4/5/2006 Woburn, MA press release Pharmalive.com ArQule, Inc. today reported results from a Phase 1 monotherapy trial with its lead product, ARQ 501, which provided evidence of clinical tolerability and promising anti-tumor activity in cancer patients with advanced solid tumors who had failed prior treatments with chemotherapy. Data from this trial were presented by the study's principal investigator, Dr. Geoffrey I. Shapiro of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Chiang J. Li, senior vice president and chief scientific officer of ArQule, in the late-breaking poster session at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington, D.C. "The exciting data presented today, combined with the potent and selective anti-cancer activity of ARQ 501 seen in a broad range of pre-clinical models, provide a strong rationale for initiating a Phase 2 clinical development program," said Dr. Stephen A. Hill, president and chief executive officer of ArQule. "These encouraging data also begin to define the clinical profile related to ARQ 501's novel mechanism of action." "ARQ 501 is being developed to selectively and broadly target cancer cells by directly activating checkpoint pathways," said Dr. Li. "We are excited by what we have seen with this novel mechanism of action. Among the patients who are evaluable for efficacy, almost half showed evidence of tumor regression or stable disease. This is particularly encouraging given that the data are from a Phase 1 dose escalation trial among patients who have failed other therapies." Study summary Subjects [...]

4/4/2006 Washington, DC Randolph E. Schmid apnews.myway.com Lung-cancer patients who use nicotine supplements such as patch or gum to help them quit smoking may undermine their chemotherapy. Nicotine is not known to cause cancer, but it can protect cancer cells from some of the most widely used chemotherapy drugs, researchers reported Sunday at a cancer meeting. Srikumar Chellappan of the University of South Florida and colleagues studied the effects of nicotine on lung cancer cells that were treated with three commonly used drugs in cancer therapy - gemcitabine, cisplatin and taxol. The laboratory research focused on human nonsmall cell lung cancer, which accounts for 80 percent of all lung cancers. In chemotherapy, exposure to the chemicals causes cancer cells to self-destruct in a process called apoptosis. When nicotine was present, the cells increased production of a pair or proteins, XIAP and survivin, that protected the cells from apoptosis. "Our findings are in agreement with clinical studies showing that patients who continue to smoke have worse survival profiles than those who quit before treatment," the researchers said. "They also raise the possibility that nicotine supplementation for smoking cessation might reduce the response to chemotheraputic agents," they added in a report appearing in next week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings also were being presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington. For smokers with lung cancer, "the best thing is to stop as soon as they can," Chellappan said [...]

4/3/2006 Houston, TX M. D. Anderson Cancer Center emaxHealth.com Studying thousands of people, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have documented a 25 percent increased risk of developing one of a number of cancers in first-degree relatives of lung cancer patients who have never smoked compared to families of people who neither smoke nor have lung cancer. Researchers say their study, one of the largest ever done and the only one to include both men and women, strongly suggests that these lung cancer patients and their affected relatives share an inherited genetic susceptibility to cancer development. "This study demonstrates the importance of familial factors in the general development of cancer," says the study's first author, Olga Gorlova, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology. "These susceptibility factors can be environmental, but are more likely to be influenced by genetic factors, because genes control pathways common to a number of cancers." Such marked cancer susceptibility also likely explains why patients in this study, who never smoked but might have been exposed to secondhand smoke, developed lung cancer in the first place, she says. Gorlova will present the study at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). The research team, headed by Margaret Spitz, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology, looked at whether 2,465 first-degree relatives of 316 lung cancer patients who never smoked developed cancer. They also established a matched comparison group of 2,442 first-degree relatives of 318 [...]

