10/10/2004 Andrew Purvis The Observer Eating the wrong foods could be responsible for up to 30 per cent of cancers, but there is growing belief that 'superfoods' are the key to preventing it. Can broccoli really be that good for you? Andrew Purvis finds out It's an image familiar to every TV viewer - Anthony Hicks, 58, real-life front man of the Government's Quit Smoking campaign, propped in a hospital bed with his voicebox removed, eyes sunken, skin the color of tobacco smoke, croaking intermittently about plans to spend Christmas with his daughter. Ten days later, the caption tells us, Anthony is dead - killed by cancer of the lung and larynx, a compliant victim of his own smoking habit. There is no ambiguity in the NHS message - and those of us who don't smoke breathe a sigh of relief (because we can). We walk to the kitchen, take a ready-made lasagne from the fridge, place it in the microwave; if we're feeling generous to ourselves, we might fry a fillet steak in a little butter, eat it (guiltily) with a plateful of oven chips and treat ourselves to a can of lager and a tub of chocolate chip ice cream. Unwittingly, we are placing ourselves in the same high-risk category as Anthony - victims not of cigarette smoke but of our Western diet. In its World Cancer Report, published last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) quietly dropped the bombshell that 30 per cent of cancers in the [...]

10/9/2004 Mohitpal Singh , , R. Krishanappa , Anjana Bagewadi and Vaishali Keluskar Oral Oncology Volume 40, Issue 6 , July 2004, Pages 591-596 This study evaluates the efficacy of lycopene in the treatment of oral leukoplakia and compares two different doses with a placebo. Fifty-eight clinically and histologically diagnosed patients of oral leukoplakia were selected for the study. They were randomly divided into three groups. Group A: (n=20; 8 mg lycopene/day), Group B: (n=20; 4 mg lycopene/day) and Group C: (n=18; placebo). The duration of the therapy was three months. Outcome was assessed clinically as well as histologically. Post-treatment patients were on follow-up for two months. Student's ‘t' test was used for statistical evaluation. Clinically the patients in Groups A, B, C had a mean response of 80%, 66.25% and 12.5% respectively. Histological evaluation too had similar results. Patients receiving lycopene in both regimes show highly significant difference in response as compared to placebo (Group C). The observed effect of lycopene suggests that it can be effectively and safely used for the management of oral leukoplakia.

10/9/2004 Karen Pihl-Carey BioWorld Online Eight months after receiving approval for Erbitux in colorectal cancer, ImClone Systems Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. set out on another Phase III program for the drug, this time targeting non-small-cell lung cancer. While New York-based ImClone and Princeton, N.J.-based Bristol-Myers intend to file a supplemental biologics license application in 2005 for Erbitux to treat head and neck cancer, a filing for the lung cancer indication could follow in 2006 if data prove positive. About 80 percent of the 173,000 Americans diagnosed with lung cancer each year have non-small-cell lung cancer - providing Erbitux with another major market opportunity. The American Cancer Society said about 160,000 of those diagnosed will die from the disease. "It's obviously one of the deadliest cancers in this country, and one of the most prevalent ones as well," said David Pitts, ImClone's assistant vice president of corporate communications. "So it's a substantial market." ImClone and Bristol-Myers are initiating the Phase III trial of Erbitux (cetuximab), an IgG1 monoclonal antibody, in 800 patients with second-line non-small-cell lung cancer. The trial was designed based on a special protocol assessment with the FDA and could help Erbitux receive an accelerated approval. The primary endpoint is tumor-response rate, defined as tumor regression of greater than 50 percent. Secondary endpoints include progression-free survival and overall survival. The trial will evaluate chemotherapy alone, either with docetaxel or pemetrexed, or the same chemotherapy in combination with Erbitux. "We don't know how quickly they're going to be able [...]

