3/1/2003 Aviano, Italy Janet Raloff Luigino Dal Maso of the Cancer Referral Center In what may be bad news for bars and pubs, a European research consortium has found that people drinking alcohol outside of meals have a significantly higher risk of cancer in the mouth and neck than do those taking their libations with food. Luigino Dal Maso of the Cancer Referral Center in Aviano, Italy, and his colleagues studied the drinking patterns of 1,500 patients from four cancer studies and another 3,500 adults who had never had cancer. All lived in Italy or French-speaking Switzerland. After the researchers accounted for the amount of alcohol consumed, they found that individuals who downed a significant share of their alcohol outside of meals faced at least a 50 to 80 percent higher risk of cancer in the oral cavity, pharynx, and esophagus, when compared with people who drank only at meals. Consuming alcohol without food also increased by at least 20 percent the likelihood of laryngeal cancer. The findings appear in the International Journal of Cancer. Roughly 95 percent of cancers at these four sites traced to smoking or drinking by the study volunteers, Dal Maso says. The discouraging news, his team reports, is that drinking with meals didn't eliminate cancer risk at any of the sites. For their new analysis, the European scientists divided people in the study into four groups, based on how many drinks they reported having in an average week. The lowest-intake group included people who averaged [...]

3/1/2003 Maryland University Of Maryland Medical Center Photodynamic therapy, which uses a red laser and a light-sensitive drug to destroy cancer cells without harming normal tissue, represents a promising new treatment option for patients with throat or oral cancers, according to a voice and swallowing specialist at the University of Maryland Medical Center. “It’s as close to a magic bullet as you can get to kill cancers that are close to the surface,” says Paul F. Castellanos, M.D., an otolaryngologist/head and neck surgeon who has treated a dozen patients with the minimally invasive laser light therapy in the past 18 months. Nine of those patients had throat cancer, and three had oral cancer. “Photodynamic therapy is the only thing that kills the cancerous tissue and the precancerous tissue, but not the normal tissue,” says Dr. Castellanos, who is also an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We are very excited about this new frontier in the treatment of these kinds of cancers and premalignancies.” Before patients receive the therapy, they are given an intravenous injection of a light-sensitive drug called porfimer sodium, which passes through normal cells but collects in cancerous and precancerous cells. Two or three days after the injection, doctors expose those areas to a red laser, causing a chemical reaction that destroys the diseased cells. Other lasers kill cancer cells with heat—vaporizing or cutting out tumors, along with a portion of the surrounding healthy tissue. In photodynamic therapy, the red laser’s [...]

2/24/2003 Shari Roan International Tea Committee (figures from 1999-2001) Tea may prove to be even more potent as a disease fighter than expected. As studies increase, so does optimism. Tea may prove to be even more potent as a disease fighter than expected. As studies increase, so does optimism. When it comes to a societal tonic, Americans have long preferred coffee over tea. But although coffee may be good, it's increasingly hard to ignore the evidence that tea is good for you. Long viewed simply as a reason to relax in the middle of a stressful day or as a folk remedy for colds and digestive problems, mounting research suggests that drinking tea could lower the risk of developing several serious illnesses, including heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis. Almost 300 tea studies were completed last year alone. Tea is as hot among consumers as it is among researchers. In the United States, sales rose from $1.84 billion in 1990 to an estimated $5.03 billion in 2002, according to the Tea Council of the USA, a trade organization. Though consumption per person still lags far behind that of many countries, the numbers reflect a soaring interest in this ancient brewed drink. The recent findings have made a believer out of Andrea Emmerich, 38, who was shopping recently at Elixir Tonics & Teas, a store and tea garden on Melrose Avenue. Emmerich was choosing from bowls of high-quality, loose tea leaves selling at $2.75 to $9 an ounce. A few years ago, [...]

