3/27/2006 Chicago, IL Jim Ritter Chicago Sun-Times (www.suntimes.com) A new generation of high-tech cancer drugs is extending patients' lives, but the costs are stunning. Take Erbitux, approved for advanced colorectal and head-and-neck cancers. It costs $327 a day, $9,800 a month, $118,000 a year. And that doesn't count the cost of administering the intravenous drug New drugs for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and for lung, breast, pancreatic, kidney and stomach cancers also cost thousands of dollars a month. Drug companies are seeking to expand the lucrative market by testing the drugs on other cancers. They also are developing new drugs. "Some of these agents are outrageously expensive," said Loyola University Health System oncologist Dr. Patrick Stiff. Expensive to Make Drug companies make no apologies. They say their new drugs are much more expensive to make than traditional chemo drugs. Companies say they need to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars it can take to bring a new drug to market. It's a risky business. Many drugs that work well in the lab and in animals fail in human trials. For example, Onyx Pharmaceuticals has been in business 14 years and raised $700 million from investors. But so far, Onyx has brought only one drug, Nexavar, to market. Nexavar, for advanced kidney cancer, costs $4,333 a month. "Given the time, the odds and the cost, there has to be a return for the capital that goes into it," Onyx CEO Hollings Renton said. None of the new drugs cure cancer, and for [...]

3/27/2006 Palo Alto, CA press release PRNewswire.com Varian Medical Systems' On-Board Imager(TM) (OBI) device for delivering image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) efficiently improves tumor targeting, according to a study by clinicians at the Emory University School of Medicine, recently published in the Journal of American College of Radiology. "We showed that it is clinically practical to treat cancer using new image-guided radiotherapy techniques without slowing the operations of a busy radiation oncology department," said Tim Fox, PhD, lead author of the study and director of medical physics at the Emory University School of Medicine. Using Varian's On-Board Imager, the Emory research team measured the time required to deliver image-guided treatments and found that the process can be smoothly and efficiently integrated into the department's normal clinical workflow. The On-Board Imager and associated processing software were used to generate and analyze radiographic kilovoltage (kV) X-ray images prior to each patient's treatment, compare them with reference images from the treatment plan, and fine-tune the patient's position for treatment. The average amount of time it took to generate the images and reposition patients dropped from an initial 7-8 minutes, when the technology was new to the clinical team, to a constant 3-4 minutes per patient after a year's experience. "We analyzed the data from 2,700 treatment sessions involving 242 patients who were treated for prostate, brain, head and neck, breast, pediatric, or gastrointestinal tumors," Fox said. "We found that the process of using Varian's On-Board Imager for kV-kV image matching to be simple and [...]

3/23/2006 San Francisco, Ca University of California, San Francisco eMaxHealth.com Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and Georgia Institute of Technology have found a new way to kill cancer cells. Building on their previous work that used gold nanoparticles to detect cancer, they now are heating the particles and using them as agents to destroy malignant cells. The researchers are a father and son, working together on opposite coasts. Their study findings are reported in the on-line edition of the journal Cancer Letters, found at Sciencedirect.com (quicksearch - El-Sayed nanoparticles). "In an earlier study we showed how gold nanoparticles could be bound to malignant cells, making cancer detection easier. Now we have examined how the particles' ability to absorb light helps kill those cancer cells," said principal author Dr. Ivan El-Sayed, an otolaryngologist or head and neck surgeon at UCSF Medical Center. Ivan conducted the study with his father, Mostafa El-Sayed, director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory and chemistry professor at Georgia Tech. Many cancer cells have a protein, known as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), all over their surface, while healthy cells typically do not express the protein as strongly. By conjugating, or binding, the gold nanoparticles to an antibody for EGFR, suitably named anti-EGFR, the researchers were able to get the nanoparticles to specifically attach themselves to the cancer cells. In the new study, the researchers incubated two oral squamous carcinoma cell lines and one benign epithelial cell line with anti-EFGR conjugated gold nanoparticles and then [...]

