7/13/2007 Memphis, TN staff CancerConsultants.com According to the results of two studies published in the journal Cancer, patients who have no health insurance or limited health insurance tend to be diagnosed with more advanced stages of breast and oropharyngeal cancer. An estimated 20% of Americans under the age of 65 lack health insurance and many others have only limited insurance. A lack of health insurance has been linked with less access to preventive care, less timely receipt of care, and a lower likelihood of receiving recommended treatments. Two recent studies built upon these findings by exploring the relationship between insurance status and stage at cancer diagnosis. The types of cancer evaluated by these studies—breast and oropharyngeal (a type of head and neck cancer)—are quite treatable when caught early. Early detection, however, requires access to screening and follow-up as well as timely and appropriate evaluation of symptoms. Researchers involved in the breast cancer study looked at more than 500,000 women over the age of 40 years who were reported to the National Cancer Data Base between 1998 and 2003.[1] They reported that the proportion of women with advanced breast cancer (Stage III or Stage IV) at the time of diagnosis was 8% among privately insured women, 18% among uninsured women, and 19% among women being treated on Medicaid. Uninsured women and women on Medicaid were significantly less likely to have Stage I breast cancer than privately insured women. Researchers involved with the oropharyngeal study looked at over 40,000 individuals who were [...]

7/13/2007 Indianapolis, IN staff TheIndyChannel.com Bob Pychinka lived on a feeding tube for nine months because he was not able to swallow foods or liquids. Chemotherapy and radiation to treat neck cancer severely weakened his throat muscles. “It was harrowing,” the 62-year-old retired educator told 6News Staying Healthy reporter Stacia Matthews. Pychinka suffered from dysphagia, a potentially fatal swallowing disorder that affects 15 million people. Symptoms can range from mild discomfort, including coughing during or after swallowing, to a complete inability to swallow. Some patients develop aspiration pneumonia, where food or saliva go down the wind pipe and into the lungs. It’s one of the leading causes of death among older people. Susan Michel-Dant, a clinical speech pathologist with St. Vincent Rehabilitation Services, called dysphagia “a misunderstood and underdiagnosed medical condition.” She told Matthews nearly 75 percent of stroke survivors develop dysphagia. It can also occur following meningitis, traumatic head or spinal cord injury and radiation therapy for head and neck cancer. A new treatment called vital stim therapy uses a small current passed through electrodes placed on the neck to stimulate and retrain muscles and allow a patient to eat and drink again. Vital stim therapy, the only neuromuscular electrical stimulation approved by the FDA to treat dysphagia, must be prescribed by a physician and requires several therapy sessions to restore swallowing. “The first time I was able to drink a little soda and eat some basic food, it was unbelievable,” Pychinka said. “And when I sit down and [...]

7/13/2007 Dublin, Ireland Dr Robert O’Sullivan Irish Medical Times (www.imt.ie) Ulysses S Grant, for Americans is one of the most famous past presidents of their country. No child in America can expect to leave school without having a knowledge of his civil war exploits and it is the image of Grant that graces the American fifty dollar bill. He was elected to the office of president twice and accepted the surrender of Robert E Lee, one of the final acts of the civil war. As well as the civil war, his exploits in the Mexican-American war of the 1840s are the stuff of legend. As US President his terms of office were marred by years of scandal and corruption, however he is well remembered for helping African-Americans and his tough stance against the Ku Klux Klan. The end was nigh Seven years after leaving office, Grant developed a sore throat, the first symptom of the cancer that would end his life. He had been declared bankrupt after bad investments and being the victim of investment fraud and he was hastily writing his memoirs to generate some much needed income. Having been promised a large sum of money by Mark Twain for producing this book, the last thing he needed at this stage was the terrible news of his own impending demise. Grant was said to have to been a stubborn man and he attended his physician only because of his wife’s insistence. The sore throat was only getting worse and [...]

