1/13/2008 Los Angeles, CA Bruce Goldman LA Times (www.latimes.com) An experimental brain tumor vaccine coaxes the immune system to attack diseased cells only. Trials on other cancers may follow. Cancer patients and physicians are always looking for therapies free of side effects. But the standard treatments available to them -- chemotherapy and radiation -- typically work via a shotgun approach, indiscriminately killing all rapidly dividing cells whether they're cancerous or not. A long-held notion that the immune response might, in some practical manner, be harnessed to target cancer cells while sparing the rest is now being put to the test. An experimental vaccine is now in multi-center, late-stage trials for treatment of glioblastoma, the most common brain cancer in adults. If the therapy lives up to its promise, it could potentially be used for other cancers as well. Glioblastoma, which strikes more than 10,000 adults per year in the United States, is a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer: Only one-half of patients survive for one year, even after radiation treatment and surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. The recent introduction of temozolomide, a chemotherapeutic drug, to the arsenal has added barely two months of survival to patients' lives. Normally, we think of vaccines as prevention measures that enable our immune systems to pounce on bacteria or viruses the minute they strike. In this case, however, the new vaccine -- which goes by the experimental name CDX-110 -- is designed to kick-start an immune assault on [...]

1/12/2007 Houston, TX Christi Myers abc13.com Imagine getting a breast cancer test at your dentist's office. And the test can find cancer before it can be seen on a mammogram. That test is now here, invented by a Houston dental researcher. All patients have to do is chew some gum. And when they chew long enough, the study patients spit into a cup. And from that sample, Dr. Charles Streckfus, a professor at UT dental branch, can tell if they may have early breast cancer. "You would be able to detect it a lot earlier and a lot smaller and you would be able to save untold numbers of lives," said Dr. Charles Streckfus, DDS. The research dentist at UT dental branch spent 10 years looking at a protein called her2 in saliva and found that it can predict breast cancer at stage zero. "We were able to detect those cancers smaller than the size of a pea," said Dr. Streckfus. Imagine going to the dentist and catching breast cancer in a saliva test before it's detectable on a mammogram, when it's virtually curable. "It's so exciting what we're doing with saliva," said Dr. Catherine Flaitz, DDS, Dean at UT dental branch. "It's not only breast cancer, but a number of other diseases and what we're seeing is we can pick up these proteins and these cancer signals very, very early." The researcher has 20,000 spit samples stored in freezers at temperatures of 77 degrees below zero. He is doing [...]

1/12/2007 Taichung, Taiwan KY Yang et al. Laryngoscope, January 1, 2007; 117(1): 92-5 Objectives: Because most screening was done by dentists, the purpose of this prospective cohort study was to evaluate the effectiveness of oral visual screening by otolaryngologists. In addition, we wanted to determine which group of enrolled patients was at potential risk of contracting oral cancer. Methods: All male patients age > or =18 years who visited our clinic received oral mucosal screening. Basic data, including personal habits, were also obtained. A multivariate logistic regression model was devised to determine relevant risk factors for developing oral cancer. Results: A total of 5,825 patients were enrolled in this study. Positive findings were found in 226 patients (3.9%). One hundred seventy-two patients received biopsy and 131 patients were proven to have oral cancer (sensitivity rate: 76.2%). The results showed that those who smoked, consumed alcohol, and chewed betel quid on a regular basis were most likely to contract oral cancer (odds ratio = 49.81, 95% confidence interval = 29.38-84.42). Conclusions: The otolaryngologists involved in this study successfully performed the oral screening. The sensitivity and specificity rates were both satisfactory. We suggest that those who are habitual cigarette smokers, alcohol consumers, and betel quid chewers should receive oral mucosal screening regularly so that potential oral cancer can be detected as early as possible. Authors: KY Yang, RS Jiang, JY Shiao, CC Wang, CP Wang, KL Liang, CW Twu, and SA Liu Authors' affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, [...]

