10/9/2004 Jane Elliott BBC News Online health staff Think of medieval England and you are likely to conjure up an image of a wizened hag with black stumps for teeth. But although that might have been the unfortunate state of some people's teeth, others had much better care. Documents show that, not only were the educationally elite aware of the importance of keeping their teeth clean, but they also knew how to fill cavities and deal with facial fractures. They could recognise oral cancer and even knew the rudiments of teeth whitening. A paper published in the British Dental Journal shows that medieval (12-14th century) literature even makes reference to creating false teeth. The paper's author, osteo-archeologist Trevor Anderson, said the papers referred to ways of preserving and improving teeth. "There were liquids to whiten teeth, methods of removing calculus (plaque) and compounds for filling cavities. "There is also a reference to dentures made of human teeth or cow bone. "Surgery is known for oral cancer as well as the repair of fractured jaws." But Mr Anderson said the documents would only have been available to an elite group of physicians and surgeons, usually based in the larger cities or university towns. He added: "The richer the person was the more sugar they had in their diet and therefore the more decay. The medieval peasants would probably have been eating a coarser diet and so they would have less trapped in their teeth and therefore less decay. Most people would [...]

10/8/2004 Monell Chemical Senses Center Medical News Today (online) A team of researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center and Jefferson Medical College has been awarded a $7.7 million, five-year grant by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) to study how inflammation affects our senses of taste and smell. The role inflammation plays in basic biological processes is of increasing importance to medical research. The new grant will enable a multidisciplinary team of basic scientists and clinicians from the Monell-Jefferson Chemosensory Clinical Research Center (CCRC) to investigate how inflammation contributes to clinical changes in smell and taste. Information gained from the studies will form the foundation of new approaches to avoid or overcome the sometimes debilitating effects of chemosensory dysfunction. Approximately six million Americans suffer from sensory loss or alteration related to the senses of taste, smell, or both. Although changes in taste and smell perception can significantly impact human quality of life, nutrition, and safety, current treatment options remain limited. "By investigating the role of inflammatory factors in chemosensory loss and recovery, we expect to gain insight into potential therapeutic interventions for these dysfunctions," says Beverly Cowart, Ph.D., a sensory psychologist who oversees the Chemosensory Clinic that assesses taste and smell function of patients. Otolaryngologist Edmund Pribitkin, M.D., Associate Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, is the project's medical director. Scientists at the Monell-Jefferson CCRC seek to characterize and understand the causes of taste and [...]

10/8/2004 Medical College of Georgia Medical News Today (online) The health benefits of green tea are finding their way into gum, mints, skin cream and other products with the help of a Medical College of Georgia cell biologist. Dr. Stephen Hsu, a researcher in the MCG Schools of Dentistry and Graduate Studies whose work has revolutionized the understanding of green tea's healing and preventive properties, recently began an arrangement with New Jersey-based CCA Industries, Inc. to make those properties readily available in everyday products. The first of these products, Mega-T Green Tea Chewing Gum, is on store shelves now. Each piece of the mint-flavored, sugar-free gum equals two cups of green tea. Dr. Hsu has been intrigued by the properties of green tea since observing that populations that drink green tea regularly have much lower cancer rates than populations that don't. His research helped determine that green tea polyphenols help eliminate free radicals, which can damage DNA and lead to cancer. He further found that green tea-induced p57--a protein that helps regulate cell growth and differentiation--changes the behavior of healthy cells as polyphenols target cancer cells for destruction. This change of behavior protects the healthy cells. Dr. Hsu discovered that the polyphenols activate two separate pathways, one for normal cells and one for cancer cells. The polyphenols serve as a sentinel, separating cells with p57 from cancer cells, which lack p57. He found that while the normal cells are shuttled to safety, the polyphenols destroy the mitochondria of cancer cells. [...]