7/10/2007 Albany, NY Cathleen F. Crowley FireRescue1.com High school photos of Greg Burgoon on the basketball court show a young man with muscular legs who stood a head shorter than any player on the court. Though only 5 feet 6 inches tall, he had a 34-inch vertical leap and a gutsy spirit that won him a starting position on the 1967 Voorheesville varsity team in his sophomore year. Burgoon always was a fighter. So, when his mouth cancer came back in May 2003, just three months after surgery to remove it, he geared up for a battle. Burgoon broke the news to his family and they hugged, all of them crying. Then he jumped up on the couch and punched the air like Rocky Balboa. "I'm going to beat this! I'm going to beat this!" he repeated with each jab, tears streaming down his face. "It's the only time I saw him cry," said his sister, Sherry Burgoon, a school teacher who helped care for him. Burgoon was 49 and a volunteer firefighter for the Voorheesville Fire Department. He had risen through the ranks at Albany Truck Sales since he began working there at age 18, to become parts manager. A hard worker with a vast knowledge of obscure parts for old Mack trucks, Burgoon was loved and respected by his co-workers. His boss told him he'd have a job, no matter what. Burgoon lived alone in Voorheesville, down the road from two of his sisters. His son, Matthew, 18, [...]

7/10/2007 New Rochelle, NY press release Genetic, Engineering & Biotechnology News (www.genengnews.com) Northwest Biotherapeutics’ (NWBT) reports that it received approval to market DCVax-Brain, a vaccine for the disease, in Switzerland. The company intends to make the product available in the third quarter of 2007. "We are delighted to be the first company to reach the market with a personalized therapeutic vaccine for brain cancers, which carry a very bleak prognosis for patients today,” says Alton Boynton, Ph.D., president and CEO of Northwest Biotherapeutics. “Switzerland is an attractive place to begin commercialization due to its highly respected regulatory oversight and its growing experience with cellular therapies. Switzerland is also increasingly noted for medical tourism, and is easily accessible for many medical tourists.” In clinical trials, both newly diagnosed and recurrent brain cancer patients treated with DCVax-Brain had more than double the survival time of patients who did not receive the therapeutic, according to NWBT. In addition, unlike chemotherapy, the vaccine does not cause any debilitating side effects, the company adds. DCVax products are personalized treatments, made by combining a patient's dendritic cells with cancer biomarkers derived from or displayed by the patient's tumor. The vaccines work by mobilizing the full spectrum of immune response, both innate and adaptive, rather than just single immune agents such as antibodies alone or T cells alone. DCVax-Brain has been granted orphan drug status in the U.S. and the EU. A Phase II pivotal trial is anticipated to conclude around the end of 2008. NWBT’s most [...]

7/8/2007 Beijing, China Arianna Eun Jung Cha Courant.com Every few days, Houston businessman Richard Weissenborn receives injections of a radical new cancer drug at a hospital in Beijing. The treatment aims to check his head and neck cancers by replacing mutant genes with good copies. The treatment is still experimental in the United States, but in China, it was approved for marketing after a few years of testing. The Chinese scientists behind the drug, Gendicine, see it as a milestone in the country's efforts to catch up with the West, proof that China can develop some of the world's most advanced medicine. But a company in the United States says the Chinese drug is basically stolen property, rushed to market with inadequate testing and in violation of patent rights. The dispute is the latest clash between the two countries in the broad field known as intellectual property. China in recent decades has prospered largely because of a talent for copying. The country duplicates goods others created, but figures out how to make them more cheaply. For years, that tactic focused on items like watches, purses and DVDs. But increasingly, China is moving up the value chain, copying such high-value goods and services as architectural techniques, cars and drugs. The dispute over the gene-therapy drug is especially revealing in that scientific innovation is a pillar of American business. If other countries can learn to beat the United States to market with drugs and other technologically advanced goods, that could spell economic [...]

