U.N. Adds Hormone Pills to Cancer List-(Yahoo News-29/07/2005)

The U.N.'s cancer research agency added hormone pills to the list of substances that can cause cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer said that based on consistent evidence from studies in recent years, it was reclassifying hormonal menopause therapy from "possibly carcinogenic" to "carcinogenic." The declaration from the World Health Organization's cancer agency, which is widely regarded as the international authority on cancer-causing agents, comes after several recent high-profile studies linking combination hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, to breast cancer.

The analysis, conducted by a panel of 21 scientists, concluded that estrogen and progestin therapy for menopause also slightly increases the risk of endometrial cancer when progestin is taken fewer than 10 days a month. Research has indicated that the chance of a woman developing breast cancer during her lifetime is about 1 in 7. A landmark study used in the U.N. agency's analysis suggested that long-term use of hormones raises the lifetime risk to about 1 in 6.

The cancer research agency also concluded that a common type of birth control pill, taken by about 10 percent of women of reproductive age, increases the risk of more types of cancer than previously thought. Some doctors cautioned that that conclusion was based on studies of higher-dosage pills, and said they wouldn't change their advice to young women. The agency had previously determined that the pill combining estrogen and progestin can cause liver cancer. Now, further research has demonstrated that it also slightly increases the risk of breast and cervical cancer, the agency said. However, the investigation also confirmed that the pill protects against endometrial and ovarian cancers.

"It's a complicated picture," said Vincent Cogliano, head of the agency's department that evaluates the cancer risk of chemicals. "There are still other reasons to take it. Each woman has to discuss it with her doctor and weigh the risks and benefits" for either the contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy. The increased cancer risk from the birth control pill was small and transient, the analysis found. While experts did not dispute the agency's conclusions on hormones for menopause, some were less convinced about the dangers of the birth control pill.

"I think it's flat-out wrong," said Dr. Steven R. Goldstein, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University Medical Center. "Most of the studies were using pills 2 1/2 to four times the dosage that I'm using today in most women. My advice to women is absolutely no different tomorrow than it was yesterday," Goldstein said. "In nonsmokers who have normal blood pressure, I think the benefits outweigh the risk. I think there's good science that they have less ovarian and uterine cancer and I don't think there's good science that they will have more breast cancer, especially in the doses and the way we are using it."

Eugenia Calle, director of analytic epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, was also less convinced on the cancer dangers from the pill. Both she and Goldstein said they believed it was premature to tie it to cervical cancer. "For the breast, there is evidence for a very small increase in risk, but it's transient and goes away as soon as the pill is stopped. And these are used at a time of life when breast cancer rates are very, very low anyway," Calle said, adding that it's unclear whether the studies are revealing a cause of cancer or a promotion of cancer by providing an environment that encourages tumor cells to grow. There are many drugs that can cause cancer, including cancer-fighting chemotherapies, immune-suppressing medications and radiation therapy.

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Combo scanner pinpoints cancer cells-(Yahoo News-26/07/2005)

A new marriage of old technologies is allowing radiologists to look inside the human body all the way down to the molecule. Today, Billings MRI Center will debut a combination PET/CT scanner, a cutting-edge machine that greatly improves clinicians' ability to identify and locate cancer. "Both technologies have been alive since the '70s - just never in this fashion and never together," said Ken Brown, Billings MRI director. The $2 million combination scanner is the first in Montana, Brown said. It is being leased from General Electric in a joint venture between Deaconess Billings Clinic and St. Vincent Healthcare.

It allows radiologists to search for cancer in the human body on the molecular level, and - if they find it - pinpoint what part of the body the cancer is affecting. "It gives the ability to assess cellular metabolism at the molecular level," said Richard Schoessler, a certified nuclear medicine technologist at DBC. The PET, or positron emission tomography, portion of the scanner identifies cancerous cells, which have a higher metabolic rate than do normal cells. Patients are injected with radioactive sugar water before they are scanned. The PET scanner produces an image of the body that shows where that sugar ends up. "Cancer causes cells to steal glucose from other areas of the body," Brown said. "If there is increased activity, it's a good indication of cancer in that area."

