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 [...]

3/27/2006 Iowa City, IA staff cancerconsultants.com According to an article recently published in the journal Cancer, high levels of endothelin-1 (ET-1) prior to therapy are associated with a worse prognosis in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer. The nasopharynx is the area above the soft palate (roof of the mouth) and behind the nose. Nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) is considered a type of head and neck cancer. Approximately 40,000 people in the US are diagnosed with head and neck cancer every year. Cancers of the head and neck comprise several types of cancer affecting the nasal cavity, sinuses, oral cavity, nasopharynx, oropharynx, and other sites throughout the head and neck. In 2005 the American Cancer Society estimated that 11,000 people would die from head and neck cancer that year. Advanced nasopharyngeal cancer refers to cancer that has spread from its site of origin to different sites in the body. Patients with advanced nasopharyngeal cancer have different prognoses following standard therapies. Researchers are evaluating different patient and disease variables, or “markers”, to help determine which patients are at a higher risk for developing cancer progression following standard therapies. Those at a higher risk for cancer spread or progression may benefit from more extensive or aggressive therapy. Researchers from China recently conducted a study to evaluate a possible association between levels of ER-1, a molecule associated with the development and spread of cancer, and outcomes of patients with advanced nasopharyngeal cancer. Levels of ER-1 in a blood sample were measured in 62 patients with advanced [...]

3/27/2006 Pittsburgh, PA Tara Parker-Pope Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (www.post-gazette.com) Every day, millions of Americans gobble down fistfuls of vitamins in a bid to ward off ill health. They swallow megadoses of vitamin C in hopes of boosting their immune systems, B vitamins to protect their hearts, and vitamin E, beta carotene and other antioxidants to fight cancer. It's estimated that 70 percent of American households buy vitamins. Annual spending on vitamins reached $7 billion last year, according to industry figures. But a troubling body of research is beginning to suggest that vitamin supplements may be doing more harm than good. Over the past several years, studies that were expected to prove dramatic benefits from vitamin use have instead shown the opposite. Beta carotene was seen as a cancer fighter, but it appeared to promote lung cancer in a study of former smokers. Too much vitamin A, sometimes taken to boost the immune system, can increase a woman's risk for hip fracture. A study of whether vitamin E improved heart health showed higher rates of congestive heart failure among vitamin users. And there are growing concerns that antioxidants, long viewed as cancer fighters, may actually promote some cancer and interfere with treatments. Last summer, the prestigious Medical Letter, a nonprofit group that studies the evidence and develops consensus statements to advise doctors about important medical issues, issued a critical report on a number of different vitamins, stressing the apparent risks that have emerged from recent studies. The Food and Nutrition Board of [...]

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 [...]