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OUTSMARTING CANCER: The number of cases of ovarian cancer could be reduced if more at-risk women were offered pre-emptive surgery, experts have said. 

Surgery to remove the ovaries and fallopian tubes is the “best method” for preventing ovarian cancer among women deemed to be at high risk of getting the disease.

At present, only those deemed to have a 10% risk, or higher, are eligible for an operation.

But if those aged over 40 who have a 4% chance of getting ovarian cancer in their lifetime were offered the surgery there would be a decrease in the number of women with the disease, a team of UK researchers said.

The new study is published in the Journal of Medical Genetics.

BRAIN BOOSTER: Allowing children time away from classrooms to exercise and run around boosts their brain power, a team of international experts has said.

A consensus statement signed by 24 researchers from eight countries, says exercise is vital to children’s physical and mental health and improves academic results.

Published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the statement says “time taken away from academic lessons in favour of physical activity has been shown to not come at the cost of scholastic performance”.

Just a single session of moderate exercise has been shown to benefit brain function, cognition and academic performance in children.

LIQUID ENGINEERING: A truly soluble aspirin has been hailed as a “potential game-changer” for research into brain cancer.

Brain tumours are hard to treat with many conventional cancer drugs because they struggle to get across the blood-brain barrier.

But the new formulation of true liquid aspirin significantly increases the ability of drugs to cross this protective membrane.

Researchers from the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at the University of Portsmouth conducted a series of tests on glioblastoma cancer cells using the new formula.

Their findings, which are to be presented to the Brain Tumours 2016 conference in Warsaw, Poland, suggest the solution could be “highly effective” against glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain tumour.