10/8/2004 Chen D, Daniel KG, Kuhn DJ, Kazi A, Bhuiyan M, Li LH, Wang ZG, Wan SB, Lam WH, Chan TH, Dou QP FRONTIERS IN BIOSCIENCE 9: 2618-2631 Suppl. S, SEP 1 2004 The cancer-preventive effects of green tea and its main constituent (-)-epigallocatechin gallate [(-)- EGCG] are widely supported by results from epidemiological, cell culture, animal and clinical studies in the recent decade. In vitro cell culture studies show that tea polyphenols potently induce apoptotic cell death and cell cycle arrest in tumor cells but not in their normal cell counterparts. Green tea polyphenols affect several signal transduction pathways, including growth factor-mediated, the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)-dependent, and ubiquitin/proteasome degradation pathways. Epidemiological studies have suggested that the consumption of green tea lowers the risk of cancer. Various animal studies have revealed that treatment by green tea inhibits tumor incidence and multiplicity in different organ sites such as skin, lung, liver, stomach, mammary gland and colon. Phase I and II clinical trials were carried out recently to explore the anticancer effects of green tea in patients with cancer. At this time, more mechanistic research, animal studies, and clinical trials are necessary to further evaluate the role of green tea in cancer prevention.

10/7/2004 Harry B. Burke Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 96, No. 19, 1408-1409 The prediction of patient prognosis has always been essential to the practice of medicine. By the early 20th century, Halsted (1) and others believed that solid tumors spread contiguously over time through a series of stages, from the primary tumor site, through the lymphatics, to distant organs, with each stage conferring an increasingly poor prognosis. A corollary of this view, supported by later research, was that, at diagnosis (clinical tumor–node–metastasis [TNM] stage) or after surgery (pathologic TNM stage), tumor size or location (T), regional lymph node involvement (N), and distant metastases (M) were indices of disease spread and could be used to predict patient outcome. In 1953, the French surgeon Pierre Denoix proposed to the Union Internationale Centre le Cancer that these three factors be standardized and integrated into a prognostic system that could be used, with some accommodation for anatomic site, across all solid tumors (2). His proposal for a common language of solid tumor prognosis was adopted as the TNM staging system, which is currently used throughout the world. The TNM system has undergone six revisions and, in the United States, these changes have been guided by the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), which was established in 1959 and which has published a succession of revisions of its AJCC Cancer Staging Manual (3). The TNM staging system is a "bin model"; the TNM prognostic factors are used to create a mutually exclusive [...]

10/7/2004 Toronto, Ontario Press release Canada News Wire (cnw.ca) Viventia Biotech Inc. a leading biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of a new generation of targeted anti-cancer drugs, announced today that Dr. Nick Glover, President and CEO of Viventia Biotech has been invited to make corporate presentations at three major biotechnology conferences. Dr. Glover will present before an international audience of investors, biotech professionals, journalists and representatives from large pharmaceutical companies in both North America and Europe. Presentations will be made at BioContact Biopharmaceutical Partnering Symposium being held in Quebec City on October 6th - 8th, 2004. The Rodman & Renshaw Techvest Healthcare Conference in New York, October 26th - 28th, 2004 and BIO Europe 2004, the largest and most successful partnering forum in Europe being held November 8th - 10th, 2004 in Cologne, Germany. Dr. Glover said, "Participation in these conferences allows Viventia the opportunity to present to an international audience the progress we have made in our mission, to discover and develop a new generation of monoclonal antibody products to offer safer, more beneficial therapies for cancer patients." Viventia's first Armed Antibodies(TM) product, Proxinium(TM), continues to rapidly move through clinical development in our first indication, the treatment of advanced, recurrent head and neck cancer. We have also recently initiated clinical development for Proxinium in a second indication, advanced bladder cancer. Viventia Biotech Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company advancing a new generation of monoclonal antibody therapeutics designed to offer safer, more beneficial therapies for cancer patients. Viventia's [...]

10/5/2004 Atlanta, GA David Wahlberg Atlanta Jornal-Constitution Makers of a new cigarette claim it curbs the risk of cancer. Another is sold with the slogan, "Great taste, less toxins." Snuff in new teabag-like pouches can be sucked and tossed instead of spit out. And anyone care for a tobacco lozenge? Tobacco companies, reeling from lawsuit settlements, clean indoor air campaigns and growing public distrust are pitching a variety of "reduced-harm" products. The trend — to be discussed at a cancer conference in Atlanta this week — has ignited controversy over whether the potentially less risky offerings should be promoted as an alternative when smokers can't or won't quit. Many public health researchers wonder: is there such thing as a "safer cigarette" — or any kind of "safer tobacco?" The issue also has lit up the legal world. State attorneys general are questioning marketing claims. Bills in Congress calling for federal tobacco regulation and a buyout of tobacco quotas could restrict — or even expand — development of the "kinder, gentler" innovations. The ongoing federal trial seeking $280 billion from the tobacco industry for 50 years of alleged fraud could also have an impact. While the "reduced-harm" products and the furor over them are new, the reason health officials are cautious dates to the 1970s. Tobacco companies touted "low-tar" and "light" cigarettes as less harmful, and health authorities initially agreed. Then studies found that smokers compensated by puffing harder and inhaling more deeply, causing a new kind of cancer further down [...]

