2/7/2006 New York, NY Gina Kolata New York Times (nytimes.com) The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet keeps women from getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet had no effect. The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women aged 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer heart attack and stroke as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today. "These are three totally negative studies," said Dr. David Freedman, a statistician at the University of California at Berkeley, who is not connected with the study but has written books on clinical trial design and analysis. And, he said, the results should be taken seriously for what they are — a rigorous attempt that failed to confirm a popular hypothesis that a low-fat diet can prevent three major diseases in women. And the studies were so large and so expensive that they are "the Rolls Royce of studies," said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. As such, he said, they are likely to be the final word. "We usually have only one shot at a very large scale trial on a particular issue," Dr. Thun said. The studies were part of the Women's Health Initiative of the National Institutes of Health, the same program that showed that hormone therapy after menopause can have more risks than [...]

2/7/2006 San Francisco, CA Steven A. Schroeder, MD J Am Dent Assoc, Vol 137, No 2, 144-148 Even though all health professionals understand how injurious smoking is, many may wonder whether the tobacco epidemic is yesterday’s news. After all, adult smoking prevalence is now at an all-time low in the United States—23.4 percent among men, compared with 57 percent in 1955, and 18.5 percent among women, compared with 34 percent in 1965.1,2 Smoking among youths is at a 28-year low. In public health terms, these are spectacular improvements. Furthermore, there is widespread speculation that obesity and physical inactivity soon may overtake tobacco as the most preventable causes of death and disability.3 But, as three articles in this issue of The Journal demonstrate, it is premature to drink a toast to tobacco’s demise, and there is good reason to believe that dentists can do more to reduce the toll from this deadly habit. Dye and colleagues4 analyze the data set for the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (conducted from 1988–1994) to assess the relationship between cigarette smoking and perceived needs for dental treatment. Compared with nonsmokers, smokers felt they needed more dental care, even when controlling for oral health status (odds ratio = 1.40), though the magnitude of this difference is much smaller than the fourfold risk smokers face of developing periodontal disease. Dye and colleagues call for greater involvement by dentists and dental hygienists in helping smokers quit, while acknowledging the barriers that must be overcome if that [...]

2/4/2006 Boston, MA press release Life Science News (news.biocompare.com) New data shows that proanthocyanidins, or PACs, found in cranberries inhibit the growth of lung tumors and colon and leukemia cells in vitro. That's according to a new study published in this month's issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. The study, led by University of Massachusetts Dartmouth researcher Catherine C. Neto, Ph.D., is one of the first studies to find that the cranberry's anti-cancer activity may come from the unique structure of its PACs. Cranberry's PACs contain a unique A-type structure, while most other fruit contains only the more-common B-type PACs. Researchers prepared PAC-rich fractions from whole cranberry extract and worked with scientists at the University of Wisconsin to characterize their structures. They tested the fractions against eight tumor cell lines and screened for the effect on tumor growth. The fractions inhibited the proliferation of the tumor cell lines without inhibiting the growth of normal embryonic mouse cells. "While previous studies have shown that cranberry extracts inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells, this is the first study to confirm that it's the cranberry PACs that are the active components," said Catherine C. Neto, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. "This study is a significant step toward helping to establish a body of research that shows cranberry PACs may also work to prevent tumor cell growth in vivo." Cranberry's PACs have a unique "anti-adhesion" mechanism known to protect the [...]

2/4/2006 Kingsport,, NC staff Kingsport Times News (www.timesnews.net) Patients undergoing radiation treatment for cancer of the lung, head or neck often suffer severe weight loss - so much so that doctors sometimes have to suspend the potentially lifesaving therapy. New research conducted at Holston Valley Medical Center, however, has found that a drug originally used to treat breast cancer helps combat weight loss among patients receiving radiation treatment for lung and head and neck cancer. Dr. Byron May, a board-certified radiation oncologist at HVMC, is one of 12 researchers at five Southeast cancer centers who recently investigated the effectiveness of the drug megestrol acetate as an appetite stimulant for cancer patients. The results of the clinical trial were presented at a meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. "The average patient with head and neck cancer who has radiation and chemotherapy suffers moderate to severe problems two to three weeks into treatment," May said. "Treatment generally lasts two to three months. During the treatment, many patients lose 5 to 10 percent of their body weight, which is nutritionally horrible. "We've found that megestrol acetate stimulates appetite. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works for enough people to be valuable. It lets people go on with their radiation with no breaks, and it offers a better quality of life while people are receiving their treatments." People who receive radiation treatments for lung cancer and cancers of the head and neck often have difficulty swallowing and must take [...]

