11/8/2007 United Kingdom Emily Walker SwintonAdvertiser (www.thisisswindon.co.uk) Most men would be delighted to hear that their wife will never speak again, but it does not stop Bob Taylor's wife nagging him. Lorry driver Bob, 54, fell in love with Rita, 49, across a busy nightclub dance floor a year after the care worker was diagnosed with cancer and had to have her tongue removed. Bob was in the Cardiff bar after driving to the Welsh city in December 2004 from his home in Swindon and said Rita silently captured his heart. "I think it was the physical attraction to start with," said Bob. "We smiled at each other across the room. "Then I went over and tried to chat her up but she didn't say anything so I said You don't say much, do you?' "Then her friend told me she couldn't talk because she had tongue cancer. "The fact that she couldn't talk didn't stop us getting to know each other, because we did most of the talking on her notepad. "After that night, we started texting each other. Then when I got home from work in the evenings we would email. "By Christmas she came to stay with me in Swindon." Bob gave up his job and moved to Cardiff to look after Rita and set up his graffiti and chewing gum cleaning company called Grime Blasters. Then last August Rita made her silent "I do" to Bob when they got married. "I lip-read Rita saying she would [...]

11/7/2007 web-based article staff Health24.com In a study of sexually active young male, heterosexual college students, almost two thirds developed genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection over two years of follow-up, according to Seattle-based researchers. Certain strains of HPV, which can be transmitted from male to female partners, are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. In The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Dr Laura A. Koutsky and colleagues at the University of Washington note that, although much is known about HPV infection in women, this is not the case in men. To investigate further, the researchers collected samples of genital cells at four-month intervals from 240 heterosexually active male university students between 18 and 20 years old. Higher rates in males After 24 months, the incidence of new genital HPV infections was 62.4 percent. This is considerably greater than the 38- to 43 percent rate seen in comparable studies of young women, the investigators note. Acquisition rates did not differ by site of initial detection. Overall, 33 different HPV types were recorded, but the most commonly detected types were HPV-16 and HPV-84. HPV-16 is a subtype known to be associated with cervical cancer - previous studies have found that about 50 percent of cervical cancers are caused by this virus. Among the factors associated with increased risk of HPV infection were having a new sex partner within four months of evaluation and having a history of cigarette smoking. "The high rates of HPV infection in men," the investigators conclude, "should be [...]

11/7/2007 Memphis, TN staff CancerConsultants.com Researchers affiliated with RTOG 99-03 study have reported that the administration of radiotherapy with or without recombinant erythropoietin alfa did not affect survival or relapse of anemic patients with head and neck cancer. The details of this study were published in the November 15, 2007 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology * Biology * Physics.1 Epoetin alfa (Procrit®, Epogen®) and darbepoetin alfa (Aranesp®) have been evaluated in anemic patients with head and neck cancer receiving radiation therapy or chemoradiotherapy. The administration of erythropoietins improves hemoglobin levels and decreases transfusion requirements without having an impact on survival. However, there has been concern that erythropoietins could stimulate tumor growth and result in a higher relapse rate. In one study from Denmark in patients with head and neck cancer receiving radiotherapy, the goal was to maintain high hemoglobin levels. In this study, patients receiving prophylactic epoetin alfa to maintain high hemoglobin levels had a lower disease-free survival than patients receiving placebo. In the current study, 141 patients with head and neck cancer receiving radiation therapy were randomly allocated to receive epoetin alfa or no epoetin alfa. Hemoglobin levels were 9.0-13.5 g/dL at baseline. Hemoglobin levels rose by 1.66 g/dL in the treatment group and decreased by 0.24 g/dL in the control group. Local failure rate was 36% for the control group and 44% for the Epo group. The 3 year local and distant PFS was 53% for the control group and 47% for the Epo group. [...]

