2/3/2004 Alton Josh Stockinger The Telegraph Looking at 6-year-old Morrisan Henson, you would never know she’s sick. The Alton first-grader bounces into the kitchen and slides to a sock-footed stop at the base of the refrigerator. Her tiny, 3-foot frame is cloaked in a fluffy, red sweatshirt and black pajama bottoms. Morrisan scales the monstrous appliance with her eyes. Looking up, her shoulder-length, light-blond hair falls away from her face, and a slow grin stretches from one fair cheek to the other. "Can I have some pudding?" she asks. Morrisan dances with relentless energy, scooting back and forth, anticipating a response from her grandmother. Pudding and soup are two of the only foods Morrisan can eat these days. "Yes." A smile replaces the grin. In seconds, Morrisan cradles a container of chocolate pudding in her hands. Her eyes sharpen intensely as she pulls back the tin-foil covering. Thhhwiiiikk! Morrisan scampers back to the living room to play with her sister. "She’s an eater," says Sharon Connolly, Morrisan’s grandmother and legal guardian. The refrigerator door swings back, closing the appliance -- on it, a calendar. The page reads "January." Connolly can’t help noticing the calendar out of the corner of her eye. Messages like "Surgery" and "Call Oncologist" fill the boxes, now a timeline of the family’s terrifying ordeals of the past month. "We’re going to fight," Connolly says with a catch in her throat. Finding Out In January, Morrisan became the youngest documented person to be diagnosed with a common [...]

2/1/2004 By Sid Kirchheimer , Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD WebMD Medical News (see below) But More Work Is Needed as 1,500 Americans Will Die Each Day. Although more people are being diagnosed, death rates for most major cancers continue to fall, the American Cancer Society says. Since 1930, overall cancer deaths have declined 11% among men and 14% among women. The biggest decrease has been in stomach cancers, which have dropped 86% in men and 91% in women -- largely because of improved hygiene and food storage and a lower rate of infection of the H pylori bacteria among Americans. "Cancer is not an inescapable fact of life," says Michael J. Thun, MD, an author of the report. "There are things that we do, in our culture and with social policies and practices, that make a difference in cancer occurrence." While news is good regarding deaths from cancer, there is still much work to do. The ACS estimates that cancer will kill more than 1,500 Americans each day this year -- more than 560,000 in all -- and account for one of every four deaths in the U.S. Cancer will continue to be the No. 2 killer behind heart disease. About one-third of these deaths will result from lifestyle factors such as poor diet, obesity or lack of exercise, while smoking will claim about 180,000 lives. In its new report, Cancer Facts & Figures 2004, the American Cancer Society projects that some 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with [...]

2/1/2004 Snyder et al Public Library of Science Biology Restoring p53 protein function in mouse cancer models eliminates tumors and increases survival of the animals, according to a new study. Because a p53 mutation is one of the most common events in the development of cancer, the results could have implications for a wide variety of tumors. Cancer often begins with mutations in tumor suppressor pathways. Tumor suppressor genes—such as p53—arrest cell growth and induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) in response to cellular stress, such as chromosomal damage. Cells with p53 mutations can escape these constraints, leading to the uncontrolled growth characteristic of "immortal" cancer cells. Nearly all types of tumors have mutations in the p53 pathway, many of them in the p53 gene itself. Steven Dowdy, of the University of California at San Diego, and colleagues introduced modified p53 peptides (parts of the protein) into cancer cells. p53 works as a "transcriptional" activator that binds to specific gene sequences and triggers apoptosis in response to DNA damage. One region of the p53 protein, the C-terminal domain, facilitates DNA binding. In cancer cells, synthesized peptides (called p53C') derived from this region can induce apoptosis by restoring function to p53 proteins with DNA-binding mutations. To get p53C' peptides into cancer cells, the scientists used a technique pioneered by Dowdy that delivers proteins into the cell interior. Testing the effectiveness of the peptide therapy on mouse strains that model human metastatic disease, the scientists found that mice treated with the p53C' peptide [...]

