In a survey of 1,600 women only 2.5% cited human papillomavirus as a risk factor for cervical cancer.

Researchers said the results, published in the British Journal of Cancer, were “striking” considering recent publicity over the development of a HPV vaccine.

Experts said the public needed to be better informed before widespread vaccination was introduced.

There are over 100 different types of HPV and they are the most common sexually transmitted disease.

Around 80% of sexually active women can expect to have an HPV infection at some point in their lives.

Two vaccines have been developed – Gardasil and Cervarix – which have been shown to be very effective against the strains most commonly linked with cervical cancer.

In June, government advisors recommended girls aged between 12 and 13 in the UK should be vaccinated against the HPV.

It has also been suggested that HPV testing should play a part in cervical screening.

The disease kills 1,120 women in the UK every year.

New research suggests that a nutrient in red meat, poultry and dairy products may contribute to the development of intestinal polyps, which can lead to colon cancer.

The study, which involved women only, was preliminary, and no one is yet suggesting a change in diet as a result.

However, the research into the nutrient, called choline, could ultimately lead to new dietary recommendations, said Eunyoung Cho, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“There may be some impact,” Cho said. “But this is one study, and it’s hard to make any conclusion based on this study.”

The role played by choline, a nutrient required by the body, has been unclear. Some researchers had thought it might provide protection against colon cancer, which kills an estimated 52,000 people in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease is the second biggest cancer killer in the United States after lung cancer.

In the new study, Cho and colleagues looked at nurses enrolled in a large study. They found more than 39,000 women who were free of colon cancer and then underwent at least one endoscopic examination between 1984 and 2002. Polyps — benign growths that can lead to colon cancer — were found in more than 2,400 of the women.

Women who ate the most choline in their food were 1.45 times more likely to have polyps, the team reported in the Aug. 7 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Having more polyps doesn’t necessarily mean more cancer, and future research will explore whether those who ate the most choline actually developed tumors, Cho said. Studies also need to look into the impact of choline on men.

Why might choline contribute to polyps, and possibly colon cancer, in the first place? The nutrient is a major component of the membranes of cells, Cho said, “and the tumor cell may need choline.”

Currently, health officials recommend that people prevent colon cancer by eating a lot of fiber along with fruits and vegetables. Red meat, meanwhile, is thought to increase risk.

That dietary advice isn’t likely to change even if choline turns out to be a possible villain, said Regina Ziegler, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute, who co-wrote a commentary accompanying the new study. “What they’re finding is consistent” with the recommendations, she said.

As for now, “people shouldn’t run out and start either taking more choline or less choline,” she said.

The Utah Jazz’s Derek Fisher finds himself in a whole new ballgame lately as he helps his 10-month-old daughter, Tatum, fight for her life.

Tatum was diagnosed last week with retinoblastoma, a cancerous tumor in her left eye. Fisher, who was excused from his team to begin dealing with his daughter’s illness, flew his family — his wife Candace, Tatum, and Tatum’s twin brother Drew, to New York on Monday to see a specialist.

Fisher and his wife must decide on a course of treatment for their daughter. Their options are removal of the eye or a combination of surgery and chemotherapy. Their most pressing goal is to save Tatum’s life. They also want to save her eye. And they think in her case, she should be able to keep her eye.

Tatum’s condition was first noticed by her mother who detected an odd reflection of light coming from her eye. The Fishers took her to a few doctors and then a pediatrician at the University of Utah who diagnosed the problem. Brother Drew has no signs of the condition.

Only 350 cases of retinoblastoma are diagnosed in the United States each year. The good news is that 95 to 98 percent of children grow to live a long life.

Fisher is back to playing ball. And when the basketball season ends, he and his wife say they will talk more about their daughter and her disease.

“My wife and I definitely plan to try and help as many people as we can,” Fisher said. “I don’t know how we’ll be able to at this point. If there’s a treatment out there, they should be able to get it. Some people can’t afford to get it. Some people don’t have the resources.”

Those who drink one or two cups of tea daily may have a lower risk of developing two types of skin cancer by 20 to 30 percent. In a study conducted on nearly 2,200 adults, researchers found that tea drinkers had a lower risk of developing squamous cell and basal cell carcinoma, the two most common forms of skin cancer.

The findings were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Tea drinking did not show any effect on the worst skin cancer, melanoma. Still, the findings support the theory that tea antioxidants may limit the damage UV radiation inflicts on the skin, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Judy R. Rees of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

The researchers do warn that it is not okay to bake in the sun and then have a cup of tea afterwards.

The study did not mention what specific types of teas might be more beneficial than others.

Former televangelist Tammy Faye Messner, formerly Tammy Faye Bakker, posted Tuesday on her website (service is currently unavailable) a message about her health.

Messner, 65, reports that doctors have stopped treating her cancer. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996 and announced in 2004 that the disease had spread to her lungs.

