4/2/2008 Rochester, NY staff Biocomare Life Science News (news.biocompare.com) Rochester researchers showed for the first time that a natural antioxidant found in grape skins and red wine can help destroy pancreatic cancer cells by reaching to the cell's core energy source, or mitochondria, and crippling its function. The study is published in the March edition of the journal, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology. The study also showed that when the pancreatic cancer cells were doubly assaulted -- pre-treated with the antioxidant, resveratrol, and irradiated -- the combination induced a type of cell death called apoptosis, an important goal of cancer therapy. The research has many implications for patients, said lead author Paul Okunieff, M.D., chief of Radiation Oncology at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Although red wine consumption during chemotherapy or radiation treatment has not been well studied, it is not "contraindicated," Okunieff said. In other words, if a patient already drinks red wine moderately, most physicians would not tell the patient to give it up during treatment. Perhaps a better choice, Okunieff said, would be to drink as much red or purple grape juice as desired. Yet despite widespread interest in antioxidants, some physicians are concerned antioxidants might end up protecting tumors. Okunieff's study showed there is little evidence to support that fear. In fact, the research suggests resveratrol not only reaches its intended target, injuring the nexus of malignant cells, but at the same time protects normal tissue from [...]

4/2/2008 web-based article PM Specenier and JB Vermorken Expert Rev Anticancer Ther, March 1, 2008; 8(3): 375-91 Recurrent and metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck still carries a poor prognosis. Response rates with combination chemotherapy regimens are generally higher than those observed with single-agent chemotherapy. However, this did not translate into an overall survival benefit, not in even a single randomized trial. As none of the combination chemotherapy regimens demonstrated an overall survival benefit when compared with single-agent methotrexate, cisplatin or 5-fluorouracil, the use of combination chemotherapy outside clinical trials is usually restricted to younger patients with a good performance status and with symptomatic disease who require prompt symptom relief. After decades without real progress, a recent randomized trial showed that adding cetuximab, the first clinically available EGF receptor-directed monoclonal antibody, to a standard chemotherapy regimen (platinum/5-fluorouracil), led to an important survival benefit. In addition, the response rate nearly doubled with this approach, which has great promise for the treatment of symptomatic disease. There is now a plethora of targeted therapies in various stages of preclinical and clinical development. The next challenge will be to sort out which of them have a clinically meaningful activity and find out how to incorporate them into existing treatment regimens. Author's affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, University Hospital Antwerp, Wilrijkstraat 10, 2650 Edegem, Belgium

3/30/2008 Ketchum, ID staff CancerConsultants.com Introduction The fact that mucositis remains an important toxicity of cancer therapy was reflected in the thirty abstracts dealing with this topic that were included in this year’s MASCC/ISOO symposium. While mucositis has most often been associated with damage to the oral cavity, it is clear that its clinical and scientific import to the rest of the gastrointestinal tract is significant. Abstracts presented fell into a range of topics that spanned preclinical mechanistic studies to interventional clinical trials. Among the major subject categories addressed were techniques and instruments to assess mucositis and observational reports of its behavior, incidence and risk, animal and human studies of the biological basis for mucositis, the burden of illness of mucositis, and clinical trials of specific interventions. Mucositis Assessment, Incidence, Risk Factors, and Burden A number of studies reported on the assessment of mucositis, its incidence, risk factors, and impact on quality of life, health, and economic outcomes. Dudley, et al. reported the application of an innovative statistical approach to quantify parameters of change for patient populations, model individual variability about population parameters, and predict which patients would be most severely affected. Their approach, known as Latent Growth Curve Analysis (LGCA), was applied to estimate parameters of change in erythema in 133 HSCT patients treated with high-dose chemotherapy conditioning regimens. Clinical ratings of erythema from the 20 item Oral Mucositis Index were made 8 times over a 3-week period. The model identified statistically significant individual variability relative to the average [...]