3/20/2006 Sydney, Australia Louise Williams Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au) Teen smoking has finally found a powerful opponent and it's not the graphic photos of mouth cancer among the new health warnings on Australian cigarette packs. It's the mobile phone. It seems phones have it all: "maturity, individuality, sociability, peer-group bonding, rebellion and adult aspiration". In the teen rebellion stakes, smoking is starting to look like "old technology", according to the British anti-smoking group Action on Smoking. Five years ago the group came up with an interesting hypothesis, an idea so intriguing that it was picked up and published by the prestigious British Medical Journal. The group had noticed a correlation between a sharp rise in mobile phone ownership among teenagers in the mid-1990s - common to most industrial economies - and the first real decline in teen smoking, a downwards trend curiously pre-dating a major government anti-smoking campaign. "Many aspects of mobile phone use provide teenagers with the same functions offered by smoking while offering an alternative for spending money," the group argued. "The mobile phone is an effective competitor to cigarettes in the market for products that offer teenagers adult-style." Both cigarettes and mobile phones offer teenagers openings for conversations. Phones also offer adolescents "something to do with their hands, give them confidence, relieve boredom and fulfil social and fun needs in much the same way smoking does". And phones, like smoking, can be used as a defence mechanism. "When you are sitting by yourself, say on the bus [...]

3/16/2006 Austin, TX press release chron.com Introgen Therapeutics, Inc. today announced the publication of positive data from a Phase I/II clinical trial of ADVEXIN(R) in advanced esophageal cancer patients. Intratumoral administration of multiple ADVEXIN doses was shown to be safe, feasible and clinically active. Nine of 10 patients had local tumor responses of stable disease and overall one-year survival was 60 percent. No evidence of tumor in multiple biopsies following treatment was observed in 30 percent. ADVEXIN is an investigational cancer therapy that utilizes an adenoviral vector to deliver the p53 tumor suppressor directly to tumors. Introgen's collaborators at Chiba University in Japan conducted the trial, and the data appear in the current issue of Cancer Science. "Refractory esophageal cancer is a highly malignant disease, for which novel therapies are required," said Robert E. Sobol, M.D., senior vice president, Medical and Scientific Affairs, at Introgen. "Even in this difficult-to-treat population, ADVEXIN demonstrated clinical activity providing local tumor control without adding significant toxicities." The trial enrolled 10 patients with confirmed squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus who were not candidates for further surgery and who had become resistant to standard chemotherapy. At the time of entry into the trial, five of the patients had tumors growing into adjacent organs. Overall responses included six patients with stable disease for more than one year. One patient who entered the trial with a tumor that prevented swallowing was able to swallow liquid and meals after two injections of ADVEXIN. Another patient remained progression free [...]

3/16/2006 Dedham, MA press release PharmaLive (www.pharmalive.com) Signet Laboratories, Inc., a leading medical diagnostics/research company specializing in the development of monoclonal antibodies and diagnostic assays for cancer, infectious disease, and neurodegenerative disease, today announced the availability of two new monoclonal antibodies, EGFR, clone F4 and VEGF, clone VG-1. EGFR, clone F4, has been implicated in the development and progression of a number of human solid tumors including lung, breast, prostate, colon, ovary, head, and neck. VEGF, clone VG-1, is a secreted glycoprotein that is a potent and specific mitogen for vascular endothelial cells that stimulates angiogenesis during embryonic development and tumor formation. Signet's EGFR and VEGF antibodies offer researchers a valuable tool for cancer research. These antibodies complement Signet's current product portfolio which includes markers such as D2-40, Cyclin D1, Cyclin E, HE4, and Hepsin. About Signet Laboratories, Inc. Signet Laboratories, Inc. (Signet, Dedham, MA) is a leading medical diagnostics/research company specializing in the development of monoclonal antibodies and diagnostic assays for cancer, infectious disease, and neurodegenerative disease.

3/16/2006 Aurora, CO staff cherrycreeknews.com Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers recently announced the use of a new technology, image guided radiation therapy (IGRT), which ensures even greater accuracy when performing the latest radiation cancer treatments on patients with cancers of the prostate, liver, head and neck, or lung. IGRT is also being used to treat tumors in any body site requiring the most precise and accurate radiation treatments possible. With IGRT, doctors have the ability to provide patients the best results by enhancing the accuracy of the radiation dose, resulting in a decrease of side effects historically caused by the irradiation of normal body tissues. RMCC is the first community cancer centers in Colorado to use this technology. “IGRT gives us the opportunity to treat our patients’ cancer with amazing accuracy because we can confidently target a smaller area for treatment,” explained Chad Levitt, M.D., radiation oncologist at RMCC. “Previously, we had to target larger areas because of the inevitable movement of body organs such as the prostate. By allowing us to target a smaller treatment area, IGRT minimizes the potential harm of radiation to surrounding healthy tissue and organs. In some cases, this improved tolerability allows us to deliver more radiation to the tumor itself in hopes of improving cure rates.” According to Dr. Levitt, with IGRT, gold markers are implanted during a procedure into the cancerous tumor to act as a reference system for the radiation treatment to focus in on. These markers do not move. Prior to each [...]

