4/19/2005 E.J. Mundell Forbes (www. forbes.com) Smokers who've tried but failed to kick their habit may want to pop a daily aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen (Aleve) to help cut their risk of mouth cancer, new research suggests. Previous studies have shown this family of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) effective in preventing other cancers, and the same may now be true for oral malignancies. "NSAIDs approximately halves the risk of [these] cancers in smokers," said lead researcher Dr. Jon Sudbo, of the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo. It's not clear whether daily NSAID use can also reduce risks for the No. 1 cancer killer of smokers, lung cancer, however. "We will try and answer that question in the near future," Sudbo said. In their study, presented April 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, in Anaheim, Calif., Sudbo's team looked through a Norwegian cancer database to compare daily NSAID use by more than 900 adults with a long history of tobacco use. Half of the group had been diagnosed with some form of mouth cancer, while the other half had not. They found that smokers who had taken a daily NSAID (such as aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen) for at least six months were 65 percent less likely to develop oral malignancies than smokers who had not. Reductions in risk for oral cancer fell as years of NSAID use increased, the researchers add. Those benefits were not found in long-term users of a non-NSAID pain reliever, acetaminophen [...]

4/18/2005 Mark A. Schattner, MD, Holly J. Willis, RD et al. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2005 198-203 Background: Optimization of body mass index (BMI) among cancer survivors is a priority. Long-term enteral nutrition is required by many head and neck cancer survivors and may be utilized to affect changes in BMI. Methods: We used a retrospective review of head and neck cancer survivors dependent on enteral nutrition. Patients were grouped according to their BMI at initiation of enteral feeding. Patients with normal, low, or elevated BMI were assigned a goal of weight maintenance, weight gain, or weight reduction, respectively. Changes in BMI over time were recorded. Results: We identified 39 head and neck cancer survivors requiring enteral nutrition. Median time on enteral nutrition was 32 ± 39.6 months. At the initiation of enteral feeding, 51% of patients had a normal BMI and were assigned to the weight maintenance group, 84% successfully maintained a normal BMI (mean 22.4 ± 1.7 kg/m2), and 18% had a low BMI and were assigned to the weight gain group. In all, 85% achieved or trended toward a normal BMI (from 16.5 ± 1.9 to 19.2 ± 1.6 kg/m2; p = .02). When enteral feedings began, 31% of patients had an elevated BMI and were assigned a goal of weight reduction; all were able to reduce their BMI (from 30.2 ± 5 to 27.3 ± 6 kg/m2; p < .001). Conclusions: Long-term enteral feeding facilitates body weight optimization among ambulatory [...]

4/18/2005 Palm Beach, FL Dan Moffett Palm Beach Post So, I'm sitting here, feeling a bit dehydrated as I try to work up the courage to do something about lunch. I've come to accept the likelihood that anything I put into my mouth will hasten my departure from the planet. This tends to diminish one's appetite. I read a New York Times story last week that changed my thinking about health and medical science, probably permanently. The story told of research on hundreds of runners in the 2002 Boston Marathon. Dozens of them finished the race suffering from something called hyponatremia, a potentially life-threatening condition of abnormally low blood-sodium levels in the blood. The runners developed the problem because they drank too much water. The finding is nothing short of astonishing. For decades, health experts have told athletes to drink plenty of water — all you can hold — to avoid dehydration. The idea that a runner, football player, Little Leaguer or construction worker could drink too much was laughable. Now, we're told that it's possible to commit suicide with a pair of jogging shoes and a bottle of Evian. What a fool I've been. I thought we at least had water figured out. I have lost all faith in medical science when it comes to eating and drinking. One study contradicts another; the prevailing wisdom of today turns 180 degrees from yesterday. Who knows what to believe? If you don't like the latest research, just wait for the next [...]

