This first Check Up is about the resurgence of cancer once the disease has been controlled by treatment. Do these terms used to talk about this problem mean the same thing?

Relapse, recurrence, recidivation. These words all mean the same thing in general terms: the disease is back.

However, there are differences between them when it comes to their clinical and medical meaning, which many people are not aware of.

Among neurological disorders, which are now the world’s leading cause of disability, Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the fastest growing. With over 6 million individuals affected worldwide, that number is expected to reach over 12 million by 2040.

The team, headed by Manuel Valiente from CNIO, which counts with the contributions of scientists from other Research Centres, namely the Champalimaud Foundation, found that a simple blood test can help detect patients with resistance to brain radiotherapy and identified a drug that might reverse it. A multi-centre clinical study is now under way to validate the predictive potential of this biomarker through the National Brain Metastasis Network (Spanish acronym: RENACER).

The study is being published in Nature Medicine this week.

Rita Fior uses zebrafish to do basic and translational research in cancer at the Champalimaud Foundation. A few years ago, having to deal with cancer in her family led her to design a test, based on her animal “model” – that would allow doctors to choose, among the available chemotherapeutic options, the best one for a given patient. How? Using the little zebrafish as “avatars”, as personalised “alter-egos” of the patients. Tumour cells from a patient are injected in the fish, generating the “avatars'' that will then be submitted to the treatment options available for that patient.

Interview with Oriol Parés and Bill Heald

Zoom-In on Champalimaud: João Lourenço

I graduated in Medicine in 2001, a Radiology specialist since 2006, and I have been working in the Imaging Department of the Champalimaud Clinical Centre for about five years. I perform diagnostic exams such as ultrasound, CT and MRI, image-guided biopsies and drainage procedures, as well as advise colleagues from other specialties. I am also involved, as a Radiologist, in several ongoing research projects and clinical trials.

Interview with Amjad Parvaiz

As a young man, Amjad Parvaiz, now 54, wanted to become a “big trauma surgeon”. So after graduating from university in his home city of Lahore, in Pakistan, he moved to South Africa to do his trauma surgery training there. While in South Africa, in 1995, he says, “one of my bosses took me aside and said to me: ‘if you want to do 21st century surgery, go and learn laparoscopy.

We've all been there… Trying to reach an actual person when calling customer support, getting a baby to fall asleep, looking for something good to watch on TV… At some point, you invariably find yourself wondering -- do my actions actually make a difference? 

Interview with Paulo Fidalgo

Paulo Fidalgo, 66, says that he has “two loves” at the Champalimaud Foundation: gastroenterology and oncological risk assessment. So it does not come as a surprise that he is both a gastroenterologist in the Digestive Unit of the Champalimaud Clinical Centre and the head of the Risk Assessment and Early Diagnosis Programme at this Centre.