5/3/2005 Orlando, FL George Diaz Orlando Sentinel (www.orlandosentinel.com) Baseball's dirty habit is back in vogue as big-leaguers struggle with addiction to chewing tobacco. Johnny Damon got in his Porsche this spring with no particular purpose other than making the obligatory journey from Orlando to Fort Myers to begin spring training. As the miles clicked off, he put a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth to relax. Growing closer to his destination, he began thinking about the dangers of chewing, consequences that could escalate from unsightly stains on his teeth to cancerous lesions. By the time he stepped out of his car and walked into the Boston Red Sox clubhouse, Damon decided he would quit. "Better for my health. Better for the color of my teeth," Damon, an outfielder, said recently during a three-game trip to Tampa. "I did the cold-turkey thing. It's worked so far, but we've got a long ways to go." Chewing tobacco is a baseball ritual that spans generations. Interspersed with sunflower seeds and chewing gum, it appears as a friendly companion to the 162-game grind of taking infield, batting practice and nine innings of baseball. Players say the nicotine buzz is soothing. In reality, it can kill. The Oral Cancer Foundation estimates that 30,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer this year, causing more than 8,000 deaths (killing roughly one person per hour, 24 hours per day). Of those 30,000 cases, only half will be alive in five years. Lung, colorectal, breast [...]

5/3/2005 Bethesda, MD Sarah L. Zielinski Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 97, No. 9, 617, May 4, 2005 More than one-half of adults surveyed nationwide had seen or heard celebrity endorsements of cancer screening tests, and more than one-fourth of those who had seen or heard an endorsement reported that it made them more likely to undergo the promoted screening test, according to a new study in the May 4 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Celebrity endorsements of cancer screening are becoming increasingly common. High-profile people, such as former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and journalist Katie Couric, endorse screening tests through stories about their own cancer diagnoses or when they become involved in promotional campaigns for specific tests. However, little is known about how these endorsements affect the public. To examine the extent to which adults of screening age had seen, heard, or were influenced by celebrity endorsements of various types of cancer screening—screening mammography, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, and sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy—Robin J. Larson, M.D., of the Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt., and colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School conducted a telephone survey of American adults from December 2001 through July 2002. Almost three-quarters (73%) of women age 40 and older (the age group potentially eligible for breast cancer screening) reported that they had seen or heard celebrities talk about mammograms, and, of these women, 25% said that it made them more likely to undergo screening [...]

5/2/2005 Lowell, MA Nancye Tuttle Lowell Sun Lowell General Hospital (LGH) program, ‘What About Me...?,' helps kids whose family members have cancer deal with their feelings Brendan McDonough and his dad Dick love baseball and always had fun playing catch together. But that all changed 15 months ago, when Dick was diagnosed with brain cancer. Now, says Brendan, he realizes that what he misses most since his dad got sick is just going outside to play ball with him. “All he can do now is watch TV,” says the Chelmsford 11-year-old. Brendan talks easily about his feelings, sharing them with new friends he has made in “What About Me...?,” a support group at Lowell General Hospital's Cancer Center for adolescents between the ages of 11 and 17 whose families have been touched by cancer. Before joining the group, says his mother Suzanne, Brendan didn't talk much about his father's illness. But now he's more willing to share his feelings. So, too, is Nicholas Janeczko, 11, of Lowell, whose father Mark has bone cancer following colon cancer. “It helps the kids, since they need someone else to talk to besides us,” Mark Janeczko says. Brendan's sister, Kelly, 8, and Nicholas' brother, Bryan, 7, participate in “What About Me...? Jr.,” for youngsters from ages 7 to 10. Kelly has become friendly with Samantha Benoit, another 8-year-old from Chelmsford, whose father is in remission from mouth cancer. Brendan, Kelly, Samantha, Bryan and Nicholas were at the hospital last Tuesday, along with Kyle Gilman, [...]