11/7/2007 London, England Lia Mills Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk) Novelist Lia Mills put off seeing a dentist about a sore tooth for months. Even then, the true nature of her condition was missed and it took a year before she was diagnosed with oral cancer. Here, Lia - who is 50 and lives in Dublin with her husband, Simon - tells her harrowing story... The receptionist at the Dental Hospital looks about 12. She is completely indifferent to me and to the painful open sore in my mouth. She takes my referral letter and says it could be seven months before I get an appointment. But my GP says this is too long and gets me an appointment with a maxillofacial surgeon ten days later. When I see him, I explain this is all a mistake. The swelling in my cheek has gone down, and I'm sorry for wasting the consultant's time. He says it's better to get these things checked out. He begins to poke around and at first says what other people have said. It looks like a trauma, I've probably been chewing my cheek. He pokes around a bit more and says: 'Mmm, maybe not.' He does a biopsy; he says he's sorry, he knows it hurts. The biopsy request is marked as 'urgent'. The pain in my cheek throbs and swells. I've been on the internet again, and now I'm sleepless with pain and sudden anxieties. I return to the hospital a week later. The doctor studies [...]

11/6/2007 web-based article Liz Savage, Andrea Widener JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2007 99(21):1561 No relationship was found between vitamin D levels and the overall risk of dying from cancer, according to a study published online October 30 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. However, higher vitamin D levels were associated with a decreased risk of colorectal cancer death. Several epidemiological studies have supported the hypothesis that that vitamin D can reduce cancer mortality by decreasing cancer incidence or improving survival. Animal and cell studies suggest that vitamin D may reduce tumor growth and induce cancer cell death. Diet and exposure to sunlight are the major sources of vitamin D. D. Michal Freedman, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues analyzed data from the third national Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to examine the relationship between levels of circulating vitamin D in the blood and cancer mortality in a group of 16,818 participants aged 17 and older. After about a decade of follow-up, 536 participants had died of cancer. Cancer mortality was not related to the level of circulating vitamin D for the overall group, nor was it related when the researchers looked at the data by sex, race, or age. But higher levels of vitamin D (80 nmol/L or more) were associated with a 72 percent reduced risk of colorectal cancer mortality, compared with lower levels (less than 50 nmol/L). "To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the [...]

11/5/2007 Montreal, Quebec, Canada Gerald Tatist et al Montreal Gazette (www.canada.com/montrealgazette) As health-care professionals in oncology, we wish to respond to The Gazette's Oct. 29 editorial titled "Attitude in facing cancer: Let each person decide how to face cancer." In 1965, Dr. Franz Alexander wrote: "The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life." Traditionally, medicine has focused primarily on the actual disease, not the person with the disease. Attitude matters not because it might or might not prolong life, but because it makes life worth living. A sense of optimism can help patients cope with the many challenges and ramifications of dealing with this potentially life-threatening illness. A sense of resignation can make illness much more difficult to bear. Left unchecked, despair can also adversely affect compliance with treatment and may even lead to full-blown depression. The editorial referred to the University of Pennsylvania study that followed patients with cancers of the head and neck. It concluded attitude did not affect survival rates. However, when you Google cancer survival and attitude, you will find another study on the role of patients' attitudes in cancers of the head and neck, conducted by McGill University researchers, which describes positive predictive effects of dispositional optimism on survival. So we have one study of many dismissing the value of optimism and another of many supporting the value of optimism. What is important [...]

11/4/2007 Miami, FL MC Biagioli et al. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys, November 15, 2007; 69(4): 1067-73 Purpose: Primary treatment fails in >70% of locally advanced head and neck cancer patients. Salvage therapy has a 30-40% response rate, but few long-term survivors. Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) has recently emerged as a new modality for salvage therapy. This retrospective study evaluated our experience using every-other-week IMRT with concurrent chemotherapy. Methods and Materials: Between 2001 and 2006, 41 patients underwent IMRT as repeat RT with concurrent chemotherapy. All but 6 patients received 60 Gy at 2 Gy/fraction. RT was delivered on an alternating week schedule. RESULTS: With a median follow-up time of 14 months, the overall response rate was 75.6%, with a complete response and partial response rate of 58.5% and 17.1%, respectively. The Kaplan-Meier estimate of overall survival, disease-free survival, and progression-free survival at 24 months was 48.7%, 48.1%, and 38%, respectively. Patients who underwent surgery as a part of their salvage therapy had a mean estimated survival of 30.9 months compared with 22.8 months for patients who received only chemoradiotherapy (p = 0.126). Grade 3 or 4 acute toxicities occurred in 31.7% of patients, but all had resolved within 2 months of therapy completion. No deaths occurred during treatment, except for 1 patient, who died shortly after discontinuing treatment early because of previously undiagnosed metastatic disease; 6 patients had long-term complications. Conclusions: Concurrent chemotherapy with repeat radiotherapy with IMRT given every other week appears to be both well tolerated and [...]

