1/24/2006 Cary, NC press release Yahoo! Finance (biz.yahoo.com) Align Pharmaceuticals, based in Cary, NC, made its debut last week with the launch of three new products for the treatment of radiation dermatitis and xerostomia (dry mouth). These products will provide relief to people undergoing radiation therapy, as well as the four million people who suffer from Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes dry mouth symptoms. "Our products serve an unmet need in these two communities. No other products available provide the significant relief to patients that these do," said Align Pharmaceuticals' Chief Executive Officer, William Collins. Xclair(TM) Cream is a water-based cream with ingredients that hydrate skin, as well as provide protective barriers to maintain skin integrity during the course of radiation therapy. Use of the cream begins on "day one" of radio-therapy and is applied three times a day for the duration. Xclair Cream is steroid, alcohol and fragrance free. Align has two products for xerostomia under the brand Numoisyn(TM). Numoisyn(TM) Lozenges are saliva stimulants for people with some salivary function. Numoisyn(TM) Liquid is a saliva replacement for people with little or no salivary function. Both products will benefit people with xerostomia as a result of radiation treatment for head and neck cancers, or Sjogren's syndrome. "We started this company to find therapies that would improve the quality of life in patients with no other therapeutic solutions," said Greg Preston, vice president of sales and marketing. "Our CFO is an oral cancer survivor who has experienced both radiation [...]

1/24/2006 New York, NY staff www.cancerpage.com A high quality of life (QOL) documented 1 year after treatment of primary epithelial head and neck cancer is strongly associated with survival 10 years later, investigators report. Although QOL is associated with short-term survival in patients with advanced cancer being treated palliatively, the effect of QOL on patients with cancers treated with curative intent is not known, the authors note in their report, published in the January Archives of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. Dr. Randall P. Morton, from Auckland City Hospital in New Zealand, and Dr. Hisham M. Mehanna, from University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire in Coventry, England, hypothesized that "it is more likely that the steady-state QOL, after patients had adjusted to the effects of the diagnosis and of treatment and had mobilized their coping strategies accordingly, would be the determinant of long-term survival, rather than pretreatment QOL." For their research, the authors prospectively followed 200 patients treated for head and neck cancer, who completed QOL questionnaires at diagnosis and, if free of disease, 12 months later. Median survival was 6 years. At 1 year, 140 were alive without disease recurrence. At 10 years, 136 patients had died, 48 were alive, and outcomes were unknown for 16. The pretreatment QOL was not associated with mortality after adjustment for confounders (age, gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, disease stage, nodal involvement, and tumor site), the authors report. However, low QOL after treatment remained strongly associated with death even after adjusting for demographic data and [...]

1/23/2006 Columbus, OH staff Science Daily (sciencedaily.com) Researchers have identified a new and unusual tumor suppressor gene that may be important in cancers of the lung and head and neck. The study shows that restoring the inactivated gene can slow the growth of tumor cells. The gene, known as TCF21, is silenced in tumor cells through a chemical change known as DNA methylation, a process that is potentially reversible. The findings might therefore lead to new strategies for the treatment and early detection of lung cancer, a disease that killed an estimated 163,510 Americans in 2005. The study could also lead to a better understanding of the molecular changes that occur in tumor cells during lung-cancer progression. Tumor-suppressor genes are genes that normally prevent cells from growing out of control. The loss or silencing of one or more tumor-suppressor genes is believed to be an important part of cancer development. The study, by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, was published online in the Jan. 13 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The newly discovered gene is unusual because it can alter normal epithelial cells, causing them to change to a more primitive state. Epithelial cells form the skin and line the body's passageways and hollow organs. They are also the source of the most common forms of cancer. The more primitive cell type, known as a mesenchymal cell, is [...]