7/8/2007 Lancashire, England staff Lancashire Evening Post (www.lep.co.uk) A devastated wife has revealed how the doctor at the centre of a medical investigation failed to pick up her husband's throat cancer – instead sending him home with mouthwash. Mary Carter, 42, of Holme Slack, Preston, believes her husband Duncan would still be alive today if his cancer had been diagnosed earlier. She condemned health chiefs at Central Lancashire Primary Care Trust for not taking action even though she complained to them about Dr Ghassan Baroudi almost two years ago. The Lancashire Evening Post recently highlighted how Dr Baroudi, a GP at the Ribble Village Surgery in Moor Nook, Preston, had been suspended after a complaint was made about his care of patient Florence Powell who died two years ago. Mary Carter claims her family has also suffered because of Dr Baroudi's failure to spot a serious medical condition. She revealed how, despite repeated visits to Dr Baroudi complaining of throat discomfort, her husband was not referred to a hospital specialist, but was told he was suffering from thrush. It was only when an alert NHS dentist was uneasy about Duncan's symptoms and urgently referred him to hospital that his throat cancer was diagnosed. However, by this stage, the cancer was at an advanced stage and, despite radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the cancer spread to Duncan's lungs and he died in November 2006 aged 57. Mary, who has three children, said: "Duncan first went to see Dr Baroudi about his throat about [...]

7/7/2007 staff, based on American Association for Cancer Research Newswise (www.newswise.com) Molecular messages and signals circulating in blood or contained in cells lining the airway can identify early stage cancer, according to research reported at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. Scientists looking to apply basic science knowledge to medical practice are developing tests that diagnose, predict or monitor cancer risks, without invasive tissue sampling. Such tests could benefit all, particularly underserved populations, such as the poor, who often wait until symptoms appear before seeing a doctor. A series of quietly exhaled breaths might indicate whether or not a patient is at risk for lung cancer, according to researchers from the New York State Department of Health. Using DNA recovered from exhaled breath, researchers can examine the state of cells that line the lungs, and potentially detect cancer at an early stage, when treatment may be most successful. "Early detection of lung cancer is vital, yet there is no current non-invasive means of identifying cancer in a clinical setting," said Simon Spivack, M.D., M.P.H, research physician in the Human Toxicology & Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center. "We have found that exhaled breath contains DNA, we believe from the cells lining the lungs, which may then tell us whether that person is at risk for cancer." Condensed exhaled breath has been used previously to detect small volatile molecules that could indicate both non-malignant and malignant, lung diseases. Dr. [...]

7/5/2007 New York, NY staff Forbes.com Sanofi-Aventis said its Taxotere drug has been accepted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for filing and assigned priority review status for the treatment of head and neck cancer prior to chemoradiotherapy and surgery. In a statement, Sanofi-Aventis explained FDA grants priority review status to products that, if approved, would be a significant improvement on existing market products. To date, Sanofi said, Taxotere has received a total of seven indications in the US. Taxotere is the fourth best-selling drug for Sanofi-Aventis. It is currently used to treat breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer as well as prostate cancer. At the start of June, the French drugs company also said Japanese regulators will consider on a priority basis the approval of its Taxotere anti-cancer drug for use in prostate cancer.

7/5/2007 Los Angeles, CA Denise Dador abc7.com Dentists might be able to diagnose more than just cavities, in fact going to the dentist could potentially save your life. Leeda Allen's dentist saw holes in her teeth and figured out she had acid reflux, before she even knew there was a problem. "I was shocked. I wouldn't have thought my stomach would have had such an effect," says Allen. Turns out, dentists can do a lot more than check your teeth. "This is about more than a cleaning. We're kind of like detectives or like sleuths," explains Dr. Joseph Kravitz, Dentist. Tooth erosion and a burning or sour taste are symptoms of reflux disease. Type 2 diabetes often results in bright red, bleeding gums and bad breath. An ammonia smell in the mouth is a sign of kidney disease. Accelerated tooth loss can be a sign of osteoporosis. And white spots in gums, a symptom of oral cancer. "Oral cancer is probably the number one thing that we find on patients," says Dr. Kravitz. Inflamed gums, excess cavities and oral infections can be a sign of heart disease. Fiery red gums and wounds that won't heal are a sign of leukemia. And tooth erosion can indicate bulimia. "You notice the upper back of the front teeth are thin and eroded and more yellow because the healthy whiter enamel color is gone off the back of the teeth," explains Dr. Kravitz. It could be sleep apnea if a patient's tongue blocks their [...]