Research suggests that children with average risk medulloblastoma can receive radiation to a smaller volume of the brain at the end of a six-week course of treatment and still maintain the same disease control as those receiving radiation to a larger area. But the dose of preventive radiation treatments given to the whole brain and spine over the six-week regimen cannot be reduced without reducing survival.

A new treatment has potential to improve the outcomes for patients with hereditary BRCA mutations and high-risk, early-stage breast cancer. These results represent the first time a PARP inhibitor has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer returning in high-risk patients following completion of standard chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy.

Nano-sized particles have been engineered in a new way to improve detection of tumors within the body and in biopsy tissue, a research team reports. The advance could enable identifying early stage tumors with lower doses of radiation.

Although sun radiation was relatively low, the temperature on the young Earth was warm. An international team of geoscientists has found important clues that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were responsible for these high temperatures. It only got cooler with the beginning of plate tectonics, as the CO2 was gradually captured and stored on the emerging continents.

A small drug molecule that appears to protect normal tissue from the damaging effects of radiation, may simultaneously be able to boost the cancer-killing effect of radiation therapy, according to a new study.

Researchers utilized genomic tools to investigate potential health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, a known carcinogen, as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl accident. One study found no evidence that genetic changes associated with radiation exposure are passed to children, while the second study documented the genetic changes in the tumors of people who developed thyroid cancer after being exposed as children or fetuses to the radiation released by the accident. Findings are being published close to the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

New data suggests that an oral drug currently used in the clinical setting to treat neuromuscular diseases could also help prevent a common form of skin cancer caused by damage from ultraviolet-B radiation from the sun.

Will there soon be packaging in the supermarket made with biowaste from local cideries or agricultural film with coffee grounds? At the Institute for Biopolymers and Sustainability at Hof University (ibp) a junior research group wants to explore the influence of natural radiation and biogenic residues on the properties and structure of biopolymers. This could make these bioplastics interesting for a sustainable product economy in the future. Among other things, biowaste from the food industry and forestry is to be used in bioplastic blends and thus fed into a natural reuse.

A radioactive bone cement that’s injected into bone to provide support and local irradiation is proving to be a safer alternative to conventional radiation therapy for bone tumors, according to a new study.

Exposure to radiation can wreak indiscriminate havoc on cells, tissues, and organs. Curiously, however, some tissues are more vulnerable to radiation damage than others. A new study now finds that cellular survival after radiation exposure depends on behavior of the tumor-suppressor protein p53 over time. In vulnerable tissues, p53 levels go up and remain high, leading to cell death. In tissues that tend to survive radiation damage, p53 levels oscillate up and down.