The PET scanner can identify cancerous masses as small as 3 to 4 millimeters, Schoessler said. The CT, or computerized tomography, scanner shows radiologists exactly where in the body the cancer is located. A CT scan produces an image of a person's anatomy. "It creates a map of the parts of the patient's body," Schoessler said. With the combination scanner, clinicians superimpose the CT scan onto the PET scan. "Because they're done on the same scanner one after the other without the patient moving, they can be correlated," Schoessler said. Images produced by the machine can be "sliced" on a computer screen like a loaf of bread, providing views from top to bottom, left to right and front to back. The combination scanner is said to be 30 percent more effective at finding cancer than either a PET or a CT scanner by itself. And the combination unit is quicker than older machines. Brown expects to run as many as 30 people a week through the scanner. The first scan is scheduled for today. "This is what they're doing at Mayo (Clinic) and (Johns) Hopkins (University)," he said..

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Lifestyle changes reduce cancer risk-(American Cancer Society-17/07/2005)

Recent studies found that lifestyle changes can dramatically reduce your chances of getting all cancers. The editors at FITNESS Magazine suggest some every day changes that can make a big difference:

Quit smoking. Smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths and 30 percent of cancer deaths overall, says the American Cancer Society. Quitting before age 50 halves your risk of dying in the next 15 years.

Walk for 30 minutes five days a week. This reduces your breast cancer risk by about 20 percent.

Avoid diabetes. It’s been linked to an increased risk of pancreatic, liver and colon cancers. Levels of insulin-like growth factor, which makes cancers grow faster, are higher in people with diabetes.

Get enough vitamin D. New research has shown that adults who get at least 600 units daily have more protection against precancerous colon polyps. Good dietary sources include milk (one cup has 100 IU) and salmon (three and a half ounces contain almost 400 IU). Ask your doctor about taking a multivitamin with vitamin D. Sun exposure for 10 to 15 minutes also prompts your body to produce D.

Know when to get screened. Screening at the right intervals is key to detecting cancer in its early and most treatable stages. For women under 40, crucial tests include a Pap smear (on a schedule that your doctor will determine) and a yearly clinical breast exam. Mammograms should start at age 40, and colon cancer screenings with colonoscopy typically begin at 50. These tests often start earlier in women with a family history of cancer.

Eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily. They’re the best source of a variety of cancer-protective compounds. Deep green and leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli contain folic acid, which helps prevent cancers of the colon, breast and cervix. Vitamin C, found in many fruits, is linked to a reduced risk of cancers of the mouth, larynx, esophagus, lung, breast, pancreas, cervix and rectum. Beta-carotene, contained in many yellow and orange vegetables, protects against cancers of the cervix, ovary, lung, esophagus, larynx, nasal area and mouth. One serving isn’t as much as you may think. Some examples: one-half cup - about one handful - of vegetables, one cup - about two handfuls - of leafy greens, or one piece of fruit.

Curb red meat intake. One recent study found that women who eat about three ounces of red meat daily may increase their risk of colon cancer by 30 percent to 40 percent.

Limit how much alcohol you drink. Even as little as half a glass daily can increase breast cancer risk 30 percent. Alcohol has also been linked to cancers of the esophagus, mouth and colon.

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Dilemma over costly cancer drugs-(Times of India-13/07/2005)

New drugs at over $100,000 a course beyond reach of patients. Newer drugs such as Avastin, Erbitux, Gleevec, Herceptin, Ritumax and Tarceva are among the first in a new wave of drugs that are giving hope to millions of cancer patients by targeted treatment like blocking blood vessels that feed tumours. But they are hundreds of times the cost of older, more toxic cancer drugs. And except Gleevec, the new drugs help most patients only marginally, prolonging life by a few weeks or months.

For now, the high priced drugs are a relatively small part of overall medical spending but doctors warn that the use of super expensive therapies can fuel runaway costs of the healthcare system. Patients may face rationing of care if costs continued to rise. The rising costs will force doctors to make difficult decisions. Should patients be guaranteed access to drugs irrespective of the cost? And should physicians be encouraged to consider costs when deciding on treatment which most US doctors today say they do not do.

Drug companies say that many factors drive the pricing of their drugs, including the high cost of research and development, complex and expensive manufacturing processes and the value the drug provides for patients. As doctors learn to use combinations of new drugs, the therapies will extend the lives of patients.

Aspirin, vitamin E fail in cancer prevention-(USATODAY.com-06/07/2005)

The much-anticipated findings, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, are from the Women's Health Study, the largest and longest trial to compare aspirin or vitamin E to a sugar pill, or placebo. They contradict some earlier, less rigorous studies.For example, some previous studies suggested that aspirin protects against breast and colon cancer, but the Women's Health Study did not find that to be the case. It found only a "marginally statistically significant" reduction in lung cancer cases and deaths among aspirin users.