3/30/2008 Rochester, NY staff WHEC-TV (www.whec.com) The FDA is deciding whether to give young boys a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer in older women. Right now, Gardasil, which was developed at the U of R Medical Center, is given to girls ages 9 through 26. Gardisil is the only vaccine available to protect against HPV, the virus that can cause cervical cancer. It was developed by the researches and the U of R Medical Center, and was marketed to teens beginning last year. But now the drug maker says giving it boys may help men from spreading the HPV virus. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that infection with HPV through oral sex is now the leading cause of throat cancer which strikes 11,000 men and women each year. HPV is also a major cause of anal cancer and genital warts both affect men and women. Doctors say the increase in throat cancer is troubling because it's usually associated with alcohol and heavy smoking. But we asked Dr. Michael Haben, a head and neck cancer expert with the Wilmot Cancer Center, and he said he’s not convinced there is enough evidence yet to support the vaccine for boys. “I don't think the research will bear out that we have a proven benefit from wither the transmission or a reduction in throat cancers related to any possible connection to the virus. I wouldn't be the first to run out and have the HPV vaccine for boys,” [...]

3/30/2008 Washington, DC Serena Gordon WashingtonPost.com Imagine therapies that could cut cancer deaths in half. Well, these "breakthrough" treatments are here, according to a recent American Cancer Society report that said as many as 50 percent of cancer deaths could be prevented with lifestyle changes, such as quitting smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, and getting screened for certain malignancies. "Nearly half of all cancer is related to two things -- tobacco and obesity," said Dr. Jay Brooks, chief of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La. "That's something I don't think people truly grasp." Dr. Neil Hayes, a medical oncologist specializing in lung and head and neck cancers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, concurred. "Most of my patients are smokers, so it's rare I see someone truly surprised by the diagnosis. But I don't think they fully think through the risk associated with smoking," he said. Evaluating your risk of cancer, and taking steps to modify those risk factors within your control, could save your life. Smoking is far and away the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths. In the United States, nearly one-third of all cancer deaths -- more than 170,000 Americans -- each year are related to tobacco use, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Yet, almost one in four American adults still uses tobacco. And, about 22 percent of teens are still lighting up. "Not smoking is the single most important thing you can do to lower your risk of [...]

3/29/2008 Iowa, MN Amy Fleming KIMTV.com A patient with a hard to reach tumor inside their throat can be a challenging problem for a surgeon. But a new laser technology makes removing these tumors easier for everyone. This woman had a sore throat and acid indigestion before her tongue tumor was discovered. Traditionally, doctors would remove these hard-to-reach tumors with surgery through the patient's neck or jaw. Now doctors can remove the tumors through the mouth, with a flexible fiber, that delivers CO2 or carbon dioxide laser energy. The new laser is called the Omni-Guide Beampath. For more information go to www.omni-guide.com.

3/26/2008 web-based article staff ScienceDaily.com Persons with a certain type of homozygosity (having two identical copies of the same gene, one inherited from each parent), may have a greater predisposition to cancer, according to a new study. In previous research, the authors observed a low frequency of germline (those cells of an individual that have genetic material that could be passed to offspring) heterozygosity (possessing two different forms of a particular gene, one inherited from each parent) in cancer patients compared with controls, raising the question whether homozygosity could play a role in cancer predisposition. "Homozygosity is common in humans and extended homozygote tracts have been described in several studies. Cancer susceptibility genes are also numerous in the genome. These facts together increase the likelihood that homozygosity might occur in the loci [the specific site of a particular gene on its chromosome] of cancer susceptibility genes. One can then hypothesize that germline homozygosity at these loci may somehow contribute to cancer predisposition," the researchers write. Charis Eng, M.D., Ph.D., of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and colleagues conducted a study to determine the frequency of germline homozygosity in a large series of patients with three different types of solid tumors compared with population-based controls. The study included germline and corresponding tumor DNA, which was isolated from 385 patients with carcinomas (147 breast, 116 prostate, and 122 head and neck carcinomas), and was subjected to genetic analysis. The researchers found: "Our data derived from 3 different solid tumors, validated in a fourth, [...]

