1/17/2005 Vancouver, British Columbia Canadian Cancer Society as reported by newswire.ca The Canadian Cancer Society believes that the British Columbia government must make curbing tobacco a priority. Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in Canada. More than 47,000 Canadians, including 5,600 British Columbians, die each year from tobacco related illness, including lung cancer, throat and oral cancer, heart disease, stroke, and emphysema. Further, each year more than 500 British Columbians die from exposure to second-hand smoke. Cigarette smoking is responsible for 30% of all cancer deaths and more than 85% of lung cancers. "Given these sobering statistics, it is startling that British Columbia's existing second-hand smoke regulation allows smoking in enclosed rooms in restaurants and bars," said Barbara Kaminsky, CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon Division. The regulation, which states that rooms must be separately ventilated and workers can not spend more than 20% of their shift in these rooms, is more cosmetic than real. There is little enforcement of the law and businesses are not held accountable. Research has shown that the designated smoking rooms do not protect workers and patrons to the dangerous effects of second-hand smoke. Something must be done about this. The Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon Division, believes that the government of British Columbia must enact legislation that would restrict smoking in all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars. In Canada, British Columbia was once a leader in tobacco control. Today, six [...]

1/16/2005 Philadelphia, PA Andrew J. Dannenberg, M.D. et al. Cancer Research Journal, Jan. 2005 Tobacco smoke triggers the production of COX-2, a cellular protein linked to the development and progression of cancer, according to research published in the January 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research. Tobacco smoke also promoted rapid cellular production of two proteins that initiate an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) driven cascade leading to the production of COX-2, the report stated. The report by Andrew J. Dannenberg, M.D., director of cancer prevention, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and colleagues, indicates that smokers produce as much as four times the amount of COX-2 in oral mucosal cells lining their mouths than their non-smoking counterparts. After observing the increased amount of COX-2 in the oral mucosa of smokers, Dannenberg and his team of collaborating scientists exposed cells in culture to tobacco smoke to define the mechanism underlying smoke-induced elevation of COX-2. The researchers determined that COX-2 levels were increased due to tobacco smoke induced activation of EGFR, a cell membrane protein also associated with various types of cancer. Tobacco smoke stimulated the oral mucosal cells to rapidly release two proteins that activate the EGFR, initiating a cascade resulting in COX-2 protein production. "In an oral mucosal cell line, tobacco smoke clearly activated the epidermal growth factor receptor. Tobacco smoke caused increased EGFR phosphorylation leading to increased COX-2 production," Dannenberg reported. "We were able to block the induction of COX-2 with either a small molecule that inhibited EGFR [...]

1/16/2005 Washington, D.C. Women In Government's Challenge To Eliminate Cervical Cancer Campaign as reported by prnewswire.com Women In Government today presented the findings from its first report on states' progress to eliminate cervical cancer -- a disease that is almost always preventable with the most-advanced screening technologies. The report titled, "A Call to Action:The 'State' of Cervical Cancer in America," finds that none of the states are where they should be, based on cervical cancer screening rates, coverage of routine screening tests in public insurance programs and passage of state legislation to make cervical cancer elimination a priority. "The report findings reveal that too many American women remain unscreened or under-screened for cervical cancer," said Women In Government chair and Michigan Senator, Beverly Hammerstrom (R-17th district). "We urge state legislators, public health officials, advocates and others to renew their efforts to prevent cervical cancer by ensuring that all women have access to the most advanced screening technologies -- including both the Pap and the HPV (human papillomavirus) tests -- regardless of their socioeconomic status. We will continue to monitor state successes and highlight their progress in future reports as part of our 10-year plan to eliminate this disease." Major findings in the report show: -- No state received an "excellent" grade. -- Massachusetts scored highest with 75 percent (achieving 12 out of 16 possible points), followed by Illinois, Maryland and North Carolina (69 percent or 11 out of 16 points each). -- Tennessee and Texas scored lowest (25 percent), followed [...]