And some suggested that vitamin E's antioxidant properties could reduce heart disease and cancer risk. Although the new vitamin E data do not show any cancer benefit, the authors report finding about a 25% reduction in heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths in women 65 years and older. In March, Women's Health Study scientists reported that vitamin E was safe but provided no cardiovascular benefit to study participants as a whole.

Low-dose aspirin reduced women's risk of strokes but not heart attacks, researchers also reported in March. Aspirin protected against heart attacks only in those 65 and older. The Women's Health Study involved 39,876 apparently healthy women 45 years and older. Each was randomly assigned to take 100 milligrams of aspirin or a placebo and 600 International Units of vitamin E or a placebo. They took the pills every other day for 10 years.

Julie Buring of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, senior author of the vitamin E and aspirin papers, says only one other randomized trial of the supplement in women has broken down its results by age, and it did not find a cardiovascular benefit in older participants. Buring says she's asking others who've conducted similar trials to analyze their findings by age. "You always need more than one study to know," she says.

The one benefit found in the aspirin/cancer analysis, fewer lung cancer cases and deaths, could have been a result of chance, says lead author Nancy Cook of Brigham and Women's Hospital. Still, Cook says, the study's findings don't necessarily rule out that a larger, daily aspirin dose protects against cancer. A standard aspirin tablet contains 325 milligrams, while a so-called baby aspirin, taken to protect against heart attack or stroke, contains 81 milligrams. Charles Fuchs of Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute called the new study "very well performed." But three other trials comparing 81 milligrams to 325 milligrams of aspirin a day to a placebo all found a reduced risk of pre-cancerous colon polyps, Fuchs said, adding that another lengthy trial randomly assigning women to aspirin or a placebo is needed to clarify the role of a larger dose in cancer prevention.

Meanwhile, many methods proven to reduce cancer risk, such as quitting smoking or colon cancer screening, are underused, says American Cancer Society epidemiologist Eric Jacobs, co-author of an accompanying editorial.Jacobs co-authored a study out today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that found men who regularly used aspirin or other anti-inflammatory pain-relievers for five years were 18% less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who didn't use such drugs

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US REVIEW BOARD BELIEVES CHEMICAL USED IN TEFLON CAUSES CANCER-(Asia Pulse 04/07/2005)

Non-stick cookware material Teflon has once again landed in the spotlight after a US independent review board said they believe a chemical used in making it poses more of a cancer risk than previously indicated. But DuPont, the US-based chemical giant that manufactures Teflon, denied exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) could pose a health risk to the public.

In a draft report released earlier this week, an advisory board that reviewed the US Environmental Protection Agency's report concluded that PFOA is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans. The draft was based on tests conducted on animals, and the advisory board recommended the US EPA conduct further testing.

But a statement released by DuPont said that the company is conducting an employee health study on PFOA and that partial results indicate no association between PFOA exposure and most of the health parameters that were measured. According to Xu Yang, a public relations official with DuPont's Beijing office, about 5 per cent of Chinese families use non-stick frying pans compared with 95 per cent in the United States.

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Small Cancer Risk from Low-Dose Radiation-(HealthDay News-28/06/2005)

Low doses of ionizing radiation are associated with a slightly increased risk of cancer, according to the largest-ever study of workers in the nuclear industry. French researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyon, looked at data on more than 407,000 nuclear industry workers -- mainly employees working at nuclear power plants, research centers, waste management facilities or fuel, isotopes and weapons production centers. The workers were located in 15 countries, and were tracked for an average of 13 years.

They estimated that a cumulative exposure of 100 millisieverts (mSv) would lead to a 10 percent increased risk of death from all cancers, excluding leukemia, and a 19 percent increased risk of death from leukemia, excluding chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Factors such as age, socioeconomic status and length of employment in the nuclear industry were taken into account. Based on those estimates, the study authors conclude that 1 percent to 2 percent of cancer deaths among the nuclear industry workers in the study may be attributable to radiation. However, the researchers also noted that many of the workers in the study were employed in the early years of the nuclear industry, when radiation doses in the workplace tended to be higher than they are today. Current radiation protection guidelines limit occupational doses to 100 mSv over five years and doses to the public at 1 mSv per year.