10/9/2004 Jane Elliott BBC News Online health staff Think of medieval England and you are likely to conjure up an image of a wizened hag with black stumps for teeth. But although that might have been the unfortunate state of some people's teeth, others had much better care. Documents show that, not only were the educationally elite aware of the importance of keeping their teeth clean, but they also knew how to fill cavities and deal with facial fractures. They could recognise oral cancer and even knew the rudiments of teeth whitening. A paper published in the British Dental Journal shows that medieval (12-14th century) literature even makes reference to creating false teeth. The paper's author, osteo-archeologist Trevor Anderson, said the papers referred to ways of preserving and improving teeth. "There were liquids to whiten teeth, methods of removing calculus (plaque) and compounds for filling cavities. "There is also a reference to dentures made of human teeth or cow bone. "Surgery is known for oral cancer as well as the repair of fractured jaws." But Mr Anderson said the documents would only have been available to an elite group of physicians and surgeons, usually based in the larger cities or university towns. He added: "The richer the person was the more sugar they had in their diet and therefore the more decay. The medieval peasants would probably have been eating a coarser diet and so they would have less trapped in their teeth and therefore less decay. Most people would [...]

10/8/2004 Monell Chemical Senses Center Medical News Today (online) A team of researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center and Jefferson Medical College has been awarded a $7.7 million, five-year grant by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) to study how inflammation affects our senses of taste and smell. The role inflammation plays in basic biological processes is of increasing importance to medical research. The new grant will enable a multidisciplinary team of basic scientists and clinicians from the Monell-Jefferson Chemosensory Clinical Research Center (CCRC) to investigate how inflammation contributes to clinical changes in smell and taste. Information gained from the studies will form the foundation of new approaches to avoid or overcome the sometimes debilitating effects of chemosensory dysfunction. Approximately six million Americans suffer from sensory loss or alteration related to the senses of taste, smell, or both. Although changes in taste and smell perception can significantly impact human quality of life, nutrition, and safety, current treatment options remain limited. "By investigating the role of inflammatory factors in chemosensory loss and recovery, we expect to gain insight into potential therapeutic interventions for these dysfunctions," says Beverly Cowart, Ph.D., a sensory psychologist who oversees the Chemosensory Clinic that assesses taste and smell function of patients. Otolaryngologist Edmund Pribitkin, M.D., Associate Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, is the project's medical director. Scientists at the Monell-Jefferson CCRC seek to characterize and understand the causes of taste and [...]

10/8/2004 Medical College of Georgia Medical News Today (online) The health benefits of green tea are finding their way into gum, mints, skin cream and other products with the help of a Medical College of Georgia cell biologist. Dr. Stephen Hsu, a researcher in the MCG Schools of Dentistry and Graduate Studies whose work has revolutionized the understanding of green tea's healing and preventive properties, recently began an arrangement with New Jersey-based CCA Industries, Inc. to make those properties readily available in everyday products. The first of these products, Mega-T Green Tea Chewing Gum, is on store shelves now. Each piece of the mint-flavored, sugar-free gum equals two cups of green tea. Dr. Hsu has been intrigued by the properties of green tea since observing that populations that drink green tea regularly have much lower cancer rates than populations that don't. His research helped determine that green tea polyphenols help eliminate free radicals, which can damage DNA and lead to cancer. He further found that green tea-induced p57--a protein that helps regulate cell growth and differentiation--changes the behavior of healthy cells as polyphenols target cancer cells for destruction. This change of behavior protects the healthy cells. Dr. Hsu discovered that the polyphenols activate two separate pathways, one for normal cells and one for cancer cells. The polyphenols serve as a sentinel, separating cells with p57 from cancer cells, which lack p57. He found that while the normal cells are shuttled to safety, the polyphenols destroy the mitochondria of cancer cells. [...]

10/8/2004 Chen D, Daniel KG, Kuhn DJ, Kazi A, Bhuiyan M, Li LH, Wang ZG, Wan SB, Lam WH, Chan TH, Dou QP FRONTIERS IN BIOSCIENCE 9: 2618-2631 Suppl. S, SEP 1 2004 The cancer-preventive effects of green tea and its main constituent (-)-epigallocatechin gallate [(-)- EGCG] are widely supported by results from epidemiological, cell culture, animal and clinical studies in the recent decade. In vitro cell culture studies show that tea polyphenols potently induce apoptotic cell death and cell cycle arrest in tumor cells but not in their normal cell counterparts. Green tea polyphenols affect several signal transduction pathways, including growth factor-mediated, the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)-dependent, and ubiquitin/proteasome degradation pathways. Epidemiological studies have suggested that the consumption of green tea lowers the risk of cancer. Various animal studies have revealed that treatment by green tea inhibits tumor incidence and multiplicity in different organ sites such as skin, lung, liver, stomach, mammary gland and colon. Phase I and II clinical trials were carried out recently to explore the anticancer effects of green tea in patients with cancer. At this time, more mechanistic research, animal studies, and clinical trials are necessary to further evaluate the role of green tea in cancer prevention.

