A study presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Boston suggests that women who ate soy regularly as children have a lower risk of breast cancer. The study does not make it clear for how eating soy prevents cancer, but suggests that timing of soy intake may be critical in lowering breast cancer risk.

Dr. Larissa Korde of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues at the University of Hawaii studied 597 Asian-American women with breast cancer and 966 women without the disease

A new study by researchers from the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center in Warsaw, Poland, has found that for every 17 men, age 50 to 54, screened for colon cancer, one has a fair chance of having the disease. The study conducted on more than 50,000 volunteers found that the rate of advanced neoplasia, the formation of actual tumors and large growths that could lead to cancer, was 73 percent higher for men than women regardless of age.

Researchers used data from a national colon cancer screening program launched in 2000, and found that 5.9 percent of the volunteers aged 50 to 66, and 3.4 percent of the participants aged 40 to 49 had the advanced neoplasia. All the participants had a family history of the disease

The Food and Drug Administration approved Vectibix (panitumumab) for patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to other parts of the body following chemotherapy.

Vectibix is a monoclonal antibody that binds to a protein called epidermal growth factor receptor or EGFR on some cancer cells.

The FDA said in a statement that the drug received an accelerated approval after showing effectiveness in slowing tumor growth and, in some cases, reducing the size of the tumor

Two separate studies published in the September 27 issue of "The Journal of the American Medical Association" (JAMA) indicate that new prediction models may help researchers identify the risk of gene mutations that are associated with colorectal cancer.

These latest findings have helped form the rules of prediction to provide tools for clinicians, physicians, and patients in determining their hereditary risk and to provide the possibility of useful preventative evaluations and applications

A recommendation by Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) ethics and law committee will allow British women with inherited forms of breast cancer to select embryos free from genes that can cause the disease, according to a report in the Times on Tuesday.

The proposal will be approved on Wednesday by the government's fertility watchdog, the report said