10/5/2004 Helen Pearson [email protected] Internal antioxidants may shield cells from radiation damage. US researchers have come up with a novel theory for how a tiny, tough bacterium can survive doses of radiation 2,000 times those that would fry a person. The unassuming red bacterium, called Deinococcus radiodurans, was discovered around 50 years ago in a batch of irradiated meat. Ever since, scientists have wondered how it can withstand radiation better than almost any other organism in the world. "They're better than cockroaches," says microbiologist James Imlay at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Researchers know that the bug is particularly good at patching up DNA damage wrought by radiation. Now Michael Daly of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and his team have come up with a possible explanation why. By comparing bacteria with different sensitivities to radiation, the team found that the most resistant bacteria tend to store up high levels of manganese and relatively low levels of iron. By contrast, the bacteria that shrivel up at a hint of radiation have little manganese and more iron. Artificially lowering the manganese levels also made bacteria more susceptible to radiation damage, the team reports report in Science (1). "It was quite stunning to us," Daly says. The marvels of manganese Daly suggests that the manganese helps to clear up damaging molecules, such as free radicals, that are released by the bugs' metabolism. This leaves the bacteria in a healthier state and better able to patch up [...]

10/5/2004 Guan-Cheng Huang, Shyun-Yeu Liu, Mei-Huei Lin, Yung-Yen Kuo and Young-Chau Liu Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 2004 34(9):499-504 Background: Platinum, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and taxanes are commonly used in chemotherapeutic modalities of various carcinomas. However, taxanes are rarely used in patients suffering from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in Taiwan. The purpose of this study was to assess whether there is a synergistic effect produced by incorporating Taxol (paclitaxel) with cisplatin, carboplatin or 5-FU in the combined treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Methods: OSCC cells were surgically excised from a Taiwanese patient and cultured into a cell line, OECM-1. The viability of OECM-1 after drug treatment was determined by an XTT labeling reagent. Results: The dose-dependent cytotoxicity of each drug was determined. The order of chemosensitivity of OECM-1 toward these drugs was Taxol, cisplatin, carboplatin and 5-FU, with 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50s) of 10, 68, 332 and 3000 µM, respectively. In the combined drug treatment, low concentrations of platinum (10 µM) or 5-FU (500 µM) were included in the culture media with low cytotoxic concentrations of Taxol (0.025, 0.05 and 0.1 µM). When combined with 0.025 µM of Taxol, only cisplatin, rather than carboplatin and 5-FU, showed synergistic cytotoxicity with OECM-1. Cisplatin also acted synergistically with 0.05 and 0.1 µM of Taxol. On the other hand, carboplatin and 5-FU acted additively with low cytotoxic concentrations of Taxol (0.025, 0.05 and 0.1 µM). Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest that there may be a beneficial outcome in incorporating [...]

10/5/2004 Thomas Jeffereson University Innovations Report Boosting the blood count – in effect, curing anemia – in conjunction with radiation therapy won’t help patients with head and neck cancer fare any better than with radiation alone, says a national study led by Jefferson Medical College researchers. Physicians have known for decades that patients who have anemia and are undergoing radiation therapy, especially for head and neck cancer, do much worse in terms of controlling their cancer and survival. One theory proposes that anemia makes tumors more resistant to radiation because it promotes hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen, within the tumor, says Mitchell Machtay, M.D., Walter J. Curran Jr., M.D., associate professor and vice chair of radiation oncology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center. Hypoxia is known to cause such resistance. "The hope was that by correcting anemia, there would be a better oxygenation of the tumor environment and the tumor would be more sensitive to radiation and easier to kill," he says. To find out, he and his co-workers looked at 141 patients with head and neck cancer who had mild to moderate anemia. Of those, 71 patients were randomly assigned to receive the hormone erythropoietin during radiation therapy, while 70 were given only radiation. Erythropoietin spurs production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Yet, while erythropoietin significantly increased the red blood cell count and lessened the patients’ anemia, it didn’t help them have better tumor control or survival. Dr. [...]