detect cancers that pose a significant health threat and to specifically target these for therapy," Singh's team wrote.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32725334/ns/health-cancer/

Personally before getting any vaccine and/or modern western medicine medical treatment for Cancer I would check myself into The Kushi Institute and/or The Gersen Institute. They are both excellent places and they use a holistic approach to healing and health. They offer prevention classes and/or services as well as treating people at even the last stages of various Cancer. And they have a very high success rate.

Good books to read about Cancer are as follows: An Oasis of Healing by Dr. Lodi MD. Treat Patients with Diet by Max Gersen. The China Study by T. Colin Cambell. The Cancer Prevention diet by Michio Kushi. Recovery from Cancer by Elaine Nussbaum

they found xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus or XMRV in 27 percent of the human prostate tumors they looked at, especially aggressive tumors. the findings, published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences, may offer ways to better identify dangerous prostate tumors and to make drugs or vaccines to treat or even prevent prostate cancer.


prostate cancer

Welcome, marvin-r!
My dad passed in 2002 from this, but he lived for a long time after he was diagnosed. After the diagnosis in 1996, the doctors tried chemo, which made him extremely ill. He basically told them to stuff it and never went back for the next round of chemo, and spent years feeling good.