1/17/2006 Fort Wayne, IN Lauran Deergaard FortWayne Journal Gazette (fortwayne.com) The dog hopped on three legs, pain from bone cancer so bad that he wouldn’t let his afflicted fourth paw touch the floor. His owner was bracing for euthanasia when scientists offered a novel experiment: They injected a fiery sap from a Moroccan plant into Scooter’s spinal column – and the dog frolicked on all fours again for several months. The chemical destroyed nerve cells that sensed pain from Scooter’s cancer, not helping the tumor but apparently making him no longer really feel it. The dramatic effect in dogs has researchers from the National Institutes of Health preparing to test the chemical in people whose pain from advanced cancer is unrelieved by even the strongest narcotics. The first human study could begin by next year, at the NIH’s Bethesda, Md., hospital. A second study in pain-ridden dogs is slated for this summer at the University of Pennsylvania. If the research pans out, it might one day offer doctors, and veterinarians, a desperately needed new approach to attack intractable pain. And it’s from an unlikely source, a more potent cousin of the chemical that makes chili peppers hot. Why would a substance that feels like it’s burning a hole in your tongue – yes, one researcher tasted it – relieve pain, too? This fiery chemical, called resiniferatoxin or RTX, can poison certain nerve cells that control a type of heat-related, inflammatory pain, apparently eliminating one of the body’s pain-sensing systems. Yet [...]

1/15/2006 Oslo, Norway staff Reuters (today.reuteres.co.uk) A Norwegian cancer expert made up fictitious patients for an article about treatment of oral cancer published in a leading medical journal, the hospital said on Sunday. "The material was fabricated," said Trine Lind, spokeswoman of the Norwegian Radium Hospital where Jon Sudbo has worked as a doctor and a researcher. "We are shocked. This is the worst thing that could happen in a research institution like ours." Sudbo, 44, invented patients and case histories for a study of oral cancer that was published in the British medical journal the Lancet in October 2005, she said. The Norwegian daily Dagbladet said that 250 of his sample of 908 people in the study all shared the same birthday. Lind said Sudbo, who has not commented publicly on the hospital's charges and could not be contacted on Sunday, had admitted falsifying the data for the article. The hospital has set up a commission to investigate why Sudbo falsified data and how his material passed a review by other experts. The panel would also examine previous articles by Sudbo, including two in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Radium Hospital had halted Sudbo's research at the department of Medical Oncology and Radiotherapy and was discussing whether he could continue treating patients. The report in the Lancet was entitled "non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and the risk of oral cancer." It concluded that long-term use of the drugs could help reduce chances of oral cancer, including in smokers, but [...]

1/14/2006 New York, NY Jane E. Brody New York Times (nytimes.com) Patients with debilitating pain from chronic illness, accidents, surgery or advanced cancer have long had problems getting adequate medication to control their pain and make life worth living. Now the federal government, and especially the Drug Enforcement Administration, is working overtime to make it even harder for doctors to manage serious pain, including that of dying patients trying to exit this world gracefully. In an article in the current New England Journal of Medicine titled "The Big Chill: Inserting the D.E.A. into End-of-Life Care," two specialists in palliative care, Dr. Timothy E. Quill and Dr. Diane E. Meier, state that despite some physicians' commitment to treat pain and despite the effectiveness of opioid drugs like OxyContin and morphine, "abundant evidence suggests that patients' fears of undertreatment of distressing symptoms are justified." They continue, "Although a lack of proper training and overblown fears of addiction contribute to such undertreatment, physicians' fears of regulatory oversight and disciplinary action remain a central stumbling block." Obstacles to Relief In addition to a case before the United States Supreme Court, Gonzales v. Oregon, that threatens to undermine Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, the D.E.A. has recently increased raids on doctors' offices, confiscating files and arresting doctors on charges of overprescribing narcotics to patients who are addicts or drug dealers. Most of these physicians are compassionate people trying to help suffering patients but are sometimes fooled by clever addicts, drug dealers or undercover agents who [...]

1/13/2006 Ann Arbor, MI Alexandra King Nature Clinical Practice Oncology (2006) 3, 7 Researchers at the University of Michigan have published the first prospective study to compare quality of life (QOL) and xerostomia in patients with head-and-neck cancer receiving standard radiotherapy with those receiving salivary-gland-sparing intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Between 1997 and 2002, 10 patients receiving standard radiotherapy were enrolled into this longitudinal case–control study; each was matched with a subgroup of IMRT patients (2–5 IMRT patients per group, median 3; n = 30). Patients were matched for tumor characteristics, radiotherapy status, and age. Xerostomia-specific questionnaires (XQ) and questionnaires specific to head-and-neck cancer QOL (HNQOL) were completed by patients before therapy and at regular intervals after completion of treatment. These questionnaires were designed to assess oral dryness and eating, communication, emotion, and pain, respectively. During the initial months after therapy, questionnaire scores in both treatment groups worsened significantly compared with pretreatment scores. After 6 months, however, patients receiving IMRT showed significant improvement over time in XQ and HNQOL scores (P = 0.01 and P = 0.04, respectively). The improvement was most marked for HNQOL, particularly in the scores for pain and emotion. There was no trend toward improvement over time in those receiving standard radiotherapy. At 12 months' follow-up, the post-therapy scores in both groups were significantly correlated with pretreatment scores (XQ, P = 0.02 and HNQOL, P <0.01). The authors conclude that IMRT results in better post-treatment QOL and reduced xerostomia when compared with standard radiotherapy, but that these benefits [...]

