Women's annual breast exams could be improved by adding ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to the usual mammogram, according to a U.S. study released Wednesday.

The research, published in the April 4 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that those two technologies helped spot small cancers that mammograms had missed.

Chinese women who ate cabbage, broccoli and leafy greens saw improved survival rates after breast cancer than women who did not eat these cruciferous vegetables, said a U.S. study Wednesday.

The findings came from data on 4,886 Chinese breast cancer survivors age 20-75 who were diagnosed with stage one to stage four breast cancer from 2002 to 2006 and who were part of the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival study.

Gene scans for everyone? Not so fast. New research suggests that for the average person, decoding your own DNA may not turn out to be a really useful crystal ball for future health.

Today, scientists map entire genomes mostly for research, as they study which genetic mutations play a role in different diseases. Or they use it to try to diagnose mystery illnesses that plague families. It's different from getting a genetic test to see if you carry, say, a particular cancer-causing gene.

For years, women have been urged to get screened for breast cancer because the earlier it's found the better. Now researchers are reporting more evidence suggesting that's not always the case.

A study in Norway estimates that between 15 and 25 percent of breast cancers found by mammograms wouldn't have caused any problems during a woman's lifetime, but these tumors were being treated anyway. Once detected, early tumors are surgically removed and sometimes treated with radiation or chemotherapy because there's no certain way to figure out which ones may be dangerous and which are harmless.

A simple low-cost silicon ring can slash the risk of premature birth, a major cause of death in newborns and health problems in adult life, according to a trial reported on Tuesday by The Lancet.

Spanish doctors tested the 38 euro ($49.50) device, known as a pessary, on women in their last three months of pregnancy who had cervical shortening, a condition that weakens the pelvic floor and leads to pre-term birth.

The author of a paper on a mutant bird flu strain said that experts agreed to publish it only after he explained that the virus was "much less lethal" than previously feared, the Agence France Presse said Tuesday.

A panel of US science and security experts on Friday said two papers on mutant viruses should be published after all, reversing its earlier decision to withhold key details.

New research suggests that long-term use of any type of hormones to ease menopause symptoms can raise a woman's risk of breast cancer.

It is already known that taking pills that combine estrogen and progestins — the most common type of hormone therapy — can increase breast cancer risk. But women who no longer have a uterus can take estrogen alone, which was thought to be safe and possibly even slightly beneficial in terms of cancer risk.

An Italian hospital director on Monday blamed French industrial gas giant Air Liquide for an accident in an assisted reproduction lab last week that destroyed 94 embryos frozen in liquid nitrogen, the Agence France Presse said Monday.

A U.S. study published Monday showed that skin cancer is on the rise among young adults, suggesting that indoor tanning beds and childhood sunburns may be to blame, the Agence France Presse said Monday.

The rate of melanoma between 1970 and 2009 increased eightfold among women and quadrupled among men, according to the research by Mayo Clinic experts who studied all medical records for a county in Minnesota over that time span.

U.S. regulators on Friday rejected an appeal by environmental groups to ban an industrial chemical known as bisphenol-A, saying there was not enough scientific evidence of harm in humans.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) however said its latest ruling on the petition brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) was not the final word and expressed support for further research on the safety of BPA.