2/1/2003 Jenny Huang, Lisa Barbera, Melissa Brouwers, George Browman, William J. Mackillop Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 21, Issue 3 / : 555-563 Purpose: The objective of this study was to synthesize what is known about the relationship between delay in radiotherapy (RT) and the outcomes of RT. Methods: A systematic review of the world literature was conducted to identify studies that described the association between delay in RT and the probability of local control, metastasis, and/or survival. Studies were classified by clinical and methodologic criteria and their results were combined using a random-effects model. Results: A total of 46 relevant studies involving 15,782 patients met our minimum methodologic criteria of validity; most (42) were retrospective observational studies. Thirty-nine studies described rates of local recurrence, 21 studies described rates of distant metastasis, and 19 studies described survival. The relationship between delay and the outcomes of RT had been studied in diverse situations, but most frequently in breast cancer (21 studies) and head and neck cancer (12 studies). Combined analysis showed that the 5-year local recurrence rate (LRR) was significantly higher in patients treated with adjuvant RT for breast cancer more than 8 weeks after surgery than in those treated within 8 weeks of surgery (odds ratio [OR] = 1.62, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.21 to 2.16). Combined analysis also showed that the LRR was significantly higher among patients who received postoperative RT for head and neck cancer more than 6 weeks after surgery than among those treated within 6 weeks [...]

1/26/2003 Lucette Lagnado The Wall Street Journal Under pressure from lawmakers and consumer advocates, the hospital industry said it would consider making broad price cuts for the uninsured -- provided the federal government approves. The announcement by the American Hospital Association included a stark admission that some hospital billing and collections practices are unfair to needy patients. But even as some big hospitals scramble to curtail their most aggressive tactics, such as putting liens on debtors' homes, the trade group is also blaming much of the problem on Medicare. In a letter delivered Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services, the hospital group said Medicare regulations "make it far too difficult and frustrating" for hospitals to reduce prices for people who can't afford health care. The letter asks the agency, which oversees Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly, to change or clarify its rules so that hospitals "have the ability to do what they can to respond to the needs of these patients." In a document filed in support of its letter, the trade group also said it would urge its 4,800 member hospitals to adopt a set of voluntary guidelines on billing and collections. At the heart of the issue is the hospitals' common practice of charging full listed prices to the nation's 43.6 million uninsured patients. Meanwhile, other patients enjoy steep discounts negotiated on their behalf -- either by private insurers and HMOs or by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the federal-state [...]

1/9/2003 Respected novelist and playwright Peter Tinniswood has died at the age of 66 following a long battle with cancer. The writer was diagnosed with oral cancer in 1995 and had undergone surgery to have his larynx removed. Tinniswood was responsible for bringing many memorable characters to radio and television. One of his best-remembered characters was Uncle Mort, an indomitable northerner who contracted cancer in the screenplay I Didn't Know You Cared. Several of the television and radio plays written by Tinniswood attracted a devoted following. Perhaps his best-known works were Tales from a Long Room, and its sequel, More Tales from a Long Room, which told stories about cricket, one of Tinniswood's life-long passions. His novels were produced on television, radio and the stage. Most recently he worked on the small screen adaptation of HE Bates' Uncle Silas, which stars Albert Finney. Born in Liverpool, Tinniswood grew up in Sale, Greater Manchester, England where he lived above the dry-cleaners run by his mother. As a young boy he would sit under the counter among the dirty laundry, listening to customers' conversations. "It was like live radio," he said "it sharpened my ear for dialogue...I became a good mimic." He began his working life as a journalist, writing fiction in his spare time until it was able to provide him with a livelihood. Amongs others, he has written for, and had his work performed by, are Dame Judi Dench, Billie Whitelaw, Jane Lapotaire and Michael Williams. Tinniswood's second wife, the [...]

1/8/2003 New York New York State Dental Journal Legislation that NYSDA championed in the hopes it would help alter the deadly outlook for patients suffering from oral cancer was signed into law in September by Gov. George Pataki. The measure, which now becomes Capter 237 of the Laws of 2001, stipulates that dentists licensed in New York State must earmark no fewer than two hours of their mandated continuing education to a course devoted to the prevention and detection of oral cancer. This is a one-time requirement, which, it is hoped, will arm dentists with the knowledge they need to become a first-line defense against the scourages of oral cancer. Within weeks of the bill's passage, the New York State Dental Foundation learned it had been approved for a $150,000 grant from the New York State Department of Health to conduct a professional education/public awareness campaign to warn against the deletrious oral health effects of tobacco and tobacco products. A portion of these monies will be used to provide free oral cancer detection and prevention courses for dentists and hygienists.

