Calcium intake may protect against cancer

Source: Author: Laurie Barclay, MD & Hien T. Nghiem, MD Calcium intake may protect against cancer, particularly gastrointestinal tract cancer, according to the results of a prospective study reported in the February 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. "Dairy food and calcium intakes have been hypothesized to play roles that differ among individual cancer sites, but the evidence has been limited and inconsistent," write Yikyung Park, ScD, from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues. "Moreover, their effect on cancer in total is unclear." In the National Institutes of Health-AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) Diet and Health Study, the investigators evaluated the association of dairy food and calcium intakes with incidence of total cancer and cancer at individual sites. A food frequency questionnaire was used to determine intakes of dairy food and calcium from foods and supplements. Linkage with state cancer registries allowed identification of incident cancer cases. Relative risks and 2-sided 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were determined with a Cox proportional hazard model. During follow-up (average, 7 years), 36,965 cancer cases were identified in men and 16,605 in women. In men, calcium intake was not associated with total cancer. However, calcium intake was nonlinearly associated with total cancer in women, with the risk decreasing up to approximately 1300 mg/day but with no further risk reduction above those levels. Dairy food and calcium intakes were inversely associated with cancers of the digestive system in both men and women. Multivariate relative risk [...]

RF ablation linked to improved liver cancer survival

Source: www.medscape.com Author: David Douglas Pooled data from a review of randomized trials of percutaneous ablation therapies in hepatocellular carcinoma indicates that a radiofrequency (RF) approach offers a survival advantage, Korean researchers report in the February issue of Hepatology. Lead investigator Dr. Yun Ku Cho told Reuters Health, "Recent studies comparing RF ablation and percutaneous ethanol injection revealed no consistent survival benefit of RF ablation over percutaneous ethanol injection for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma." However, he explained, "By performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials, we demonstrated that RF ablation showed an improved 3-year overall survival status for patients with small hepatocellular carcinomas, compared to percutaneous ethanol injection." Dr. Cho of Seoul Veterans Hospital and colleagues analyzed data from 4 trials involving 652 patients. The pooled results showed that RF ablation was in fact significantly superior to the ethanol technique, which was associated with an odds ratio for 3-year survival of 0.477. Nevertheless, the researchers point out that in these studies the number of patients involved was insufficient to determine initial tumor response, and there was "no real consensus regarding the definition of major adverse events. Therefore, quantitative analysis could not be performed for the local tumor progression or adverse events." Source: Hepatology 2009;49:453-459.

Pharmaceuticals, patents, publicity…and philanthropy?

Source: The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9665, Page 693, 28 February 2009 Author: editorial staff Tensions between provision of and payment for health care are familiar. Though doctors assume principal responsibility for patients' health, those who work for pharmaceutical companies view the patented medicines they design as key components of health care. Creative ways are continually found to make such drugs available to as many patients in high-income countries as possible, the profits contributing to future investment in development and leaving national drug budgets affordable, just. Yet, a few hours' flying away, patients in developing countries usually have no access to these very same patented drugs. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has grown in size and influence by successful drug development, timely takeovers, and shrewd management. Andrew Witty, who ascended to the vertiginous position of chief executive at GSK in the past year, has attracted attention by a surprising presentation at Harvard Medical School on Feb 13. He promises that GSK will now not only make its medicines available much more cheaply to patients in low-income countries, but also make a bolder commitment to research into neglected diseases. As one blogger puts it, “arise Sir Andrew Witty (or is it Saint Andrew?)”. Does this announcement mark a sea change in pharma's attitude to the provision of drugs in poor countries, or could it be more reminiscent of the zany hybrid vehicles that distract attention from car manufacturers' shamelessly polluting stock in trade? Witty's words were carefully weighed to cast a rosy glow around [...]

Genetic signatures of HPV-related and unrelated oropharyngeal carcinoma and their prognostic implications

Source: Clinical Cancer Research 15, 1779, March 1, 200 Author: Jens P. Klussmann et al. Purpose: Patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-containing oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) have a better prognosis than patients with HPV-negative OSCC. This may be attributed to different genetic pathways promoting cancer. Experimental Design: We used comparative genomic hybridization to identify critical genetic changes in 60 selected OSCC, 28 of which were associated with HPV-16 as determined by HPV-specific PCR and fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis and positive p16INK4A immunostaining. The results were correlated with HPV status and clinical data from patients. Results: Two thirds of OSCC harbored gain at 3q26.3-qter irrespective of HPV status. In HPV-negative tumors this alteration was associated with advanced tumor stage (P = 0.013). In comparison with HPV-related OSCC, the HPV-negative tumors harbored: (a) a higher number of chromosomal alterations and amplifications (P = 0.03 and 0.039, respectively); (b) significantly more losses at 3p, 5q, 9p, 15q, and 18q, and gains/amplifications at 11q13 (P = 0.002, 0.03; <0.001, 0.02, 0.004, and 0.001, respectively); and (c) less often 16q losses and Xp gains (P = 0.02 and 0.03). Survival analysis revealed a significantly better disease-free survival for HPV-related OSCC (P = 0.02), whereas chromosome amplification was an unfavorable prognostic indicator for disease-free and overall survival (P = 0.01 and 0.05, respectively). Interestingly, 16q loss, predominantly identified in HPV-related OSCC, was a strong indicator of favorable outcome (overall survival, P = 0.008; disease-free survival, P = 0.01) and none of these patients had a [...]

Experts in government, public health, public policy and science outline blueprint for reducing death and disease from tobacco in the United States

Source: Bulletin Board of Oral Pathology Author: Dorothy Hatsukami et al. To further the goal of eliminating smoking as the number one cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., twenty six of the nation's leading tobacco control researchers and policy experts today called for regulatory control of all tobacco products. They also called for policies that encourage current tobacco users to reduce their health risks by switching from the most to the least harmful nicotine-containing products. This group of experts, who have devoted their careers to reducing tobacco use, met in a two-year process they called The Strategic Dialogue on Tobacco Harm Reduction (the Dialogue). Their vision: a world in which virtually no one uses cigarettes. Dialogue participants concluded that realizing that vision would have a profound impact on reducing death and disease from tobacco use. The Dialogue process was led by Dorothy Hatsukami, Ph.D., director of the University of Minnesota's Tobacco Use Research Center and Masonic Cancer Center's Cancer Control and Prevention Programs, and Mitchell Zeller, a former associate commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and currently a health policy expert with Pinney Associates. The Dialogue members' recommendations appear in the online version (posted February 25) of the peer-reviewed journal Tobacco Control. Their report recommends various ways to regulate tobacco products based on public health needs. It also recommends helping tobacco users who are unable or unwilling to quit to shift to the least harmful nicotine products. Prominent among the group's recommendations are: Regulation of [...]

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