“I am down weight-wise to 65 pounds, and look like a scarecrow,” the Charlotte resident shared on her site. “I need God’s miracle to swallow. I look at young people and wish with all my heart for just one day of ‘feeling great.’”

Messner, whose daughter and daughter’s friends are taking care of her while her husband, Roe Messner, is off building churches, went on to write, “the doctors have stopped trying to treat the cancer and so now it’s up to God and my faith. And that’s enough!”

Divorced from Jim Bakker in 1992 while he was serving a sentence for financial fraud, Messner is half of the famous Bakker pair that founded a Christian retreat in Fort Mill, S.C., and built a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire. She also starred on the VH1 reality show Surreal Life and is the author of several books, among them her recent I Will Survive…and You Will Too!

British Royal Prince William is following in his mother’s footsteps as he takes on the role of president for the Royal Marsden Hospital, the first facility in the world dedicated to cancer treatment and research specific to the causes of cancer. Princess Diana’s held the role from June 1989 until her death in August 1997.

William plans to visit the hospital regularly and support its renowned cancer treatment and research work.

The largest comprehensive cancer center in Europe, with partner, The Institute of Cancer Research, this hospital serves more than 40,000 patients from the UK and abroad annually.

“The Royal Marsden does an extraordinary job in treating thousands of cancer patients every year,” said Prince William in a statement. “The standards of care and compassion of its staff are unsurpassed in the world. I am, therefore, delighted and honoured to become president of the Royal Marsden and will do whatever I can to support its innovative and vital work.”

The Prince has already made several trips to the hospital and in December 2005 completed two days of work experience at its children’s unit.

Along with the Royal Marsden Hospital, William is also a patron of homeless charity Centrepoint – another position his mother previously filled.

The American Cancer Society said it was looking for half a million volunteers willing to let researchers watch them for the next 20 years to see if they get cancer.

The aim is to match similar big studies in Europe and Asia that are looking on a large scale for the environmental and lifestyle factors that cause cancer, the second-leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease.

“This type of study involves hundreds of thousands of people, with diverse backgrounds, followed for many years, with collection of biological specimens and assessments of dietary, lifestyle and environmental exposures,” Eugenia Calle, managing director of analytic epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, said in a statement.

“It also requires active follow-up to discover if and when study participants develop cancer.”

The group will recruit men and women between the ages of 30 and 65 who have never been diagnosed with cancer. They will give blood to be tested and answer questionnaires at various times over the next 20 years.

Similar big studies have confirmed the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, shown that obesity increases the risk of several cancers, and linked aspirin use to a lower death rate from colon cancer.

They have also found evidence that defied conventional wisdom, such as the Women’s Health Initiative study that found hormone replacement therapy actually raises the risk of breast cancer, stroke and heart attack.

Movie critic Roger Ebert expects to be back to work at his annual festival for overlooked movies this week. It will be his first public appearance since having cancer surgery last summer — and while some say his appearance may attract the gossip papers, Ebert says, “So what?”

Ebert, 64, will be seen at the ninth annual Overlooked Film Festival, beginning today at the University of Urbana-Champaign, wearing a gauze bandage around his neck. And his mouth will be seen to droop, he says.

This is all because of Ebert’s tracheostomy — it opens an airway through an incision in his windpipe, rendering him speechless — that resulted from his June 16 surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland and a subsequent July 1 surgery to repair a burst blood vessel close to the same site.

On Tuesday, Ebert shared that his cancer began in his salivary gland but then spread to his lower right jaw. As a result, part of his mandible was removed and two surgeries were necessary to reconstruct the area. Both surgeries were unsuccessful, however, and led to unanticipated bleeding.

“The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding,” Ebert, a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, says. “If all goes well, my speech will be restored.”

This cancer survivor, who says we spend too much time hiding illness and is proud to be back in the spotlight, has also co-hosted the Ebert & Roeper television show with fellow Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper since 2000. Film critics and filmmakers have been filling in for Ebert during his recovery.

The FDA was given the okay by their panel of advisors to approve the drug Provenge, an immunotherapy that stimulates the immune system to help fight cancer cells.

The drug is designed for patients with metastatic prostate cancer who stop responding to hormonal therapy. The drug triggers the immune system to recognize a particular protein that is found on about 95 percent of all prostate cancer cells. When the immune system identifies the protein, it attacks the cancer cells.

The drug has shown in two previous trials that it increases survival in patients that have prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.

Britney Spears, fresh out of rehab and back in the spotlight, is explaining why she publicly shaved her head back in February, following a rampage of bizarre behavior.

Here is the so called explanation.

A friend of Spears says the pop star shaved her head as a tribute to her aunt who died from cancer. The pal states Spears was definitely suffering from postpartum depression at the time and the bold hair maneuver was an act of solidarity.

“Britney’s aunt had just died of cancer,” says this friend. “She was feeling very guilty because she hadn’t been there with her, she was overwhelmingly depressed and she shaved her head in solidarity.”