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Survey: Many believe cancer myths-(Reuters-28/06/2005)

More than 40 percent of Americans surveyed in a study falsely believed surgery can allow cancer cells to spread through the body, researchers said. And up to a quarter believed there is a drug industry plot to cover up a cure for cancer. The survey, published in the journal Cancer, may mean patients with cancer may fail to get treatment or may fail to stick with it, the researchers said. The telephone survey of 957 adults was designed to represent the general U.S. population, said the researchers, led by Dr. Ted Gansler of the American Cancer Society

"The most prevalent misconception, 'Treating cancer with surgery can cause it to spread throughout the body,' was endorsed as true by 41 percent of the respondents," the researchers wrote in their report. "The second most prevalent misconception, 'The medical industry is withholding a cure for cancer from the public in order to increase profits,' was identified as true by 27 percent."

But most people -- 68 percent -- correctly rejected the idea that pain medications are ineffective against cancer pain and 89 percent knew it takes more than a positive attitude to treat cancer. Eighty-seven percent knew there were effective treatments for cancer. More than 60 percent of cancer patients are still alive 5 years later. The results show that the American public is significantly ill-informed about cancer, and that most people overestimate how much they know about the disease, the researchers said. Only 25 percent of those surveyed correctly identified all five misconceptions as false. The survey fits in with others recently done about what people know about cancer.

People who were 65 or older, of non-white race and those who admitted they knew little about cancer were more likely to get the answers wrong, the researchers said. The findings may help explain why some groups are more likely to die of cancer than others, the researchers said. People who get early screening and prompt treatment for their cancer are more likely to survive.

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Cancer patients find comfort online-(Yahoo News-12/06/2005)

The Web can't answer all questions, but there are many useful sites.

By the time my husband came home, my mind was humming with cancer trivia, possibly true, possibly false: Smoking or taking the pill could have protected me! This could spread to my brain! I had eaten every morsel of cheese and chocolate in the apartment. After I calmed down, I tried to take a reporterly approach to online cancer research.

Here’s what I found:

• Even rock-hard facts may not bring calm. There is no evidence, on the Web or elsewhere, that my cancer has environmental causes. My family is getting the soil from the vegetable garden tested anyway.
• Material aimed at the pros only increased my anxiety. The patient information on the National Cancer Institute’s Web site was helpful; the “health professionals” version gave me a new list of worries.
• Don’t surf for cancer information when you’re feeling rotten, since what you find is unlikely to improve your mood. Likewise, don’t surf at work.

You may find, as I did, that the Web can’t answer some of your most important questions. That may be because you’re reading a useless Web site, or it may be because there is no answer.

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Saving Fertility When Cancer Strikes-(Yahoo News-11/06/2005)

More and more people are surviving cancer, and many may want to preserve their fertility in the wake of cancer treatments. That’s the topic of a new report from the ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “Cancer treatment often results in reduced fertility,” according to the committee’s report, published in June’s issue of Fertility and Sterility. However, reproductive technology may help preserve fertility if cancer treatment brings unavoidable damage to the reproductive organs. For instance, when cyclist Lance Armstrong learned in 1996 that he had testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain, he banked his sperm before treatment in the hopes of having children later on. He and his former wife, Kristin, now have a son and twin girls conceived through in vitro fertilization from those sperm.

Some techniques — like freezing sperm and embryos — are well established, while other methods (like freezing unfertilized eggs and ovarian tissue) are still experimental, says the committee.

Committee’s Statement

The report makes seven main points:
—Doctors should tell cancer patients before treatment about options for fertility preservation and future reproduction.
—Sperm cryopreservation in men and embryo cryopreservation in women are the only established methods of fertility preservation.
—Experimental procedures, such as egg or ovarian tissue cryopreservation, should only be offered in an appropriate research setting.
—Concerns about the welfare of resulting offspring should not be cause for denying cancer patients assistance in reproducing.
—Parents may act to preserve the fertility of cancer patients who are minors if the child assents and the intervention is likely to provide net benefits to the child.
—Precise instructions should be given about the disposition of stored gametes, embryos, or gonadal tissue in the event of the patient’s death, unavailability, or other contingency.
—Preimplantation genetic diagnosis to avoid the birth of offspring with a high risk of inherited cancer is ethically acceptable.