1/15/2005 Thomas J. Belbin, PhD et al. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2005;131:10-18 Objective: To assess gene expression changes associated with tumor progression in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity. Design: A microarray containing 17 840 complementary DNA clones was used to measure gene expression changes associated with tumor progression in 9 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity. Samples were taken for analysis from the primary tumor, nodal metastasis, and "normal" mucosa from the patients’ oral cavity. Setting: Tertiary care facility. Patients: Nine patients with stage III or stage IV untreated oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. Results: Our analysis to categorize genes based on their expression patterns has identified 140 genes that consistently increased in expression during progression from normal tissue to invasive tumor and subsequently to metastatic node (in at least 4 of the 9 cases studied). A similar list of 94 genes has been identified that decreased in expression during tumor progression and metastasis. We validated this gene discovery approach by selecting moesin (a member of the ezrin/radixin/moesin [ERM] family of cytoskeletal proteins) and one of the genes that consistently increased in expression during tumor progression for subsequent immunohistochemical analysis using a head and neck squamous cell carcinoma tissue array. Conclusion: A distinct pattern of gene expression, with progressive up- or down-regulation of expression, is found during the progression from histologically normal tissue to primary carcinoma and to nodal metastasis. Authros: Thomas J. Belbin, PhD; Bhuvanesh Singh, MD; Richard V. Smith, MD; [...]

1/15/2005 Lexington, KY By Jim Warren Lexington Herald-Leader Legends warn of chew's dangers A manly slugger digs in at the plate and awaits the pitch, his hands clenched tightly around his bat, and a hunk of chewing tobacco crammed firmly in his cheek. It's an image that has said "baseball" for 100 years -- and it's an image that baseball doesn't want today's youngsters to emulate. That's why representatives of the Lexington Legends minor league baseball team joined Dr. Brent Mortenson, a Lexington oral surgeon, to warn freshmen at Bryan Station High School yesterday about the health dangers of smokeless tobacco. The presentation, a partnership between the Legends and the National Spit Tobacco Education Program, is one of several planned for Lexington schools. "Baseball players have been using chewing tobacco, spit tobacco, smokeless tobacco, whatever you want to call it, for many years," Legends announcer Larry Glover told the students. "But baseball is trying to disassociate itself from that. Baseball is trying to change." Unfortunately, many young Kentuckians haven't gotten the word. According to the most recent federal figures, 13.7 percent of Kentucky high school students use smokeless tobacco -- one of the nation's five highest rates. One reason, critics contend, is that too many kids are copying that old image of the tobacco-chewing baseball hero. They shouldn't, Mortenson told the students yesterday. He presented a video about Bill Tuttle, a center fielder with Detroit, Kansas City and Minnesota from 1952 to 1963. Tuttle died in 1998 from oral cancer [...]

1/15/2005 Diana Parsell Science News USA Palm-Nut Problem Several hundred million people today practice the ancient custom of chewing betel. In south Asia, where the habit is most prevalent, the signs are hard to miss. Placed inside the cheek and sucked for hours, a betel wad turns saliva bright red, and betel users' spit does likewise to sidewalks and streets. People typically chew betel as a quid consisting of nut pieces from an Areca catechu palm mixed with powdered lime (calcium hydroxide) and wrapped in the leaf of the pepper plant Piper betle. Betel is used primarily as a stimulant. Areca nuts contain alkaloids that induce euphoria and raise a person's heart rate and skin temperature. Some chewers say a cheekful of betel aids digestion. Over the past decade, a variety of evidence has linked betel chewing to several types of oral cancer. Although the custom is falling out of fashion in several countries, such as Thailand and Cambodia, it's growing in popularity in other areas. Especially troubling is that many new betel users are adolescents and children, say Asian health officials. Some governments in Asia are taking steps to reduce betel use. Oral cancer is relatively rare in Western countries. In some south Asian countries, however, it ranks first among malignancies. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a disproportionate number of the world's cases of oral cancer in men occurs in regions of Asia where betel chewing is common. Once diagnosed mainly in adults, such cancers are now [...]

1/12/2005 Cape Town, South Africa Ben MacLennan Mail & Guardian Online A good curry laden with spices can do wonders in keeping a range of diseases including cancer at bay, according to internationally acclaimed researcher Prof Bharat Aggarwal. "No question about it. I can commend it again and again," he said in Cape Town on Wednesday. "It is not only cancer, there are a number of other diseases ... right now there are clinical trials going on in the University of California with curcumin for dementia [and] Alzheimer's." Aggarwal was the main speaker on Wednesday at the opening of a three-day conference on the interface between natural products and molecular therapy, at the University of Cape Town's medical school. He is a researcher at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre at the University of Texas in the United States, where a major focus of his work has been curcumin, active component of the distinctive yellow curry spice turmeric. He said the dietary spices played an important role in fighting cancer. "That is becoming increasingly evident from a number of different sources. And that's why the incidence of cancer in countries like India where these spices are consumed is ten times lower [for] most cancers as compared to countries like the United States." Diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's were rare in India -- "actually unheard of. And the question is, why? In my mind, curcumin certainly plays a role. "Even within India, in the south of India they use more curcumin that [...]