10/7/2004 Harry B. Burke Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 96, No. 19, 1408-1409 The prediction of patient prognosis has always been essential to the practice of medicine. By the early 20th century, Halsted (1) and others believed that solid tumors spread contiguously over time through a series of stages, from the primary tumor site, through the lymphatics, to distant organs, with each stage conferring an increasingly poor prognosis. A corollary of this view, supported by later research, was that, at diagnosis (clinical tumor–node–metastasis [TNM] stage) or after surgery (pathologic TNM stage), tumor size or location (T), regional lymph node involvement (N), and distant metastases (M) were indices of disease spread and could be used to predict patient outcome. In 1953, the French surgeon Pierre Denoix proposed to the Union Internationale Centre le Cancer that these three factors be standardized and integrated into a prognostic system that could be used, with some accommodation for anatomic site, across all solid tumors (2). His proposal for a common language of solid tumor prognosis was adopted as the TNM staging system, which is currently used throughout the world. The TNM system has undergone six revisions and, in the United States, these changes have been guided by the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), which was established in 1959 and which has published a succession of revisions of its AJCC Cancer Staging Manual (3). The TNM staging system is a "bin model"; the TNM prognostic factors are used to create a mutually exclusive [...]

10/7/2004 Toronto, Ontario Press release Canada News Wire (cnw.ca) Viventia Biotech Inc. a leading biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of a new generation of targeted anti-cancer drugs, announced today that Dr. Nick Glover, President and CEO of Viventia Biotech has been invited to make corporate presentations at three major biotechnology conferences. Dr. Glover will present before an international audience of investors, biotech professionals, journalists and representatives from large pharmaceutical companies in both North America and Europe. Presentations will be made at BioContact Biopharmaceutical Partnering Symposium being held in Quebec City on October 6th - 8th, 2004. The Rodman & Renshaw Techvest Healthcare Conference in New York, October 26th - 28th, 2004 and BIO Europe 2004, the largest and most successful partnering forum in Europe being held November 8th - 10th, 2004 in Cologne, Germany. Dr. Glover said, "Participation in these conferences allows Viventia the opportunity to present to an international audience the progress we have made in our mission, to discover and develop a new generation of monoclonal antibody products to offer safer, more beneficial therapies for cancer patients." Viventia's first Armed Antibodies(TM) product, Proxinium(TM), continues to rapidly move through clinical development in our first indication, the treatment of advanced, recurrent head and neck cancer. We have also recently initiated clinical development for Proxinium in a second indication, advanced bladder cancer. Viventia Biotech Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company advancing a new generation of monoclonal antibody therapeutics designed to offer safer, more beneficial therapies for cancer patients. Viventia's [...]

10/5/2004 Atlanta, GA David Wahlberg Atlanta Jornal-Constitution Makers of a new cigarette claim it curbs the risk of cancer. Another is sold with the slogan, "Great taste, less toxins." Snuff in new teabag-like pouches can be sucked and tossed instead of spit out. And anyone care for a tobacco lozenge? Tobacco companies, reeling from lawsuit settlements, clean indoor air campaigns and growing public distrust are pitching a variety of "reduced-harm" products. The trend — to be discussed at a cancer conference in Atlanta this week — has ignited controversy over whether the potentially less risky offerings should be promoted as an alternative when smokers can't or won't quit. Many public health researchers wonder: is there such thing as a "safer cigarette" — or any kind of "safer tobacco?" The issue also has lit up the legal world. State attorneys general are questioning marketing claims. Bills in Congress calling for federal tobacco regulation and a buyout of tobacco quotas could restrict — or even expand — development of the "kinder, gentler" innovations. The ongoing federal trial seeking $280 billion from the tobacco industry for 50 years of alleged fraud could also have an impact. While the "reduced-harm" products and the furor over them are new, the reason health officials are cautious dates to the 1970s. Tobacco companies touted "low-tar" and "light" cigarettes as less harmful, and health authorities initially agreed. Then studies found that smokers compensated by puffing harder and inhaling more deeply, causing a new kind of cancer further down [...]