11/7/2005 New York, NY Andrew Pollack New York Times (www.nytimes.com) Brush your teeth and rinse with gene therapy. That could be the future of oral health care as envisioned by Colgate-Palmolive and Introgen Therapeutics, an Austin, Tex., biotechnology company. The companies announced an alliance Friday to incorporate gene therapy - an exotic, experimental and so far largely unsuccessful form of medicine - into mouthwashes, gels and similar products to treat and prevent oral cancers. Gene therapy involves putting genes into cells in the body, often to replace native genes that are malfunctioning. The technique has rarely worked in the 15 years it has been tried, largely because of the difficulty of getting enough functioning genes into cells. Introgen's method puts so-called tumor suppressor genes into cancerous cells to stop the growth of tumors. The company's most advanced drug, which is in late-stage clinical trials, is a treatment for head and neck cancer that it hopes will be the first gene therapy approved in the United States. In that treatment, viruses containing the desired gene are injected directly into tumors. Working with Colgate, Introgen will try to put the tumor suppressor genes into an oral product to treat leukoplakia, a precancerous condition characterized by lesions on the cheeks, gums or tongue. In some cases the lesions turn cancerous, usually after many years. Dr. Robert E. Sobol, Introgen's senior vice president for medical and scientific affairs, said an initial product would probably be a prescription drug that would require approval by the [...]

11/7/2005 Thriuvananthapuram, India John Mary The Peninsula (www.thepeninsulaqatar.com) The Regional Cancer Centre at Thriuvananthapuram, whose studies suggest that a 5-minute oral cancer screening can check about 40,000 deaths worldwide, is launching clinical trials to test the efficacy of turmeric in preventing oral cancers. Oncologist K Ramadas at the RCC said that although turmeric was widely believed to be a broad spectrum anti-cancer agent, there have been very few studies to establish its therapeutic efficacy in treating pre-cancer lesions. The RCC and the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) will be funded by the Federal Department of Biotechnology in initiating multi-centric clinical trails at RCC, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, and Tata Hospital, Mumbai, over the next three years. Trials are intended to check out the preventive action of curcumin on white patches in the mouth (leuokplakia) that can turn cancerous. RGCB director Dr Radhakrishna Pillai, one of the two principal investigators of the project, said laboratory studies and studies on animals had been encouraging. Dr Ramadas said the major handicap experienced so far in anti-cancer treatment had been the low absorption rate of curcumin. Only a minuscule fraction of curcumin passed through the liver. The bulk of it would get metabolised in the liver, leaving little to reach the tumour site. Hence, the focus of the clinical trails would be to try using curcumin lozenges and patches to treat lesions. Turmeric holds a high place in ayurvedic medicine as a "cleanser of the body" and today science is finding [...]

11/7/2005 Washington, DC staff Wall Street Journal Online (online.wsj.com) The 10 million cancer survivors in the U.S. require customized follow-up for years that too few now receive, says a major study that calls for oncologists to create a "survivorship plan" to guide every patient's future health care. Half of all men and one-third of women in the U.S. will develop cancer in their lifetimes. Thanks to advances in early detection and treatment, the number who survive has more than tripled over the past three decades. When active treatment ends, these people's special needs may be just beginning, said the study, released Monday. Yet, the legacy of physical, psychological and social consequences has largely been ignored by doctors, researchers, even patient-advocacy groups, leaving survivors too often unaware of simmering health risks or struggling to manage them on their own, said the report by the Institute of Medicine. "Successful cancer care doesn't end when patients walk out the door after completion of their initial treatments," said Sheldon Greenfield of the University of California, Irvine, who led the study for the institute, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Yet, "you fall off a cliff when your treatment ends," said report co-author Ellen Stovall, president of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, who speaks from personal experience as a two-time survivor. Busy oncologists' priority is to treat patients and they may have little time for the survivor, while physicians who don't specialize in cancer care may not know what special needs survivors [...]

11/3/2005 New York, NY staff cancerconsultants.com Levels of the albumin-binding protein known as SPARC (Secreted Protein Acidic Rich in Cysteine) are highly associated with the response of head and neck cancer to treatment with Abraxane™ (albumin-bound paclitaxel), according to study results presented at the 23rd annual Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium in New York. Head and neck cancers originate in the throat, larynx (voice box), pharynx, salivary glands, or oral cavity (lip, mouth, tongue). Most head and neck cancers involve squamous cells, which line the mouth, throat, and other structures. Abraxane is a new form of the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel. Abraxane is bound to albumin, a type of protein normally found in the human body. This form of paclitaxel delivers high concentrations of the active ingredient into the cancer cells and, compared to its original form, reduces the frequency of side effects. Abraxane has demonstrated significant activity in various cancers, including cancers of the head and neck. Abraxane is moving forward through clinical trials as safety and efficacy data mature. An important area of research that is receiving increasing attention is individualized treatment; the emphasis of this research is on identifying and defining specific “markers” associated with different outcomes among patients who share the same clinical diagnosis. One potential predictor of treatment response in patients treated with Abraxane is SPARC (Secreted Protein Acidic Rich in Cysteine). SPARC is a protein that is secreted by many cancers and may play a role in the accumulation of albumin and albumin-targeted agents within a tumor. [...]

11/2/2005 Bethesda, MD Leslie Harris O'Hanlon Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 97, No. 21, 1563-1564, November 2, 2005 Dozens of epidemiologic studies in the last several decades have shown an association between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk. Now, laboratory studies are beginning to tease out the molecular mechanisms that may be at work. Chronic alcohol consumption increases risk for cancers of the upper gastrointestinal tract. Alcohol is also associated with an increased risk of breast, colon, and liver cancer. Although many theories abound to explain the alcohol–cancer connection, alcohol metabolism is emerging as one of the main culprits. Alcohol is broken down primarily in the liver by two enzymes. Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) converts ethanol into acetaldehyde, which collects in the blood, saliva, gastric juice, and large intestines. Acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) then converts acetaldehyde into acetate, which is metabolized by tissues outside the liver. In cell cultures and animal models, acetaldehyde is toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic. A recent study by researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that acetaldehyde can interact with polyamines—small molecules essential for cell division—to trigger a series of events that eventually lead to damaged DNA. When acetaldehyde was mixed with polyamines in a test tube, it was converted into crotonaldehyde (CrA), an environmental pollutant that has been shown to cause cancer in animals. This chemical in turn reacted with DNA, generating an abnormal, mutagenic DNA base called a Cr–PdG adduct. [...]