2/4/2006 New York, NY Anne Harding Reuters UK (today.reuters.co.uk) Children who survive cancer face a four-fold increased risk of developing cancers as adults, and these malignancies appear at an earlier-than-normal age, a new study shows. But careful screening -- as well as awareness of potential early symptoms -- can help ensure that disease is caught early, when it's much easier to treat, Dr. Nina S. Kadan-Lottick told Reuters Health in an interview. "Most of these subsequent cancers are amenable to screening and intervention, so knowledge is power," said Kadan-Lottick, of Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. She and her colleagues report on follow-up of 13,136 people who had survived for at least five years after being diagnosed with a childhood cancer between 1970 and 1986. Seventy-one patients developed a subsequent cancer, at an average age of 27. Kadan-Lottick stressed that while childhood cancer survivors do face increased cancer risk, "the vast majority of survivors do very well and will never have one of these outcomes." Patients with neuroblastoma were 24 times more likely to develop a second cancer, and had a more than 300-fold increased risk of kidney cancer. Hodgkin's lymphoma survivors were at more than four-fold increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer. Survivors of soft tissue sarcoma, neuroblastoma or leukemia were all at about a 20-fold increased risk of head and neck cancer. Two-thirds of patients who developed a second cancer had previously received radiation therapy to that part of the body, a known cancer risk. However, [...]

2/3/2006 Iwoa City, IA staff Doctor's Guide (www.docguide.com) A limitation of current cancer care is the difficulty of quickly assessing how well a therapy is working. However, expanding the use of existing positron emission tomography (PET) technology can provide early and accurate assessment of a tumor's response to a particular therapy allowing physicians to better tailor a patient's treatment, according to Malik Juweid, MD, associate professor of radiology at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. Writing in the Feb. 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Juweid and co-author Bruce Cheson, MD, of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Hospital, outline the advantages and limitations of PET imaging in assessing cancer therapy and suggest that increasing the role of PET imaging has the potential to further improve cancer care management. PET is a non-invasive imaging technique that uses radioactivity emitted from injected tracer chemicals to measure and image biological activity. The most commonly used PET radiotracer is fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a radiolabeled form of glucose, which is consumed more avidly by tumors than by normal tissue. In fact, Dr. Juweid's work already has led to changes in how PET is used in cancer care. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in July 2005, Dr. Juweid and colleagues showed that adding FDG-PET to the standard computer tomography (CT)-based assessment criteria made the predictions of treatment outcome much more accurate for aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Based on this study, [...]

2/2/2006 Miami, FL Ayinde O. Chase All Headline News (www.allheadlinenews.com) Doctors in Italy are studying whether a new type of mouthwash will help alleviate pain for patients suffering from head and neck cancer who were treated with radiation therapy. According to the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, fifty patients suffering from various forms of head and neck cancer and who received radiation therapy as part of their treatment, were observed during the course of their radiation treatment. All of the patients experienced some level of pain related to their cancer treatment and this study sought to discover if a mouthwash made from the local anesthetic tetracaine was able to alleviate the discomfort associated with head and neck cancer, and if there would be any negative side effects of the mouthwash. The mouthwash containing tetracaine was administered approximately 30 minutes before and after meals. With 48 of the 50 patients reporting relief of oral pain The doctors chose to concoct a tetracaine-based mouthwash instead of a lidocaine-based version because it was found to be four times more effective, worked faster, and produced a prolonged relief.