4/18/2005 San Francisco, CA Inside Bay Area (insidebayarea.com) Those who import and market green tea and tea products can, by law, only say what elements are in green tea. They point out that a fully brewed cup of green tea is very high in polyphenols, flavenols, fluoride, and the cancer preventative EGCG. It also contains vitamins C, P, K and B. Studies show that all tea contains catechins, the polyphenols that are unique to tea, but research suggests that green tea is higher in those elements than black tea, perhaps because it is a slightly fresher product than black tea. Black tea gets its flavor from oxidizing the leaves before they are dried. Exactly what those various compounds do for the human body is being studied all over the world, at institutions such as Harvard Medical Center, University of California, Berkeley, University of Kansas, University of Geneva in Switzerland, and University of Shizuoka in Japan. Their findings have been printed in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Rutger's University and in the American Journal of Cardiology. Listed here are some of the believed benefits of drinking four to 10 cups of fully steeped green tea every day. The astringency in fully brewed green tea, it should be noted, is because of the great volume of antioxidants. -The polyphenols, or antioxidants, in tea are extremely efficient at ridding the body of free radicals that tend to speed up the aging process. The polyphenols in tea were found to be more than [...]

4/17/2005 Boston, MA Laurel J. Sweet Boston Herald (news.bostonherald.com) Cancer "survivalist" state police Lt. Billy Coulter's mind-boggling grit in tackling tomorrow's 109th Boston Marathon comes down to one simple incentive: That somehow, some way, a red hardtop Corvette at the finish line might be his chariot home. "When you're sick, all of a sudden you become the pretty girl at the dance," Coulter, 53, said laughing yesterday at the Hynes Convention Center, where he volunteered to help fellow elite athletes iron out their problems before the 26-mile race. This will be Coulter's 22nd consecutive Boston Marathon, but because he was diagnosed with terminal head and neck cancer last June, it is the first for which his training has been limited almost entirely to walking and short jogs. Unable to ingest solid food or generate his own saliva, the 146-pound cop will have to stop at every other mile marker and pour 12 ounces of water or Gatorade down a tube inserted into his stomach. "Because it's my life, I'm fully prepared to walk off (the course) if I have to. I'm not going to die in this marathon," Coulter said. And while there will be some 20,425 runners in his company, Coulter is counting on only two to watch his back: Boston police Superintendent Paul Joyce and Dr. Marshall Posner, head oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "I fully expect he's going to finish ahead of me," Joyce said of Coulter, his friend of 15 years. "It's just an honor [...]

4/17/2005 I Bairati, F Meyer et al. J Natl Cancer Inst, April 6, 2005; 97(7): 481-8 Background: Although low dietary intakes of antioxidant vitamins and minerals have been associated with higher risks of cancer, results of trials testing antioxidant supplementation for cancer chemoprevention have been equivocal. We assessed whether supplementation with antioxidant vitamins could reduce the incidence of second primary cancers among patients with head and neck cancer. Methods: We conducted a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized chemoprevention trial among 540 patients with stage I or II head and neck cancer treated by radiation therapy between October 1, 1994, and June 6, 2000. Supplementation with alpha-tocopherol (400 IU/day) and beta-carotene (30 mg/day) or placebo began on the first day of radiation therapy and continued for 3 years after the end of radiation therapy. In the course of the trial, beta-carotene supplementation was discontinued after 156 patients had enrolled because of ethical concerns. The remaining patients received alpha-tocopherol or placebo only. Survival was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: After a median follow-up of 52 months, second primary cancers and recurrences of the first tumor were diagnosed in 113 and 119 participants, respectively. The effect of supplementation on the incidence of second primary cancers varied over time. Compared with patients receiving placebo, patients receiving alpha-tocopherol supplements had a higher rate of second primary cancers during the supplementation period (HR = 2.88, 95% [...]

4/17/2005 Gaithersburg, MD press release PRSNewswire HPV DNA testing is 'more sensitive than cervical cytology' in detecting high grade cervical disease A newly released Practice Bulletin from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recognizes testing for the human papillomavirus (HPV) as "more sensitive than cervical cytology [the Pap test]" for detection of pre- cancerous cells (CIN 2/3) and cervical cancer. Digene is the developer of the only FDA-approved test for high-risk types of HPV, the cause of virtually all cases of cervical cancer. The Digene HPV Test, also marketed as the DNAwithPap(TM) Test, is approved for use in conjunction with a Pap test for women age 30 and older. ACOG's April 2005 Practice Bulletin on HPV summarizes epidemiology and transmission of the virus, discusses the incorporation of HPV screening into clinical practice, and provides guidance on how to use the test results to tailor patient management. ACOG represents more than 45,000 physicians who provide health care for women. The bulletin concludes, as a "Level A" recommendation "based on good and consistent scientific evidence," that HPV testing together with a Pap test is more sensitive in detecting cancer than a Pap test alone: * "Because HPV DNA testing is more sensitive than cervical cytology in detecting CIN 2 and CIN 3, women with negative concurrent test results can be reassured that their risk of unidentified CIN 2 and CIN 3 or cervical cancer is approximately 1 in 1,000." * "Studies using combined HPV testing with cervical cytology have reported [...]