The committee members say they wrote their report as a service to the society’s members and other doctors. However, they say it “is not intended to be the only approved standard of practice or to dictate an exclusive course of treatment in all cases.”

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WHO to Tackle Cancer With Global Effort-(Yahoo News-07/07/2005)

The U.N. health agency promised to increase efforts at prevention and treatment of cancer in developing countries to help them fight a recent rise in deaths from the disease. Poorer countries face more cases of cancer as their populations grow older, the World Health Organization said. The number of worldwide annual cancer deaths has risen to nearly seven million compared to about five million a decade ago. "In a way it is a global cancer epidemic and WHO has taken a stand to accept this as a challenge," said Yasmin Bhurgri, who chaired the first meeting a new cancer committee, which advises WHO chief Lee Jong-wook.

More than three-quarters of annual cancer deaths worldwide are in developing countries, where the number of cases is increasing sharply, partly because people are living longer as states have more success fighting infectious diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis. The WHO expects annual deaths from cancer to increase almost threefold by 2020, to 20 million, as causes of cancer, such as smoking and environmental pollution, spread and populations age. At its initial meeting, the committee concluded that the WHO should make the prevention of cancer and reducing avoidable risk factors such as smoking a top priority, Bhurgri said. Robert Beaglehole, the WHO's chronic diseases chief, admitted that cancer had "so far not been high enough on the priority list of the WHO." He said WHO's 148 member countries would certainly end up spending more money on this issue.

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Risks outweigh benefits of shark cartilage as anti-cancer treatment-(Yahoo News-06/07/2005)

As a treatment for advanced cancer, shark cartilage fails to benefit patients and its adverse effects lead to poor compliance. A clinical trial published in the July 1, 2005 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, finds there was no difference in overall survival or quality of life between patients who received shark cartilage and those who received a placebo. Some experiments have shown that some forms of shark cartilage possess a modest ability to slow the growth of new blood vessels in laboratory cell cultures and in animals, but the effects on humans are not known. Interest in shark cartilage grew after a television news magazine aired a segment in 1993 that showed patients with advanced cancer in Cuba who had gone into remission after being treated with shark cartilage. The results of the study were never published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) later concluded the results of the Cuban study were "incomplete and unimpressive."

Mayo Clinic Oncologist Charles L. Loprinzi, M.D., and his colleagues in the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) designed and conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial to investigate the efficacy associated with shark cartilage as a treatment for breast and colorectal cancer. Toxicity related to shark cartilage resulted in significant trial drop out after one month. There was no suggestion that shark cartilage caused any improvement in overall survival nor any significant improvement in quality of life. In fact, some quality of life measurements tended to worsen among patients treated with shark cartilage. The authors conclude, "shark cartilage did not demonstrate any efficacy in patients with advanced breast or colorectal cancers."

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New Cancer Drugs Fight Tumors Many Ways-(Yahoo News-13/05/2005)

A new generation of experimental cancer drugs is poised to upstage current hotshots by attacking the multiple methods tumors use to grow and spread, instead of just one. These drugs are like a repairman who brings an entire toolbox to a job instead of just a wrench or hammer. They go beyond current favored medicines like Herceptin, Avastin and Iressa, which have impressed scientists for their ability to precisely target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. At a cancer meeting, doctors reported that one of Pfizer's new multitasking drugs shrank tumors in 40 percent of people with advanced kidney cancer. Current treatments do that in only about 1 out of 10 cases

Some patients have been on the experimental drug for more than a year far longer than they'd been expected to live. Kurt Bonham is one. The California accountant was only 49 when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer that had already spread to his lungs. "I'd been given my death sentence," he said. Now, 13 large masses in his lungs have been reduced to specks. "If I can have five more years, I think that they can come up with something fandangled that will either cure the cancer or manage it," he said.

Doctors hope the new generation of cancer drugs will do just that by blocking cancer's multiple pathways, such as cutting off the blood supply to a tumor or jamming the "switchboard" it uses to send messages to grow and spread. The Pfizer drug, so new that it's just called AG-013736 for now, attacks blood supply and one of the switchboard's main lines. Another Pfizer drug, Sutent, also takes this approach. Eleven studies testing it against various cancers will be presented at the meeting, held by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Amgen, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have multitasking drugs in early stages of development. So does Novartis Pharmaceuticals, but its drug, called PTK/ZK, disappointed in a study involving people with advanced colon cancer, doctors reported.