3/31/2006 London, England Dr. Thomas Stuttaford The Times Online (www.timesonline.co.uk) Less than two years before his death in March 2001, John Diamond’s book "C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too" was published. The book, his column in The Times and a BBC TV series chronicled Diamond’s final illness. This media coverage introduced the subject of head and neck cancers to the general public. These cancers are becoming more common. John Diamond’s cancer had started in his tongue but had spread to the neck and beyond before it was diagnosed. His column and book were written with absolute honesty and wry humour. Nobody knows if John greeted St Peter with a quip, but he certainly joked to his surgeon when he went into the operating theatre only a day or two before he died. He was bleeding from a tumour site and the surgeon told him that it was necessary to tie off the “bleeding point” — the technical term for a bleeding blood vessel. John looked at his surgeon, nodded his agreement, smiled, produced his notepad and wrote: “What is the bleeding point?” Last week a number of experts, including Peter Rhys-Evans, of the Royal Marsden, who looked after John, talked in Amsterdam about Erbitux (cetuximab) in the treatment of head and neck cancers. Erbitux, made by Merck, is one of the new monoclonal antibody chemotheraputic agents that targets cancer cells while largely sparing healthy tissue. It has already proved its worth against colo-rectal cancer, and there are encouraging reports of [...]

3/30/2006 Pasadena, CA R Haque et al. BMC Ear Nose Throat Disord, January 1, 2006; 6: 2 Background: Mixed results exist as to whether positive surgical margins impact survival. The aim of this study was to determine whether positive surgical margins are indeed associated with decreased survival in patients with primary head and neck cancer. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 261 cases diagnosed with cancer of the larynx or tongue between 1995 and 1999. Cases were followed through December 31, 2002. Survival curves by margin status were generated by Kaplan-Meier methods. Categorical data were evaluated with odds ratios (OR). Results: All-cause mortality was markedly higher in cases with positive margins as compared with those with negative margins (54% versus 29%, P = 0.005). This pattern also appeared after adjusting for age and sex (OR = 2.97, 95% CI: 1.29 - 6.84). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that positive surgical margin status is associated with increased mortality. This association also generally persists after adjustment for tumor size, stage, and adjuvant therapy. Authors: R Haque, R Contreras, MP McNicoll, EC Eckberg, and DB Petitti Authors' affiliation: Department of Research & Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, USA

3/30/2006 New York, NY press release TradingMarkets.com Amgen Inc. said Thursday that it has completed the Biologic License Application submission with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for experimental drug panitumumab as a treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer in patients who have failed prior chemotherapy, including oxaliplatin and/or irinotecan containing regimens. Amgen, the world's largest biotechnology company, is developing the drug Abgenix Inc. , another biotechnology company it is in the process of buying for about $2.2 billion in cash. Amgen and Abgenix previously announced data from a randomized Phase 3 trial involving 463 patients that showed a 46% reduction in tumor progression rate in patients who received panitumumab every two weeks compared to those who received best supportive care alone. Full results of the trial will be presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on April 3. Willard Dere, chief medical officer and senior vice president of Global Development at Amgen, said, "Completing the BLA brings us one step closer to realizing our goal of making panitumumab accessible to patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have failed available treatment options." Panitumumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody that targets the epidermal growth factor receptor, a protein that plays an important role in cancer cell signaling. Panitumumab received Fast Track designation from the FDA in July 2005 for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have failed standard chemotherapy treatment. It is being evaluated in clinical trials as both a monotherapy and in combination with [...]

3/30/2006 Brazil staff Biocompare.com Doctors in Brazil have concluded that the drug amifostine eases many of the most common side effects associated with patients receiving radiation therapy to treat their cancer while simultaneously making the cancer more susceptible to radiation. The study was published in the March 1, 2006, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. The researchers set out to evaluate, via a clinical investigation of already published work, whether adding amifostine to radiation therapy would prevent common side effects, such as mouth dryness, difficulty swallowing, lung inflammation, bladder inflammation, problems with the esophagus and inflammation of the mucous membranes. In some cases, these side effects can be severe enough that the patients' treatment has to be suspended or stopped completely – potentially preventing their cancer from being completely cured. The other major purpose of the study was to discover if amifostine would inadvertently protect the tumor from radiation. The investigators narrowed their research to 14 randomized, controlled trials in which 1,451 patients were split into two groups: one receiving radiation therapy alone and the second receiving radiation therapy in addition to amifostine. Patients taking amifostine were shown to have less radiation-related side effects. The research also showed that the drug did not protect the tumor from the radiation therapy and patients receiving the drug were more likely to have their cancer affected by the radiation than patients not given amifostine. Taking amifostine does have [...]