1/11/2007 New York, NY staff Forbes (www.forbes.com) Acquired genetic changes appear to be linked to the development of some head and neck cancers, new research suggests. U.S. scientists said they've discovered five genetic alterations in tissue surrounding head and neck cancer tumors that are associated with a tumor's aggressiveness. They also found three genetic changes that were associated with a tumor's size and ability to spread. "We found genetic alterations in the innocent-looking cells around head and neck cancers," said the study's lead author, Dr. Charis Eng, chairwoman and director of the Genomic Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio. "Why and how these changes occur, we don't know." Each year, about 31,000 Americans are diagnosed with head and neck cancer and about 7,400 die from the disease, according to background information in the study. While progress has been made in treatment, half of all people who develop this form of cancer will eventually die from it, reports the study. About 85 percent of people who develop head and neck cancers are tobacco users, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Alcohol use is also an important risk factor for this disease, and people who use both tobacco and alcohol have the greatest risk, according to the NCI. To get a better understanding of how these cancers develop, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University examined cells from 122 head and neck cancer tumors and from surrounding tissue. All of the tissue samples came from [...]

1/10/2007 Berkeley, CA staff AScribe (newswire.ascribe.org) The active ingredient in a drug currently being tested to treat rheumatoid arthritis might also one day serve as an effective means of treating one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated that inhibiting the activity of the protease enzyme known as TACE can deprive tumor cells of a key factor needed for their proliferation. TACE is strongly present in a form of breast cancer which responds poorly to current therapies. "We have shown that inhibition of the TACE protease in breast cancer cells blocks the shedding of two critical growth factor proteins and results in an inhibition of a key signaling pathway that controls cell division," said Paraic Kenny, a post-doctoral cell biologist with the research group of Mina Bissell in Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. "Based on analysis of cells grown in three-dimensional cultures, the inhibition of this protease results in the reversion of the malignant phenotype of these breast cancer cells and switches their behavior back to a phenotype very reminiscent of non-malignant breast epithelial cells." Kenny is the co-author along with Bissell of a paper published in the /Journal of Clinical Investigation/ entitled: Targeting TACE-Dependent EGFR-ligand Shedding in Breast Cancer. This paper presents the latest experimental results from an on-going investigation led by Bissell into the ecology of tumors. It has long been Bissell's contention that "no tumor is an island." Tumor cells, she maintains, [...]

1/10/2007 Salem, OR staff Statesman Journal (www.statesmanjournal.com) With anti-smoking laws taking hold in many states, R.J. Reynolds has been test marketing a “spitless” tobacco called Camel Snus in two cities — Portland and Austin, Texas. Snus tobacco, long popular in Sweden and Norway, is steam-pasteurized, not fermented like most U.S. chewing tobacco, so users do not have to spit out the juices. The small pouches, sold in tins of 20, come in three flavors: regular, spice and frost. R.J. Reynolds spokesman David Howard said the company picked Portland and Austin to get feedback from adult tobacco consumers, and were not chosen because of their heavy concentration of young people. Health officials in Oregon are skeptical. "I see it as a young adult marketing strategy, and we have a lot of hip young adults in this city," said Cathryn Cushing, a specialist with the state’s Tobacco Prevention and Education Program. And "if it appeals to a 22-year-old, I think you can assume it will appeal to a 16-year-old. Because what do 16-year-olds want to be? Twenty-two." Howard declined to say how many adult tobacco consumers have tried Camel Snus, or how long the sales test, which started in summer, will run. "The test market will go on until we feel that we have gotten enough learning." One Portland snus user is Jesse Thompson, who says his goal is to quit all tobacco products. The bartender said he doesn’t like chewing tobacco because it’s messy and you have to spit all the [...]

1/9/2007 Baltimore, MD Maura L. Gillison Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 24, No 36 (December 20), 2006: pp. 5623-5625 Oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas are etiologically heterogeneous, with one subset attributable primarily to human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and another to alcohol and tobacco use. These subsets are clinically and molecularly distinct, and these distinctions extend to patient prognosis.1 In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Licitra et al2 report that patients with HPV DNA–positive oropharyngeal cancers have an approximately 60% reduction in 5-year mortality when compared with patients with HPV-negative tumors, who have a considerably worse prognosis. These data corroborate several previous single-institutional, retrospective analyses that reported similarly improved disease-specific and overall survival in HPV-positive patients.3-8 Retrospective analyses, such as those performed in this study, must be interpreted with caution because of limited quality of retrospectively collected data, sample size constraints, and the potential for residual confounding. However, in a prospective, population-based, observational study, the association between HPV status and prognosis strengthened after adjustment for potential confounders.9 Indeed, tumor HPV status was as important to patient prognosis as tumor stage. Therefore, the association between tumor HPV status and prognosis is now sufficiently strong and consistent such that its impact on clinical research involving head and neck cancer patients must be considered. As for any cancer prognostic biomarker with potential clinical utility, research involving HPV tumor status is strongly dependent on the performance of the assay used for HPV detection as well as the definition of a positive test.10 Classification [...]