3/25/2008 Washington, DC press release EurekAlert.com Easy-access body fluid may provide less invasive diagnosis thanks to proteomics One day soon patients may spit in a cup, instead of bracing for a needle prick, when being tested for cancer, heart disease or diabetes. A major step in that direction is the cataloguing of the “complete” salivary proteome, a set of proteins in human ductal saliva, identified by a consortium of three research teams, according to an article published today in the Journal of Proteome Research. Replacing blood draws with saliva tests promises to make disease diagnosis, as well as the tracking of treatment efficacy, less invasive and costly. Saliva proteomics and diagnostics is part of a nationwide effort to create the first map of every human protein and every protein interaction, as they contribute to health and disease and as they act as markers for disease states. Following instructions encoded by genes, protein “machines” make up the body’s organs and regulate its cellular processes. Defining exact protein pathways on a comprehensive scale enables the development of early diagnostic testing and precise drug design. In the current study, researchers sought to determine the “complete” set of proteins secreted by the major salivary glands (parotid, submandibular (SM) and sublingual (SL)). Recent, parallel efforts that mapped the blood (plasma) and tear proteomes allows for useful comparisons of how proteins and potential disease markers are common or unique to different body fluids. “Past studies established that salivary proteins heal the mouth, amplify the voice, develop [...]

3/24/2008 East Liverpool, OH Jeremy Lydic TheReviewOnline (www.reviewonline.com) As part of an on going drug and alcohol awareness program, students were educated on the less-than-finer points of tobacco. Kristen Ours, who works as a nurse at both Daw Middle School and East Liverpool City Hospital, gave a presentation on smoking and smokeless tobacco to Daw students Thursday. To demonstrate the harmful effects of smoking, a “smoking doll” was used to help students visualize what happens to a human’s lungs while smoking. The doll would “puff” on a lit cigarette, causing the smoke and tar to stain the plastic receptor tube under the doll’s head. Ours and Wellsville D.A.R.E. officer Marsha Eisenhart, also passed around photos of healthy lungs, lungs afflicted from cigarette smoke, and lungs suffering from emphysema. In addition to the harmful effects, Ours discussed reasons why children start smoking, citing peer pressure and a desire to look “grown up.” She also encouraged the students to talk to their parents about smoking, especially if the parents themselves smoke. “You can’t order your parents to stop smoking, but you can encourage them to quit,” Ours said. “If they choose to quit, be their biggest supporter.” Along with the doll, Ours showed students a sealed jar of tar from cigarettes. The thick, black substance was the amount of tar a person could intake from one year of smoking 20 cigarettes a day, Ours said. Smokeless tobacco was also discussed, because Eisenhart said snuff and dip tobacco is becoming more and more [...]

3/22/2008 Chennai, India staff MedIndia.com Persons with periodontitis who also are infected with human papillomavirus (HPV) are at increased risk of developing tongue cancer, new research conducted at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine has shown. Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that destroys connective tissue and bone supporting the teeth. It has been associated with various systemic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. Researchers from UB and Roswell Park Cancer Institute published the first study showing an association between long-standing periodontitis and risk of tongue cancer in the May 2007 issue of Archives of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. Studies conducted elsewhere have found that HPV is an independent risk factor for a subset of head and neck cancers. The UB researchers now have shown that the two infections appear to work in tandem to boost the chances of developing tongue cancer. Mine Tezal, D.D.S., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Oral Diagnostic Sciences, UB dental school, and research scientist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, presented results of this research today (April 4, 2008) at the 2008 American Association of Dental research meeting in Dallas, Texas. Evidence of periodontitis-HPV synergy has important practical implications," said Tezal, "because there is a safe treatment for periodontitis, but no treatment for HPV infection. If these results are confirmed by other studies, this has a tremendous relevance in predicting and intervening in the initiation and prognosis of HPV-related diseases, including head and neck cancers." The study involved 30 patients [...]