WEDNESDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Finnish researchers say they have identified a blood-flow metabolism mismatch that predicts pancreatic cancer aggressiveness.

The investigators used a three-dimensional imaging technique called positron emission tomography (PET) to measure blood flow and glucose consumption -- a measure of general metabolic activity of a tissue -- in 26 people. The researchers noted that blood flow in malignant tumors was 60 percent less than in normal pancreatic tissue.

The findings may help explain why many pancreatic cancer patients have a poor response to radiation treatment and chemotherapy, the study authors noted in their report published Aug. 25 in Clinical Cancer Research.

"Imaging of several of these tumor parameters might be important for the planning and success of [cancer] therapies," study author Dr. Gaber Komar, research fellow at the Turku PET Center, said in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research. "We believe that a better understanding of these mechanisms may help overcome the general treatment resistance of pancreatic cancer."

"This study confirms that blood flow metabolism mismatch exists in pancreatic tumors, similar to other cancers such as breast and lung cancers, and predicts poor patient outcome," Dr. David Mankoff, a professor of radiology, medicine and bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in the news release.

"A blood flow metabolism mismatch by PET appears to be associated with cancer aggressiveness and treatment resistance. We've only recently recognized this pattern as a result of advantages in functional imaging methods," added Mankoff.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about pancreatic cancer  .

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Patients recovering from breast cancer surgery have a greater chance of avoiding a painful and debilitating post-surgery condition if they get a little extra information, a study has found.

Lymphedema is a condition that causes a debilitating swelling of the extremities following breast cancer surgery. Symptoms also include pain, fatigue, numbness and reduced limb mobility. Patients with lymphedema are predisposed to other complications such as fibrosis, cellulitis, infections and septicemia.

About 30 percent of the 2.4 million U.S. breast cancer survivors have developed lymphedema, and all are at risk for the rest of their lives, according to background information in a news release from the New York University Langone Medical Center.

But there are things that patients can do to reduce the risk, including elevating the affected limb to promote fluid drainage, avoiding blood draws and injections in the affected limb and shunning tight clothing, which can aggravate symptoms, experts say.

Those who get additional information about lymphedema reported fewer symptoms and practiced more risk-reducing behaviors, according to a recent study.

"It is important to identify the early warning signs and symptoms of the condition, as well as determine what interventions to take," said study co-author Dr. Deborah Axelrod, an associate professor in the department of surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center and a member of the NYU Cancer Institute, in the news release. "We also enroll patients into ongoing behavior and risk modification trials and work with physical therapists to ensure symptom reduction."

Co-author Mei R. Fu said this is the first study to show that education can reduce risk of lymphedema.

"Nurses can play a leadership role in educating patients about lymphedema and can play a role in improving the quality of life in cancer survivors," Fu, assistant professor in the College of Nursing at New York University, stated in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more information on lymphedema.

TUESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- In a major step towards early diagnosis of oral cancer, researchers have found that saliva contains at least 50 microRNAs that could aid detection.

In the study, U.S. researchers measured microRNA levels in the saliva of 50 people with oral squamous cell carcinoma and 50 healthy people. They identified at least 50 microRNAs that may be associated with oral cancer.

The levels of two of those -- miR-125a and miR-200a -- were significantly lower in the cancer patients than in healthy people, the researchers found.

MicroRNAs are molecules that control activity and assess the behavior of multiple genes, according to background information in a news release about the study from the American Association for Cancer Research.

"The oral cavity is a mirror to systemic health, and many diseases that develop in other parts of the body have an oral manifestation," study author Dr. David T. Wong, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry, said in the news release.

The study findings, published online Aug. 25 in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, need to be confirmed by a larger and longer analysis, Wong said.

"It is a Holy Grail of cancer detection to be able to measure the presence of a cancer without a biopsy, so it is very appealing to think that we could detect a cancer-specific marker in a patient's saliva," Dr. Jennifer Grandis, a professor of otolaryngology and pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Cancer Institute, said in the news release. She is also a senior editor of Clinical Cancer Research.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about oral cancer.

TUESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- The human papillomavirus (HPV) causes about half of penile cancer cases in the world, and giving vaccines to males could greatly reduce the incidence of the disease, a new study suggests.

Penile cancer remains rare, accounting for less than 1 percent of adult male cancers in North America and Europe, but that rate jumps to as high as 10 percent in Africa and Asia, according to Spanish researchers reporting online Aug. 25 in the Journal of Clinical Pathology. More than 26,300 cases of penile cancer are thought to occur around the world each year.

HPV -- best known for its link to cervical cancer in women -- is also thought to cause anal and penile cancers in men. In their study, the Spanish scientists at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona reviewed 31 studies on penile cancer published over the last three decades.

They found that HPV was involved in nearly 47 percent of the 1,466 cases of penile cancer covered by the studies, with nearly 58 percent of the tumors in North American patients linked to the virus. Two strains -- HPV 16 and 18 -- accounted for nearly three-quarters of these HPV-linked cases, the researchers found.

Those two strains are the prime target of the HPV vaccines currently recommended to prevent cervical cancer, and "although penile carcinoma is a rare disease, around 7,000 cases would be prevented annually by the eradication of HPV-16/18," the authors concluded.

More information

Find out more about penile cancer at the American Cancer Society  .