2/1/2006 Goettingen, Germany Tobias Raupach et al. ©The European Society of Cardiology 2005 The evidence that active smoking is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and the leading cause of preventable death is overwhelming. However, numerous epidemiological findings indicate that even passive exposure to cigarette smoke may exert detrimental effects on vascular homoeostasis. Recent experimental data provide a deeper insight into the pathophysiological mechanisms linking secondhand smoke (SHS) to CVD. Importantly, most of these effects appear to be characterized by a rapid onset. For example, the relatively low doses of toxins inhaled by passive smoking are sufficient to elicit acute endothelial dysfunction, and these effects may be related, at least in part, to the inactivation of nitric oxide. Moreover, passive smoking may directly impair the viability of endothelial cells and reduce the number and functional activity of circulating endothelial progenitor cells. In addition, platelets of non-smokers appear to be susceptible to pro-aggregatory changes with every passive smoke exposure. Overall, SHS induces oxidative stress and promotes vascular inflammation. Apart from vascoconstriction and thrombus formation, however, the myocardial oxygen balance is further impaired by SHS-induced adrenergic stimulation and autonomic dysfunction. These data strongly suggest that passive smoking is capable of precipitating acute manifestations of CVD (atherothrombosis) and may also have a negative impact on the outcome of patients who suffer acute coronary syndromes. Authors: Tobias Raupach, Katrin Schäfer, Stavros Konstantinides and Stefan Andreas Authors' affiliation: Department of Cardiology and Pulmonology, University Clinic, Georg August University of Goettingen, D-37099 Goettingen, Germany

2/1/2006 Goettingen, Germany Tobias Raupach et al. ©The European Society of Cardiology 2005 The evidence that active smoking is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and the leading cause of preventable death is overwhelming. However, numerous epidemiological findings indicate that even passive exposure to cigarette smoke may exert detrimental effects on vascular homoeostasis. Recent experimental data provide a deeper insight into the pathophysiological mechanisms linking secondhand smoke (SHS) to CVD. Importantly, most of these effects appear to be characterized by a rapid onset. For example, the relatively low doses of toxins inhaled by passive smoking are sufficient to elicit acute endothelial dysfunction, and these effects may be related, at least in part, to the inactivation of nitric oxide. Moreover, passive smoking may directly impair the viability of endothelial cells and reduce the number and functional activity of circulating endothelial progenitor cells. In addition, platelets of non-smokers appear to be susceptible to pro-aggregatory changes with every passive smoke exposure. Overall, SHS induces oxidative stress and promotes vascular inflammation. Apart from vascoconstriction and thrombus formation, however, the myocardial oxygen balance is further impaired by SHS-induced adrenergic stimulation and autonomic dysfunction. These data strongly suggest that passive smoking is capable of precipitating acute manifestations of CVD (atherothrombosis) and may also have a negative impact on the outcome of patients who suffer acute coronary syndromes. Authors: Tobias Raupach, Katrin Schäfer, Stavros Konstantinides and Stefan Andreas Authors' affiliation: Department of Cardiology and Pulmonology, University Clinic, Georg August University of Goettingen, D-37099 Goettingen, Germany

2/1/2006 San Diego, CA press release Genetic Engineering News (www.genengnews.com) Immusol announced today that it has entered into a license agreement with Baylor College of Medicine for the exclusive, worldwide rights to a novel oncolytic viral therapy using herpes simplex viruses. Baylor researchers have developed extensive expertise in the field of oncolytic virotherapies against a wide variety of solid tumors. The in-licensed therapy represents Baylor's most advanced virotherapy to date and has shown safety and strong efficacy in a number of preclinical animal tumor models. Oncolytic viruses are human viruses that infect and replicate in cancer cells, destroying these harmful cells and leaving normal cells largely unaffected as a result of specific viral genetic modifications. Principal anti-tumor mechanism used by these viruses is a direct cytopathic effect, produced as the virus propagates and spreads from initially infected tumor cells to surrounding tumor cells, achieving a progressively larger volume of distribution and enhanced tumor cell killing. "The recent approval of the first oncolytic viral therapy for head and neck cancer by the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration, together with the increasing number of clinical trials for oncolytic viral therapies worldwide signal the coming of age of oncolytic viral therapy as a new and important modality for cancer treatment," said Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal, Immusol's Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of Research. "We believe that the Baylor oncolytic viral therapy has significant advantages over many other oncolytic viruses, including higher potency and efficacy in metastatic tumors. We are excited to [...]