1/11/2005 Santa Monica, CA Press release Yahoo Business (biz.yahoo.com) Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center Becomes One of the First Sites in the Country to Offer Optical Tracking Technology That Localizes Tumor Targets Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center has today become one of the first centers in the country to install a new generation of optical tracking technology that offers the potential for improved cancer care by allowing for increased precision in the delivery of radiation treatment, thus allowing for higher dose with fewer complications. This technology will aid significantly in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer and also has applications in breast cancer and head and neck cancer. Developed by NOMOS Corporation in Pennsylvania, the new technology provides a continuous stream of ultrasound images that can be utilized in real time to localize cancer targets prior to a patient undergoing radiation treatment. Physicians and therapists can move and align what are called "structure sets" with the touch of a finger, assuring a level of accuracy and precision previously not available. "This new tumor tracking devise leads to greater precision by providing the localization of tumor targets from any angle or direction," says Michael Steinberg, M.D., of the center. "We can literally cycle through hundreds of anatomical planes and position a treatment plan to precisely match the patient's anatomy -- and that minimizes the impact of radiation on surrounding healthy tissues." Recent years have seen tremendous technological advances in the field of radiation oncology. The most sophisticated technology available today [...]

1/11/2005 Karen Pihl-Carey BioWorld Online (www.bioworld.com) Providing new hope for breast cancer patients, Abraxane soon will offer the antitumor benefits, without the toxic solvent side effects, of paclitaxel. The FDA approved the product developed by American Bioscience Inc., of Santa Monica, Calif. It will be manufactured and marketed through the company's 70 percent-owned subsidiary American Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. (APP), of Schaumburg, Ill. "What this means to the breast cancer patient and to the physician is they can now provide the full potential of this drug paclitaxel," said Patrick Soon-Shiong, chairman, president and CEO of privately held American Bioscience and executive chairman of APP. Abraxane is indicated to treat breast cancer after failure of combination chemotherapy for metastatic disease or relapse within six months of adjuvant chemotherapy. With the approval, the FDA has designated a new group of protein-bound particle drugs in which Abraxane is the first in the class. The product consists of albumin-bound paclitaxel nanoparticles, which are one-hundredth the size of a single red blood cell. "What is exciting now about Abraxane is it is the first of a new class of drug products, and second, it is the first taxane that is free of solvent," Soon-Shiong told BioWorld Today. "As a result, it can be given without premedication and without a black box warning of severe hypersensitivity reactions. "It can be given at a 50 percent higher dose of chemotherapy," he said, "and the outcome is an almost doubling of the response rate when compared to Taxol." Another [...]

1/11/2005 London, England Rebecca Smith London Evening Standard (as reported in www.thislondon.co.uk) A man has received almost £200,000 after being wrongly told that he had throat cancer and had 12 months to live. Alan Brant was "devastated" when doctors told him he had to undergo surgery to remove most of his gullet. The mistaken diagnosis cost him his relationship and he almost lost his job. Complications left him dangerously ill and he has long-term side-effects as a result of the treatment. Tests carried out after the surgery revealed Mr Brant, 54, had never had cancer. He has been given £192,000 in compensation after doctors owned up to making a horrendous mistake. "I have gone through all this for nothing and for about six months I was suicidal," he said. "The effect on my life has been devastating." Complications during surgery meant Mr Brant's spleen had to be removed and he developed pneumonia and a dangerous abscess in his lung. After further treatment he cannot eat proper meals. He has to eat small snacks and cannot have food and drink together. He also has problems with stomach acid coming up into his mouth. Mr Brant, from Woking, said his relationship broke down under the stress and his job as a commercial kitchens designer suffered. His ordeal began when he experienced difficulties swallowing. His GP referred him to a consultant gastroenterologist at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, who said there was an obstruction and took a biopsy. Then doctors told Mr [...]