Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010, health experts warned today.

Rising tobacco use in developing countries is believed to be the main reason for the shift, particularly in China and India, where 40 per cent of the world's smokers now live.

According to the new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), cancer diagnoses around the world have been rising steadily and are expected to hit 12million this year. Read the Daily Mail story.

Australia's breakthrough cancer vaccine has been given the all-clear in a follow-up study of schoolgirls who fell ill after being injected with Gardasil.

The study took in 25 young women who were reported to immunisation authorities as suffering from a "suspected hypersensitivity" reaction during the national roll-out of the cervical cancer vaccine. After a range of skin-prick and injection tests, only one young woman went on to develop a case of possibly unrelated hives when re-exposed to the vaccine. Read The Australian story.

A review has been ordered of cancer equipment in all South Australian public and private hospitals in light of another treatment mistake.

Children getting cancer treatment have received overdoses of chemotherapy at Adelaide's Women's and Children's Hospital (WCH). Earlier in the year, it was revealed that almost 900 patients had been affected by an under-dosing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH). Read The Australian story.

Labor and Coalition senators have co-operated again to block attempts to rein in promotion of three big triggers of ills in the community - gambling, alcohol and junk food.

The Senate's Community Affairs Committee majority has knocked back proposed legislation to curb junk food advertising, despite appeals for action from health groups but in the face of intense lobbying from the food and advertising industries. Read the Sydney Morning Herald Story. 

PRIVATE Melbourne company has backed down on forcing South Australian women to use its services for a breast cancer test.

Genetic Technologies holds the patent for a test for BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which increase the chances of breast cancer. Until recently they allowed laboratories at Flinders Medical Centre and the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Sciences to perform the test. Read the Advertiser story.

GIVING the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil to boys will help wipe out the cancer-causing human papilloma virus, the vaccine's inventor says.

Gardasil works by vaccinating against HPV, which has been found to cause cancers of the cervix, penis, anus, mouth and throat. The vaccine's creator, Professor Ian Frazer, said today that trials had shown Gardasil was effective in treating boys.

"There are three reasons to vaccinate the boys. One is to prevent them getting the diseases caused by these viruses, including warts and cancer," he said. Read the Advertiser story.

Human trials of a world-first skin cancer vaccine could start as early as next year. Professor Ian Frazer, who developed the vaccine for cervical cancer, is due to outline his latest skin cancer breakthrough at the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress in Brisbane tomorrow.

The former Australian of the Year will tell the conference the skin cancer vaccine has been successful in animal testing and it could be available to the public within five to 10 years. Read the ABC Online story.

Melbourne scientists hope that a world-first combination drug therapy will revolutionise the treatment of cancer.

Scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research have found that drug-resistant melanoma and colon cancer cells can be successfully treated using a combination of two new drugs. Using mice, scientists combined a cancer inhibitor — a drug that slows the growth of cancer cells — with a drug that harnesses the body's cell-killing machinery to induce the death of the cancer cells. Read The Age story.

A terminally ill woman has won more than $400,000 in damages after routine breast screening failed to detect her cancer.

Christine O'Gorman, 57, whose breast cancer spread to her brain and lungs, sued the Sydney South West Area Health Service for damages and future economic loss after its BreastScreen Service, run out of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, allegedly failed to detect the cancer in her left breast during screenings in 2004 and 2006. Read the Sydney Morning Herald story.