4/30/2005 St. Simons Island, Ga. Kim J. Masters, M.D. Am J Psychiatry 162:1023, May 2005 Letter to the editor: Dry mouth (xerostomia) is a frequent complication of psychoactive medications with antimuscarinic and anticholinergic side effects. The lack of saliva is annoying to patients, impairs their ability to masticate and digest food, and is a potential source of dental morbidity, including increased risk for caries and oral infection. Pilocarpine is a cholinergic muscarinic agonist. It has been used to treat xerostomia induced in cancer patients by head and neck radiotherapy (1). It has recently been found to be effective in doses of 20 mg/day in a randomized, placebo-controlled dose-adjustment study in the treatment of dry mouth and dry eyes in patients with Sjogren’s syndrome (2). It has been used to treat dry mouth as a complication of opioid treatment (3). Toxicity has been infrequently reported (4). However, it is contraindicated in patients with angle-closure glaucoma. We have empirically used pilocarpine in doses of 10–30 mg/day, divided into dosing of two or three times a day. We have used it with our acute psychiatric inpatients, ages 20–69, who complained of dry mouth after they had been started on psychoactive medication. These included atypical antipsychotic agents, particularly clozapine and olanzapine; anticholinergic agents, primarily benztropine; and antidepressants, particularly tricyclic antidepressants and mirtazapine. Substantial relief of dry mouth was achieved in most patients. Side effects were mainly sweating and increased urination. We did not observe any adverse impact on psychiatric symptoms. The patients were generally [...]

4/30/2005 Schmieder AH et al. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2005;53:621-627. as reported by Medical News Today (www.medicalnewstoday.com) Specially designed nanoparticles can reveal tiny cancerous tumors that are invisible by ordinary means of detection, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers demonstrated that very small human melanoma tumors growing in mice-indiscernible from the surrounding tissue by direct MRI scan-could be "lit up" and easily located as soon as 30 minutes after the mice were injected with the nanoparticles. Because nanoparticles can be engineered to carry a variety of substances, they also may be able to deliver cancer-fighting drugs to malignant tumors as effectively as they carry the imaging materials that spotlight cancerous growth. "One of the best advantages of the particles is that we designed them to detect tumors using the same MRI equipment that is in standard use for heart or brain scans," says senior author Gregory Lanza, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine. "We believe the technology is very close to being useful in a hospital setting." Lanza and his colleague Samuel Wickline, M.D., professor of medicine, are co-inventors of this nanoparticle technology. The effectiveness of the nanoparticles in diagnosis and therapy in humans will be tested in clinical trials in about one and a half to two years. The spherical nanoparticles are a few thousand times smaller than the dot above this "i," yet each can carry about 100,000 molecules of the metal used to provide contrast in [...]

4/30/2005 D. M. Tromp et al. Health Education Research, doi:10.1093/her/cyh031 Health behavior plays an important role in the development, detection and course of cancer of the head and neck. Relevant health behavior includes prompt medical care seeking, and smoking and drinking cessation after diagnosis. This study examines the relationship between these health behaviors and health value and control beliefs, as well as psychological distress. Two hundred and sixty-four recently diagnosed head and neck cancer patients were interviewed about their health behavior, and they filled in a questionnaire on health beliefs and psychological distress. The results showed that one-quarter (25%) of the patients had waited more than 3 months before seeking medical care, 50% had continued to smoke and 80% had continued to drink after the diagnosis. The patients, particularly those who smoked and drank before diagnosis, reported lower levels of health value and perceived health competence than a general population sample with which they were compared. Patients who engaged in patient delay reported a lack of perceived health competence. Psychological distress and lack of perceived health competence were found to be more common among patients who continued to smoke. The implications of these findings are discussed with regard to interventions aimed at promoting these specific health behaviors. Authors: D. M. Tromp 1, X. D. R. Brouha 2, G. J. Hordijk 2, J. A. M. Winnubst 1, W. A. Gebhardt 3, M. P. van der Doef 3, and J. R. J. De Leeuw 1 Authors Affiliations: 1 Julius Center for Health [...]

4/28/2005 Memphis, TN Hehr, T. et al. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics. 2005; 61: 1423-1431 Reported by Cancer Consultants Oncology Resource Center (professional.cancerconsultants.com) Researchers from Germany have developed a tolerable regimen of alternated docetaxel (Taxotere®)-cisplatin (Platinol®) for the re-treatment of patients with recurrent head and neck cancer. The details of this report appeared in the April 1, 2005 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics . Re-irradiation of patients who have failed radiation therapy for head and neck cancer can be associated with severe complications and high-doses can rarely be achieved. The study evaluated a regimen where chemotherapy was delivered on days 1-3 and radiation therapy on days 8-12 for a total of 3 cycles. Chemotherapy was Taxotere® and Platinol® and total radiation dose was 40 Gy. This trial included 27 patients with inoperable, recurrent head and neck cancer who had received prior radiation therapy. The overall response rate was 80%. The average time to cancer progression at or near the site of cancer was 10 months, the overall average duration of survival was 10 months, and survival at 3 years was 18%. Full doses of radiation therapy were delivered to 81% of patients, and between 73% and 83% of patients received full doses of the chemotherapy agents. The main side effects were leucopenia and mucositis. The researchers concluded that alternating chemotherapy and radiation therapy may improve tolerability of therapy in patients with recurrent head and neck cancer, potentially improving long-term outcomes in [...]