4/15/2005 Michael Höckel and Nadja Dornhöfer Cancer Research 65, 2997-3002, April 15, 2005 After surgical resection with microscopically clear margins, solid malignant tumors recur locally in up to 50%. Although the effect of a local tumor recurrence on the overall survival may be low in common cancers such as carcinoma of the breast or prostate, the affected patients suffer from exacerbated fear and the burden of the secondary treatment. With some tumor entities such as carcinoma of the uterine cervix or carcinoma of the head and neck, a local recurrence indicates incurability in the majority of cases. The pathomechanisms of local tumor spread and relapse formation are still unclear and comparatively little research has been devoted to their elucidation. Through the analysis of clinical and molecular data, we propose the concept of two pathogenetically and prognostically different local relapse types (i) in situ recurrences that arise in the residual organ/organ system not involved in the surgery for the primary tumor and (ii) scar recurrences that develop at the site of previous tumor resection. Whereas field cancerization, the monoclonal or multiclonal displacement of normal epithelium by a genetically altered but microscopically undistinguishable homologue, may explain the origin of in situ recurrences, most scar recurrences are regarded as the result of the interaction of minimal residual microscopically occult cancer with the surgical wound environment inside a developmentally defined tissue or organ compartment. The therapeutic implications derived from these concepts and areas of future research aimed to reduce local relapses are discussed in [...]

4/13/2005 Warwick, England PhysOrg.com A new way of testing cells for cancer can both diagnose and determine the stage of cancer with just 50 tumour cells. Speaking at the Institute of Physics conference Physics 2005 in Warwick today, scientists will reveal a new test for cancer, more sensitive than any existing technique and capable of predicting for the first time whether a tumour has spread. Unlike existing techniques which rely on expert visual assessment or unreliable biochemical measurements, the "optical stretcher" tests the physical strength of each cell and can give a diagnosis using as few as 50 cells, allowing doctors to test for cancer where traditional biopsies are dangerous or even impossible. The ability to measure the progress of a cancer by examining only the primary tumour should reduce the number of unnecessary and traumatic mastectomies in women with breast cancer. Professor Josef Kдs and Dr Jochen Guck from the University of Leipzig have been developing the new procedure for several years and today described how the system is being tested, both to screen for oral cancers and in the "staging" of breast cancer tumours. Professor Kдs' technique for the first time uses a physical characteristic of each cell – its stretchiness or elasticity – instead of its biological make-up, to decide whether or not it's cancerous. Cancer cells tend to de-differentiate, losing the special characteristics of the organ where they started life. Because of this, they no longer need the rigid cytoskeleton which holds them in shape, making [...]

4/12/2005 Hehr, Classen et al. International Journal of Radiation Oncology as reported by cancerconsultants.com According to a recent article published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics, alternating treatment with chemotherapy and radiation therapy appears to be an effective treatment approach to recurrent, inoperable head and neck cancer. Approximately 40,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with head and neck cancer every year. Cancers of the head and neck comprise several types of cancer, including the nasal cavity and sinuses, oral cavity, nasopharynx, oropharynx, and other sites located in the head and neck area. Following initial therapy, a large portion of patients experience a cancer recurrence. Unfortunately, these recurrences may be present in sites that are considered inoperable. Standard treatment for these patients consists of chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. However, treatment is often associated with severe side effects which may reduce the quality of life of patients and may result in treatment delivery being delayed or doses reduced. A reduction in treatment doses or scheduling may ultimately compromise a patient’s long-term outcome. Researchers from Germany recently conducted a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of alternating radiation therapy and chemotherapy in patients with recurrent head and neck cancer to improve tolerability of treatment and possibly allow for full doses of each treatment modality to be delivered on time. This trial included 27 patients with inoperable, recurrent head and neck cancer who had received prior radiation therapy. Patients received treatment with the chemotherapy agents Taxotere® (docetaxel) and [...]