3/15/2006 Durham, NC staff Biocompare Life Science News (news.biocompare.com) A novel device that could use light to harmlessly and almost instantly probe for early signs of cancer has been developed by researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The device would allow physicians to search for cancer in epithelial cells that line body surfaces, including the skin, lungs and digestive and reproductive tracts, by simply inserting a fiber optic probe. The team has reported the first clinically practical version of their "angle-resolved low coherence interferometry" (a/LCI) technology designed to diagnose incipient cancer in the esophagus. Adam Wax, professor of biomedical engineering at the Pratt School, and graduate student John Pyhtila, lead author of the study, reported tests of their device in the March 15, 2006, Optics Letters. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Preliminary results of a further study of the latest a/LCI device in human esophageal tissue look promising, Wax said. The next step will be to test the device in human trials. In principle, the researchers said their technology could be adapted to detect pre-cancerous cells on the surfaces of any organ, where the disease most often begins. "The majority of all cancers – some 80 percent – start in the epithelium," Wax said. "Fiber-optic probes have the potential to test for early evidence of cancer in seconds, providing biopsy-type information without removing tissue. They could also serve as a guide to biopsy, directing physicians to suspicious sites to [...]

3/14/2006 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Olli-Pekka Alho et al. Canadian Medicl Association Journal • March 14, 2006; 174 (6). doi:10.1503/cmaj.050623 Background: Little is known about the diagnosis of head and neck carcinoma in primary care. We sought to estimate the general prevalence of symptoms reported by patients with head and neck carcinomas and to determine the association between detection patterns of head and neck cancer cases in primary care and survival. Methods: In a cross-sectional survey, we used a questionnaire to estimate the general prevalence of symptoms associated with head and neck cancer from a sample of 5646 primary care visits in 25 randomly selected health centres over 4 weeks throughout Finland. A population-based retrospective cohort study involved the 221 patients resident in one primary health care district (population about 700 000) in whom head and neck carcinoma was diagnosed between Jan. 1, 1986, and Dec. 31, 1996. Data on the initial primary care visit, clinical characteristics and survival were obtained from patient charts. Results: Of 5646 visits to a primary care practitioner, 11% (617) were made because of the same symptoms as those initially reported by patients later found to have head and neck cancer. According to the cohort data, the detection rate of these carcinomas in primary care was 1 per 63 000 visits. At the initial visit of 221 patients later found to have cancer, 56% (123) received referrals, 24% (53) follow-up appointments and 20% (45) neither ("overlooked"). At 3 years, the risk of death was significantly higher [...]

3/10/2006 Baltimore, MD Judy Foreman Baltimore Sun (www.baltimoresun.com) A year ago, when Gayle Driscoll's cancer recurred on her skin, the 63-year-old retired teacher from Barnstable, Mass., tried an experimental treatment that gave her radiation therapy some extra oomph. Every time she lay down for radiation treatment on her chest, her tumors were also heated with a device that emitted radio frequency waves. After six weeks, the skin tumors were gone. The heat therapy called hyperthermia was meant only as a local treatment - and the cancer ultimately spread to her bones - but it was "psychologically important" to her to see the tumors in her skin disappear, she said. Hyperthermia, in which microwaves are used to raise the temperature of a tumor - or the patient's whole body - to 104 to 106 degrees Fahrenheit, is a new twist on an old treatment idea that has gained new currency recently, thanks to some successful studies. Hyperthermia significantly boosts the killing power of chemotherapy and radiation. It is generally used to help prevent local recurrences, but some doctors speculate that it may improve overall survival as well. At least eight studies in recent years have shown that adding hyperthermia to chemotherapy or radiation can improve local control of cancers of the esophagus, cervix, head and neck, brain, melanoma and breast cancers that have spread to the chest wall, said Dr. Mark Dewhirst, director of the hyperthermia program at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. Scientists who have observed first hand [...]