4/25/2005 as reported by www.pccoaltion.com Consumer Reports on Health Following the back and forth of medical news is enough to give you whiplash. Supplemental estrogen, portrayed in the media for decades as a veritable fountain of youth, ends up being anything but when definitive studies show it can increase the risk of breast cancer, heart attack, and stroke. Initially heralded as safer than existing drugs, the pain relievers rofecoxib (Vioxx) and celecoxib (Celebrex) make the front pages again when later studies show they increase heart-attack risk. After riding a long wave of good press, the reputation of the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil) crashes amid reports that the drug may make some teenagers suicidal. Indeed, medical news often seems to follow an all-too-familiar pattern: New drugs or therapies are introduced with glowing reports, followed a few years later by headlines blaring their dangers. "That pattern leaves many people confused or even angry," says Steven Woloshin, M.D., a professor at the Dartmouth Medical School's Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences. Some people react to that uncertainty by dismissing all medical news, while others overreact by adopting-or abandoning-medicines too soon. For example, in the 1990s many people stopped taking certain blood-pressure medications after a pair of studies linked them to increased heart-attack risk; subsequent research refuted that evidence, but only after some patients suffered adverse events because they stopped taking their medication. While some of the confusion stems from the natural unfolding of scientific knowledge, some comes from shortcomings in the way medical research is [...]

4/25/2005 Cuba Cubasi Cuba Travel Explorer TheraCIM h-R3, a humanized monoclonal antibody, received the certificate of first-category drug granted by the State Food and Drug Administration of China, for its production and commercialization in that Asian nation. According to Prensa Latina news agency, the drug is prescribed for the combined treatment of advanced head and neck epithelial cancer, of bad prognosis and resistant to the chemotherapy, explained PhD. Patricia Sierra, responsible on the Cuban side of this project. The h-R3 is a new type of drug obtained through biotechnology, with high effectiveness in the marking and specificity, and little side effect, that has been patented in other countries, including the United States. This drug will be produced and commercialized by Biotech Pharmaceutical, Chinese-Cuban Company constituted in 2000 by the CIMAB (representative of the Molecular Immunology Center) and three Chinese companies. Sierra, also general submanager of Biotech Pharmaceutical, pointed out that the industrial-scale cultivation of the recombinant antibody would kick off next September. To obtain that certificate, it was necessary to carry out clinical trials for more than one year with 120 patients affected by head and neck cancer in six hospitals of Beijing, capital of China, following strict protocols set for that aim. The studies wound up with very good results, with full response in 70% of the cases, without evidences of severe clinic toxicity, Prensa Latina assures in its note. That was the first time in which a humanized monoclonal antibody was subject to clinical test in China, country [...]

4/25/2005 Seattle, WA Bruce Taylor Seeman Seattle Times Chuck McDowell gave speeches. He sang with a band. But everything changed when his voice disappeared, leaving McDowell feeling frightened and isolated. "I was having to speak into an amplifier just to have a conversation at home," said the 46-year-old financial adviser from Duluth, Ga. "If I was in a restaurant, I could not be heard unless I put my amplifier on the table and turned it up." Eventually, McDowell had a growth removed from his vocal cords, a procedure he now jokingly recalls as easier than some haircuts. But in the 18 months it took to summon the courage for surgery, he experienced the unsettling questions familiar to nearly everyone at least once in a lifetime: Where did my voice go? How do I get it back? Experts believe that at any given time, more than 7 million Americans suffer from voice disorders, and that number is likely to grow. Longer lives may result in more voices muted by age-related fatigue. Meanwhile, the modern era — with so many service-sector jobs such as sales, and so much yapping on cellphones — is a recipe for voice strain. "Some people have a hypothesis, that the cellphone is the vocal endurance test for the new millennium," said voice-disorder specialist Dr. Michael Johns, director of the Emory Voice Center of Emory University in Atlanta. The key to effective voice production is healthy vocal cords, which experts call vocal folds. They lie horizontally in the [...]