Tagged: Cancer

Angelina Jolie just became part of a medical trend: More women are deciding to have their breasts removed to reduce the risk of cancer.

Over the past decade, doctors have noticed a big increase in the number of women choosing prophylactic, or preventive, mastectomies.

Some, like Jolie, have a genetic mutation that makes it much more likely that they will have breast cancer. Her mother died of the disease at age 56. Jolie is 37. She wrote about her decision in The New York Times.

Saying she is "writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience," actress Angelina Jolie reveals on the op-ed pages of The New York Times that she had a double mastectomy earlier this year to substantially reduce the chances she will develop breast cancer.

  The private foundation that’s given financial support to the state’s troubled cancer-fighting agency says it’s shutting down.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas – known as CPRIT – has its own problems. The agency is being investigated for its handling of some taxpayer-funded grants.

On Tuesday, though, it was the private foundation formed to supplement the salaries of CPRIT’s top executives that brought the wrath of state lawmakers.

The Cancer Research and Prevention Institute of Texas, known as CPRIT, is moving forward with its oversight committee’s grant-vetting process.

That’s despite a lockout by the state legislature that’s holding up nearly $182 million in funding to cancer-fighting organizations.

The institute’s interim executive director, Wayne Roberts, said CPRIT will keep moving ahead with reviewing nearly 300 grants, with hope that the state will lift the allocation ban.

The state’s cancer research agency has revealed it handed out an $11 million grant without reviewing the proposal.

It’s the latest challenge facing the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, or CPRIT.

The grant was awarded to Peloton Therapeutics in June 2010, making it one of CPRIT's first grants.

The cancer research institute says the oversight was discovered during an internal review.

The head of the state’s $3 billion cancer fighting agency sought to reassure some of its biggest supporters today after a recent wave of resignations at the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas. CPRIT’s executive director Bill Gimson delivered an opening address at a three-day conference that started today in northwest Austin.

It was Gimson’s first public speech since 33 scientific peer reviewers resigned in protest over funding decisions and accusations of favoritism. Gimson acknowledged the setback but defended the agency’s process.

“It’s my promise that CPRIT will maintain that gold-standard peer review process, always pick the very, very best game changing projects, do our best to get life-saving products to Texas cancer patients as quickly as possible,” Gimson said from the podium.