3/29/2006 Washington, DC David E. Nelson et al. American Journal of Public Health, 10.2105/AJPH.2004.061580 Objectives: Smokeless tobacco has many adverse health effects. We analyzed long-term national trends in smokeless tobacco use. Methods: We used 1987 to 2000 National Health Interview Survey data for adults aged 18 years and older, 1986 to 2003 data from Monitoring the Future surveys of adolescents, and 1991 to 2003 data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey for 9th- to 12th-grade students to examine overall and demographic-specific trends. Results: Smokeless tobacco use among adult and adolescent females was low and showed little change. Smokeless tobacco use among men declined slowly (relative decline=26%), with the largest declines among those aged 18 to 24 years or 65 years and older, Blacks, residents of the South, and persons in more rural areas. Overall and demographic-specific data for adolescent boys indicate that ST use increased for 12th-grade students from 1986 until the early 1990s, but has subsequently declined rapidly in all grades since then (range of relative overall declines=43% to 48%). Conclusions: Smokeless tobacco use has declined sharply, especially among adolescent boys. Ongoing prevention and cessation efforts are needed to continue this trend. Authors: David E. Nelson 1, Paul Mowery 1, Scott Tomar 2, Stephen Marcus 3, Gary Giovino 4, Luhua Zhao 5 Authors' affiliations: 1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2 University of Florida 3 National Cancer Institute 4 Roswell Park Cancer Institute 5 Research Triangle Institute

3/29/2006 Havanna, Cuba Lilliam Riera Gramma Internacional (www.granma.cu) Cuban scientists, whose field studies of therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of cancer have demonstrated encouraging results, have begun to work toward applying these therapies in the early stages of the disease. The therapeutic cancer vaccines, produced from component elements of tumors, are not intended to cure patients but to keep the tumor under control for a long period. The drug attempts to stimulate and “teach” the immune system of the affected organism to detect and destroy malignant cells without the disagreeable side effects caused by chemotherapy and radio therapy. In an article published on March 23 in Granma daily Dr. Luis Enríquez Fernández, head of the vaccine department of the Molecular Immunology Center (CIM) stated that, on the basis of animal experiments, Cuban and other researchers, can predict the value of transferring studies of these new cancer vaccine therapies to patients in the early stages of the disease in whom, theoretically, it would be possible to halt tumor growth for prolonged periods. “Today, the specialized scientific community has sufficient evidence to begin firmly believing in this possibility and we have already begun working to eradicate this scourge on humanity via a preventative vaccine,” the doctor affirmed. According to Enríquez Fernández, after nearly 30 years of clinical evaluations of the concept of therapeutic cancer vaccines and with more than 400 clinical trials completed, during which revolutionary advances in immunological thinking have occurred, “we have begun to understand the reasons for which the [...]

3/29/2006 Chapel Hill, NC staff Biocompare.com Researchers have developed "custom" nanoparticles that show promise of providing a more targeted and effective delivery of anticancer drugs than conventional medications or any of the earlier attempts to fight cancer with nanoparticles. Designed at the molecular level to attack specific types of cancer without affecting healthy cells, the nanoparticles also have the potential to reduce side effects associated with chemotherapy, the researchers say. Their study was described today at the 231st national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. The particles, considered the next generation of cancer therapeutics, are the most uniform, shape-specific drug delivery particles developed to date, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill. Other potential benefits of the tiny uniform particles include enhanced imaging of cancer cells for improved diagnosis and use as delivery vehicles for gene therapy agents, they say. To date, the UNC researchers have produced a variety of custom nanoparticles from biocompatible organic materials using techniques they adapted from processes used by the electronics industry to make transistors. In cell studies, they have shown that the uniform nanoparticles can attach to specific cell targets, release important chemotherapy drugs inside cells, and hold MRI contrast agents. Animal studies began recently and human studies are anticipated, the researchers say. "I think this will transform the way one detects and treats disease," says study leader Joseph DeSimone, Ph.D., a chemistry professor at UNC and director of the school’s Institute for [...]