1/13/2006 Great Britain staff Medical News Today (www.medicalnewstoday.com) Doctors can learn how to help tackle the growing problem of mouth cancer thanks to a new course delivered free by onmedica.net, the educational website for GPs. The course, developed with Cancer Research UK, is designed to help doctors identify signs and symptoms of mouth cancer and discover more about risk factors, prevention and detection of the disease and its treatment. Cancer Research UK's Open Up to Mouth Cancer campaign was launched in November last year. And resulting feedback from GPs showed there was a need to encourage greater awareness of mouth cancer within primary care - as the disease that is now more common in the UK than both cervical and testicular cancer together. Cases of mouth cancer have risen by a quarter over the last 10 years - from 3411 in 1992 to 4285 in 2001. In 2003 mouth cancer resulted in almost 1600 deaths. Cancer Research UK's campaign focuses on detection and awareness of signs and symptoms. Known risk factors for the disease are smoking, alcohol and chewing tobacco or betel nut. Smoking and drinking are together estimated to cause more than 75 per cent of mouth cancer cases in developed countries. The new free online course on onmedica.net covers different types of mouth cancer which include cancers of the tongue, gums, tonsils, lining of the mouth, lips, oropharynx and hypopharynx. There are sections, each with question and answer sub-sections, on incidence and survival, risk factors, signs and symptoms, [...]

1/13/2006 England staff EurekAlert (www.eurekalert.org) Many radiotherapy departments in UK hospitals are heavily overstretched, resulting in long waits for cancer patients which may be jeopardising treatment, says a paper in this week's BMJ. Radiotherapy treatment can be as successful at tackling some cancers as radical surgery, and often has the advantage of organ preservation. But waiting lists are severe in many radiotherapy departments, and although radiotherapy services in the UK offer high quality treatment, say the authors, they are often less able to cope with the volume of patients needing radiotherapy than other developed countries, and indeed many poorer countries. For patients with a realistic chance of beating cancer, studies show that delaying treatment hampers doctors' ability to tackle the disease, report the authors. With cervical cancer, for instance, a longer waiting time for radiotherapy reduces the chance of the patient's survival. And for head and neck cancer, patients waiting more than six weeks for post-operative radiotherapy are three times as likely to have the cancer recur. For breast cancer, patients are at a 60% increased risk of the disease returning if the delay between surgery and radiotherapy goes beyond eight weeks. Despite considerable investment in radiotherapy equipment in recent years, a shortage of specialist staff - radiographers, physicists, and dosimetrists (specialists in radiation dosage) - means that hospitals cannot cope with the rising demand for radiotherapy treatment. More training places are being created, but that does nothing to remedy current staff shortages. Many hospitals have already done all they [...]

1/11/2006 Bethesda, MD staff CancerConsultants (patient.cancerconsultants.com) In a study published in the journal Cancer, oral mucositis developed in over 80% of patients undergoing radiation therapy for head and neck cancer. Patients who developed oral mucositis were more likely to have unplanned breaks in radiation therapy and were also more likely to be hospitalized. Approximately 40,000 people in the U.S. 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. The American Cancer Society estimates that 11,000 people will die from head and neck cancer in 2005. Oral mucositis refers to inflammation of the oral mucosa (lining of the mouth) that results from chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Symptoms may include redness, swelling, and ulceration. When oral mucositis is severe, patients cannot swallow food or liquid and often have to be given nutrients through a vein. In addition, oral mucositis can cause severe pain, increase the risk of infection, and may limit a patient’s ability to tolerate further treatment. Oral mucositis is known to be a common side-effect of radiation therapy for head and neck cancer, but relatively little is known about factors that increase or decrease the risk of developing oral mucositis. In order to explore the frequency, predictors, and consequences of oral mucositis in patients with head and neck cancer, researchers conducted a study among 450 head and neck cancer patients who had [...]