1/8/2007 Charleston, SC press release Medical News Today (www.medicalnewstoday.com) Addiction experts at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) say the link between oral cancer and heavy drinking makes dentists ideal sources of alcohol intervention. The study that appeared in the December 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) also finds that most patients don't mind discussing alcohol use with their dentist. The results were somewhat surprising, said Peter M. Miller, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at MUSC. "We thought alcohol was a sensitive topic," Miller said. "We thought people might feel it's okay if their doctor talked to them about [alcohol use], but not their dentist." MUSC researchers collected information from 408 adults. All were treated at an emergency walk-in dental clinic during a four-month period in 2005. Patients were asked questions about their drinking habits and their thoughts about having their dentist discuss alcohol use with them. About 80 percent of people in the study said that dentists should feel free to ask patients about their drinking habits. About 25 percent said they would be embarrassed if their dentist asked such a question. However, 90 percent said they would give an honest answer. More than 90 percent of the people in the study also agreed that if drinking were affecting their oral health, their dentist should advise them to reduce the amount they drink, or to quit. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) estimates that nearly 50 percent of [...]

1/7/2007 web-based article press release Genetic Engineering News (www.genengnews.com) IRX Therapeutics today announced that John W. Hadden II, Chief Operating Officer, will present at the upcoming 25th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, California on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. Mr. Hadden will provide an overview of the Company's product portfolio and business developments. IRX Therapeutics discovers and develops therapeutic treatments that act on multiple cellular targets to restore the immune system's ability to treat cancer and viral diseases. IRX-2 seeks to correct both dendritic cell and T-cell defects to stimulate an immune response to destroy tumor cells. IRX-2 received Fast Track designation by the Food and Drug Administration in November of 2003. An open label Phase 2 clinical trial in late-stage head and neck cancer patients was completed which demonstrated statistically significant improvement in the treatment group and a clinical response rate of 38%. After forty-eight months, the overall survival of IRX-2 treated patients was 61% versus 32% for the concurrent institutional control group. About IRX Therapeutics IRX Therapeutics is a privately held immunotherapy company focusing on the development and commercialization of treatments for advanced cancer and viral diseases. Founded in 1994 by John W. Hadden, M.D., a pioneer in the field of Immunopharmacology, IRX Therapeutics is developing an innovative approach that stimulates a coordinated cellular immune response to treat human diseases. The Company's product pipeline includes IRX-2, a therapeutic cancer therapy that seeks to stimulate a cellular immune response in the host to destroy [...]

1/7/2007 Nashville, TN Teresa M. Walker Earthlink (earthlink.net) Bobby Hamilton, the longtime NASCAR driver who won the 2001 Talladega 500 and was the 2004 Craftsman Truck Series champion, died Sunday of cancer, said Liz Allison, a family friend who co-hosted a radio show with Hamilton. He was 49. Hamilton was at home with his family when he died, said Allison, the widow of former NASCAR star Davey Allison. "The thing I loved about Bobby Sr. so much is that he treated everybody the same," Allison said. "It didn't matter if you were one of the drivers he competed against or a fan he'd never laid eyes on before. "He didn't have a pretentious bone in his body. I think that's why people were drawn to him. He was just very real and had a way of relating to everyone." Hamilton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February. A malignant growth was found when swelling from dental surgery did not go down. "NASCAR is saddened by the passing of Bobby Hamilton," said Jim Hunter, NASCAR's vice president of communications. "Bobby was a great competitor, dedicated team owner and friend. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the Hamilton family." Hamilton raced in the first three truck races of the season, with a best finish of 14th at Atlanta Motor Speedway, before turning over the wheel to his son, Bobby Hamilton Jr. The senior Hamilton then started chemotherapy and radiation treatment. By August, he had returned to work [...]