11/2/2007 San Diego, CA press release PharmaLive (www.medadnews.com) Nventa Biopharmaceuticals Corporation announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent Number 7,262,014 to Nventa covering compositions and methods for inducing or enhancing immune responses to a human papillomavirus (HPV) antigen with or without the use of an adjuvant. The Company's CoVal(TM) HPV protein fusions are being developed to treat patients with HPV-related diseases. This new U.S. patent provides for a method of treating a tumor expressing an HPV antigen through the administration of an effective amount of a composition comprised of an HPV antigen joined or fused to a stress protein. This patent provides additional patent exclusivity for HspE7, the Company's investigational therapeutic vaccine, and future HPV fusions through February 2019. Gregory M. McKee, President and Chief Executive Officer at Nventa commented: "The issuance of this patent protecting the use of our HPV CoVal(TM) protein fusions to treat HPV-related diseases strengthens our intellectual property portfolio and, we believe, adds further value to our HspE7 program, which is currently in Phase 1 clinical development." Nventa is developing innovative therapeutics for the treatment of viral infections and cancer, with a focus on diseases caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). The Company is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol NVN. For more information about Nventa Biopharmaceuticals Corporation, please visit the Company's website located at www.nventacorp.com.

11/2/2007 Los Angeles, CA press release PharmaLive (www.medadnews.com) ImClone Systems Incorporated, a leader in the development and commercialization of novel cancer therapeutics, today announced that the 1000th patient has been enrolled in the independent national registry of patients with head and neck cancer known as LORHAN (Longitudinal Oncology Registry of Head And Neck carcinoma). The announcement was made in conjunction with the Company's sponsorship of and participation in the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO) 49th Annual Meeting, which is being held this week in Los Angeles. Radiation therapy is a core treatment option for patients with head and neck cancer. The LORHAN Registry was established in October 2005 to better understand treatment practices for Head and Neck Cancer patients by providing insight into national treatment trends and outcomes. LORHAN is the only longitudinal registry of its kind in the U.S. and since its launch less than two years ago, 95 sites have joined the Registry, including many major U.S. cancer treatment centers. LORHAN is guided by a prestigious advisory board chaired by Dr. K. Kian Ang, of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, that includes: Walter Curran, M.D., Thomas Jefferson University Hospital; Paul Harari, M.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison; Barbara Murphy, M.D., Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; Stuart Wong, M.D., Medical College of Wisconsin; Amy Chen, M.D., Emory University; and Adam Garden, M.D., M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The program is being supported by ImClone Systems Incorporated and implemented by MedNet Solutions, Inc. of Minnetonka, Minnesota. LORHAN is non-drug specific and collects [...]

11/2/2007 web-based article staff ScienceDaily.com A new report published recently by the World Cancer Research Fund will show how much our diet needs to change if we are to reduce the risk of cancer. In the British Medical Journal, Professor Tim Key from the Cancer Research UK unit at the University of Oxford discusses what would be needed to achieve the report's goals. The report concludes that obesity increases the risk of cancer of the oesophagus, colorectum, pancreas, breast, endometrium, and kidney. Its goal is for the average body mass index of the population to be between 21 and 23. Yet, mean body mass index in adults in the UK is now about 27 and has not fallen into the target range since the 1940s, says Professor Key. Enormous efforts by individuals, society, and government will therefore be needed to reverse the current trend. The report also shows that alcohol increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus, colorectum, and breast and also causes cirrhosis, which predisposes to liver cancer. It recommends much lower drinking limits than currently advised in Britain, so a substantial shift in drinking habits would be needed to achieve these goals. Evidence for a protective effect of fruit and vegetables is less convincing. Nevertheless, the report recommends that people should eat at least five portions of vegetables and fruits each day. To meet this individual recommendation, the average consumption in the population would need to be about 7.5 portions a day. The average [...]