1/5/2003 Frankfurt, germany Dr Jon Sudbo Department of Oncology at the Norwegian Radium Hospital Researchers plan world’s first phase III prevention trial for head and neck cancer Norwegian researchers are planning the world's first phase III randomised trial to prevent head and neck cancer. They will use COX-2 inhibitors (coxibs) – a particular type of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory group of drugs (NSAID) – better known as a treatment for conditions such as arthritis. These drugs block the action of COX-2 (cyclooxygenase-2), an enzyme found mainly in inflammatory and immune cells and now suspected of playing a role in cell growth and genetic instability. Dr Jon Sudbo, Consultant at the Department of Oncology at the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo, revealed plans for the trial at a news briefing today (Thursday 21 November) at the EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics[1], in Frankfurt, Germany. His team at the Norwegian Radium Hospital and colleagues from the University of Oslo Department of Oral Biology, have carried out a study to compare levels of COX-2 expression in three groups of people – 30 with healthy mucous membranes in their mouths, 22 with dysplastic (premalignant) lesions and 29 with oral cancer. The objective was to see whether the levels of COX-2 were linked to aneuploidy (aberrant numbers of chromosomes) in the DNA, indicating a genetic risk marker for cancer. The results are being presented for the first time at the Frankfurt conference. "We found that COX-2 expression was up regulated from healthy to premalignant [...]

1/1/2003 Los Angeles David Brown Dental Research Institute at UCLA A tiny, silicon laboratory on a chip that could test patients for cancer and other harmful diseases while they wait to see the dentist is being developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at UCLA. Painless, noninvasive and cost efficient, the device could detect evidence of cancers before even the best-trained clinician would spot them, according to David Wong, Director of the Dental Research Institute at UCLA and principal investigator. Researchers at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science bring expertise in nanotechnology and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to the project. Chih-Ming Ho, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Carlo Montemagno, who chairs the bioengineering department, are among a team of engineers. The project is funded by a $4.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. "We are integrating microtechnology, nanotechnology and microbiology to build a new class of devices for pre-cancer and oral pathogen detection," Montemagno said. "Because it would provide inexpensive, rapid, early detection of oral cancer and pathogen," Wong said, "it is technology that could take us to the next level of patient care." Early detection of cancer and pathogen is frequently cited as one of the best means of surviving cancer and oral infectious diseases. "Patients are often uncomfortable having their blood drawn," Wong said. The process requires trained technicians and exposes the patient and technician to possible contamination by infectious agents. This device would eliminate both the patient discomfort and danger to [...]

11/20/2002 Robert Bazell New England Journal of Medicine Experimental injection found 100 percent effective against virus that causes disease. Early testing shows an experimental vaccine to be 100 percent effective against the virus that causes cervical cancer, raising doctors’ hopes of someday sending the lethal disease into retreat in the same way as smallpox and polio. “IT APPEARS to be the real thing,” said Dr. Christopher Crum, a pathologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “You’re looking at some very compelling evidence that this vaccine will prevent cervical cancer.” It remains unclear how long the protection might last. Even so, researchers say a vaccine could reach the market within five years or so. The findings were published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. TARGETING HPV Vaccines work by teaching the body's immune defenses to recognize invading viruses and bacteria. Most types of cancer, by contrast, are blamed largely on genetic mutations and environmental factors. However, virtually all cases of cervical cancer are caused by a sexually transmitted virus - the human papilloma virus. A vaccine for cervical cancer is urgently being sought because the disease strikes about 450,000 women worldwide each year, killing about half. It is the leading cancer killer of women in the developing world. In the United States, where Pap tests are widely used for screening, it develops in about 13,000 women annually and kills about a third. The new vaccine, aimed at the viral strain Type 16 responsible for about half the cases [...]