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Measuring Enzymes At End Of Cancer Pathway Predicts Outcome Of Tarceva, Taxol-(Yahoo News-11/06/2005)

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a way to test whether the new targeted therapy Tarceva and the widely used chemotherapy drug Taxol are effectively killing tumor cells. They say that with further refinement, the test may make it possible to accurately assess whether patients are responding to these agents, as well as potentially others, within days of beginning therapy.

In two different studies being presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the research team will describe how the test measures the activity of several members of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) family of enzymes, which are the triggering molecules that allow a cell to grow and divide. CDK cell cycle enzymes are the end target of numerous cellular pathways that are involved in cancer development and progression, the researchers say.
 
Before these studies, no one has been able to accurately test the function of enzymes from a tumor sample, says Naoto Ueno, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in the Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory and the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

"Testing CDK only has been possible by measuring gene expression, but our industry collaborator has provided a way that lets us test real enzyme activity within a human tumor sample," he says. "Our hope is to be able to use this system as a molecular marker to assess whether an anti-cancer therapy is working."

Sensitivity to Tarceva Depends on CDK2

In the first study, M. D. Anderson researchers found that loss of the CDK2 enzyme strongly correlated with a cancer's sensitivity to Tarceva.

That means testing activity of CDK2, the enzyme that drives cell division, can reveal whether or not a tumor will respond to Tarceva, says Naoto Ueno, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in the Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory and the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. If results of this study are verified and validated, "a CDK2 test would provide the best marker yet for effective use of Tarceva," he says. The only experimental predictive test currently available is whether lung cancer cells have a mutation in their epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), but that does not predict response to the targeted therapy in other forms of cancer, Ueno says.

"We find here that as long as CDK2 is suppressed, the drug works, so developing an accurate test for CDK2 activity would be a boon for delivering individualized therapy to patients," he says. Such a test, however, will require that patients be given the drug for a short period of time so that the agent's effect on CDK2 activity can be assessed.

In this study, the researchers exposed 10 different human breast cancer cell lines to varied doses of Tarceva and then measured activity of the CDK enzymes. They found that tumor cell death was significantly dependent on whether CDK2 activity was repressed. They then double checked those findings by "putting CDK2 back," Ueno says. "We found that the effects of Tarceva were reduced when CDK2 was given back to the cells, so this shows us that CDK2 is the real target of Tarceva.

"This presents a concept that describes how Tarceva works, and it also shows that we have a technology that can rapidly measure the true activity of CDK2 in a tumor sample," Ueno says. First author Fumiyuki Yamasaki, M.D., Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow, is presenting the findings at AACR.

Profile CDK to Predict Effectiveness of Taxol

A different research team, headed by Naoto Ueno, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in the Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory and the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, found in a second study presented at AACR that if activity of several CDK molecules is increased - not decreased as in the Tarceva finding - then the chemotherapy drug Taxol appears to effectively kill breast cancer cells.

Taxol, used to treat a wide spectrum of cancers, works by interrupting the reorganization of the cell that is necessary if it is to divide. While it was known that the primary effect of the drug is to interfere with assembly of the spindle that pulls nuclear chromosomes apart during cell division, Ueno and his colleagues have recently reported that increased activity of CDK1 correlated with a cell's sensitivity to Taxol.

The CDK enzyme plays a role in cell division, and researchers believe that it functions in part as a monitor of cell cycle activity. Ueno theorizes that if something goes wrong during division - such as if Taxol is interrupting spindle assembly - CDK will become more active in an attempt to correct the problem.

Working with the Sysmex Corporation of Kobe, Japan, the researchers devised a test to measure CDK activity and the expression, simultaneously.

They found that monitoring of two isotypes of CDK activity accurately predicted which tumors would respond to Taxol in the experiments with human breast cancer cell lines and tumor tissues of human xenograft model.

"This provides solid preclinical evidence that we can use toward development of a novel device that can measure CDK activity in human tissue within several hours," Ueno says. He adds that a clinical trial is currently under way that tests CDK activity both before and after patients with breast cancer are treated with Taxol.

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European Cancer Patients Using Alternative Therapy-(Yahoo News-02/02/2005)

Whether it is herbs, homeopathy or vitamin and mineral supplements, more than a third of cancer patients in Europe use alternative medicine. Usage varies from less than 15 percent of patients in Greece to nearly three-quarters in Italy, according to the first Europe-wide study of complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) published in the Annals of Oncology on Thursday. "Irrespective of what health professionals believe about CAM and how dismissive they might be, our findings show that patients are using, and will continue to use CAM," said Dr Alex Molassiotis, of the University of Manchester School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, in England.

New Advance in Gene Therapy for Cancer-(HealthDayNews-31/01/2005)

A technique that uses a specially designed virus may help overcome a major stumbling block in using gene therapy to treat cancer, say Columbia University Medical Center researchers. This approach appears to offer a solution to a problem in gene therapy for cancer -- the tendency to destroy healthy cells as well as cancer cells. The Columbia team developed gene therapy that uses a specially designed virus. In laboratory and animal testing, this method killed prostate cancer cells but left healthy cells intact. The researchers say that gene therapy based on this approach should be effective for many kinds of tumors -- including breast, brain, ovarian, skin and colon cancer.

"What's exciting is we can now design a therapy that will seek out and destroy only cancer cells," study senior author Paul B. Fisher, a professor of clinical pathology, said in a prepared statement. "We hope it will be particularly powerful in eradicating metastases that we can't see and that can't be eliminated by surgery or radiation. Gene therapy, especially for cancer, is really starting to make a comeback," Fisher said.

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Link Between Personality and Cancer Ruled Out-(HealthDayNews-24/01/2005)

There's no link between cancer and two specific personality traits, extroversion and neuroticism, says a study in the March 1 issue of Cancer. Some researchers have hypothesized that a high degree of extroversion and a low degree of neuroticism are associated with an increased risk of cancer. Some studies have suggested these personality traits influence known cancer risk behaviors, such as smoking. However, other studies have found no such association.

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New Cancer Drugs Fight Tumors Many Ways-(Yahoo News-13/05/2005)

A new generation of experimental cancer drugs is poised to upstage current hotshots by attacking the multiple methods tumors use to grow and spread, instead of just one. These drugs are like a repairman who brings an entire toolbox to a job instead of just a wrench or hammer. They go beyond current favored medicines like Herceptin, Avastin and Iressa, which have impressed scientists for their ability to precisely target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. At a cancer meeting Friday, doctors reported that one of Pfizer's new multitasking drugs shrank tumors in 40 percent of people with advanced kidney cancer.

Current treatments do that in only about 1 out of 10 cases. Some patients have been on the experimental drug for more than a year far longer than they'd been expected to live. Kurt Bonham is one. The California accountant was only 49 when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer that had already spread to his lungs. "I'd been given my death sentence," he said. Now, 13 large masses in his lungs have been reduced to specks. "If I can have five more years, I think that they can come up with something fandangled that will either cure the cancer or manage it," he said. Doctors hope the new generation of cancer drugs will do just that by blocking cancer's multiple pathways, such as cutting off the blood supply to a tumor or jamming the "switchboard" it uses to send messages to grow and spread. The Pfizer drug, so new that it's just called AG-013736 for now, attacks blood supply and one of the switchboard's main lines. Another Pfizer drug, Sutent, also takes this approach. Eleven studies testing it against various cancers will be presented at the meeting, held by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Amgen, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have multitasking drugs in early stages of development. So does Novartis Pharmaceuticals, but its drug, called PTK/ZK, disappointed in a study involving people with advanced colon cancer, doctors reported Friday.

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Rural Australians have low cancer survival-(UPI-02/01/2005)

A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia says Australians living in rural areas have lower cancer survival rates than those in cities. The study suggested people living far from major cities have lower survival rates after diagnosis of the disease because they have less access to quality health care, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday. Professor Bruce Armstrong, co-author of the study, said rural doctors have less expertise than metropolitan doctors due to their low cancer surgery caseloads.

"While I think that they do extremely good jobs and there are excellent people out there, it's just not practical for them to be at the top of their profession in every aspect of care and that does mean therefore that the care will not always be the best," he said.

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Study Shows PET/CT Imaging Can Help Diagnose And Define Occult Recurrent Cancer-(Yahoo News-29/12/2004)

Combined positron emission tomography and computerized tomography (PET/CT) can help diagnose occult (hidden) recurrent cancer, possibly a cancer patient's greatest post-treatment fear, report a team of Israeli physicians in the December issue of the Society of Nuclear Medicine's "Journal of Nuclear Medicine." PET and CT scans are standard imaging tools that allow clinicians to pinpoint the location of cancer within the body before making treatment recommendations. PET/CT involves sequential PET and CT imaging on the same device, allowing for simultaneous acquisition of functional (PET) and anatomical (CT) data. "PET/CT was found to indicate the presence of new malignancy and also precisely localize and define the extent of disease" in patients in whom recurring cancer was suspected, explained lead author and SNM member Ora Israel, M.D.

The physicians asked the question, "Is FDG-PET/CT Useful for Imaging and Management of Patients With Suspected Occult Recurrence of Cancer?" Their study points to an affirmative answer, said Israel, who also noted the need for these initial results to be confirmed in large studies with more homogenous patient populations. The research team studied 36 cancer patients for whom blood tests showed increasing levels of serum cancer markers during follow-up.

"PET/CT was the only test that showed whether recurrent tumors were indeed present," and since anatomic information was obtained, the type of treatment that should be applied could be determined, she said. "This is clinically important, since no treatment could be planned in these patients without the benefit of this combined test," added Israel, who is with the department of nuclear medicine at Rambam Medical Center and the B. Rappaport School of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, both in Haifa, Israel.

"If these results are confirmed by larger studies in patients with different types of malignant tumors, PET/CT may potentially be used in the future as the first imaging modality in this group of patients," Israel said. "In some of these patients, further invasive diagnostic procedures may not be needed, and the treating physicians may proceed directly with the appropriate treatment strategy," she added.

Israel noted that PET/CT is already playing a major role in a large variety of clinical indications in cancer patients. "The clinical dilemma of a suspicion of cancer raised by abnormal blood tests may be solved, and management of this patient group may be optimized by this imaging modality," said Israel. The study produced "important and very promising results," said Israel, "since they showed not only improved diagnostic accuracy of PET/CT over PET, as was initially hypothesized, but also the impact of patient management."

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Viruses Added to List of Cancer Causes-(AP-31/01/2005)

The US government is adding viruses for the first time to its list of known or suspected causes of cancer, including hepatitis B and C and a third virus that causes sexually transmitted diseases. Lead, X-rays and compounds in grilled meats also are joining the list.

It has been known that the hepatitis viruses can cause liver cancer and that some forms of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus can cause cervical cancer. But they were added to the list Monday only after officials decided to go beyond the report's historical focus on the occupational and environmental causes of cancer, said Dr. Christopher Portier, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, which prepared the latest update. "We felt (the report) needed to be expanded to include other things in our general environment that can cause cancer," Portier said.

Dr. Michael Thun, who runs the American Cancer Society's epidemiological program, said adding the viruses was important. "These are human carcinogens and very important carcinogens," he said.

The list, which now identifies 246 known or suspected cancer-causing agents, is intended to give people who may or may not be exposed to any of the substances something to think about, he said. Take X-rays, added to the "known" category. "This is simply to remind them that when they are making a decision about an X-ray to think about it and talk it over with your physician," Portier said.

But the American College of Radiology faulted the addition of X-rays and gamma rays, saying it was misleading and could prompt patients to avoid getting needed care. "X-rays and gamma rays are not substances that the general public has access or exposure to and do not belong on a list of substances that pose a risk to people in the course of their normal, daily lives," Dr. James Borgstede, chairman of the radiology college's board of chancellors, said in a statement.

New to the suspected category are substances that form when meats are cooked or grilled at high temperatures. Studies suggest an increased cancer risk when foods containing them are eaten. But "does that mean you have to throw out your barbecue grill?" asked Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, a critic of the list from the American Council on Science and Health, a consumer education group. She said the "not consumer friendly" list should include information on the types of exposures and dosages that cause cancer, as well as on the health benefits of some of the substances identified, such as tamoxifen, the breast cancer treatment pill.

Lead, used to make lead-acid storage batteries, ammunition and cable coverings, and lead compounds, used in paint, glass and ceramics, in some cosmetics and as a fuel additive also joined the suspect list. Portier said other agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, are responsible for determining exposure levels, dosages and other issues. "We think everything on this list is, in fact, relevant to people's daily lives and the public health of the country," he said.

The Report on Carcinogens — which federal law requires the health and human services secretary to update every two years — lists 58 "known" and 188 "reasonably anticipated" cancer-causing substances. It was prepared by the National Toxicology Program of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, and was last updated in December 2002.

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