1/27/2004 San Francisco Edward Susman Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium Esophageal cancer patients who are deemed poor surgical candidates may benefit from endoscopically guided brachytherapy, as administered by a team of radiation oncologists and gastroenterologists, according to a Canadian study. The multidisciplinary approach to treatment resulted in no esophageal perforations in a series of 60 patients, reported Dr. Te Vuong and colleagues at the first Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium last week in San Francisco. The meeting was sponsored by the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO), the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). According to the poster presentation from the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, the elderly patients with adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus were treated with high-dose-rate brachytherapy prior to external-beam radiation therapy. The patients received 20-Gy doses in five fractions, prescribed at 1 cm from the source to the initial tumor bed. The tumor was identified by direct endoscopy. Radio-oblique clips were placed above and below the tumor at the time of endoscopy for quality control of tumor bed localization. Chemotherapy and/or reduced radiation doses were dependent upon the individual patients' performance status. "After a median follow-up of 18 months for all 60 patients treated between 1996 and 2003, we saw about a 25% local recurrence rate of the cancer," Vuong said. "Historically we might expect to see a 50% recurrence in these patients, so we believe that we have provided a benefit [...]

1/26/2004 Las Vegas Valerie Miller LasVegasPress.com A merger between two conglomerates could mean big rewards for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Science & Engineering Technology (SEA), which is headquartered in New Orleans and works with UNLV, is being acquired by Washington, D.C.-based technology firm ITS Services. The $200 million deal announced last week may help propel groundbreaking research now being conducted between SEA and UNLV. That work includes attempts to develop a new, quicker method for early detection and treatment of oral cancer. The SEA method -- which is scheduled to be tested with the help of the soon-to-open UNLV Dental School -- would involve the use of both multi-spectral imaging using light reflection and high-speed wireless data transmission. Ron Ryan, the vice president of SEA in Las Vegas says that use of multi-spectral imaging technology to diagnose oral cancer is already being tested by SEA with the U.S. Army. The military is interested in quicker methods for detecting cervical cancer in service women. The idea to study the application of the technology to detecting oral cancer actually was suggested by UNLV Provost Ray Alden a few years ago in a meeting, according to Ryan. That suggestion could really help UNLV and its dental school gain prominence as research facilities, SEA officials contend. "We will help elevate them and help them reach their goal of being research and technology intensive," Ryan says. ITS is all for the research, adds Ryan. "It was something we kind of [SEA] brought to [...]

1/25/2004 Djillali Annane et al. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 10.1200/JCO.2004.09.006 Purpose: To determine the efficacy and safety of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) for overt mandibular osteoradionecrosis. Patients and Methods: This prospective, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted at 12 university hospitals. Ambulatory adults with overt osteoradionecrosis of the mandible were assigned to receive 30 HBO exposures preoperatively at 2.4 absolute atmosphere for 90 minutes or a placebo, and 10 additional HBO dives postoperatively or a placebo. The main outcome measure was 1-year recovery rate from osteoradionecrosis. Secondary end points included time to treatment failure, time to pain relief, 1-year mortality rate, and treatment safety. Results: At the time of the second interim analysis, based on the triangular test, the study was stopped for potentially worse outcomes in the HBO arm. A total of 68 patients were enrolled and analyzed. At 1 year, six (19%) of 31 patients had recovered in the HBO arm and 12 (32%) of 37 in the placebo arm (relative risk = 0.60; 95% CI, 0.25 to 1.41; P = .23). Time to treatment failure (hazard ratio = 1.33; 95% CI, 0.68 to 2.60; P = .41) and time to pain relief (hazard ratio = 1.00; 95% CI, 0.52 to 1.89; P = .99) were similar between the two treatment arms. Conclusion: Patients with overt mandibular osteoradionecrosis did not benefit from hyperbaric oxygenation. Authors: Djillali Annane, Joël Depondt , Philippe Aubert , Maryvonne Villart , Pierre Géhanno , Philippe Gajdos , and Sylvie Chevret Authors' Affiliation: [...]

1/23/2004 Carson, NV Maggie O'Neill Record-Courier Students at Carson Valley Middle School listened -- and listened well -- as oral cancer survivor Gruen Von Behrens relayed a message on Wednesday. "I didn't think it'd happen to me," he said. Von Behrens, once a popular 17-year-old baseball player at an Illinois high school, stood as a 26-year-old advocate before middle school students, telling how tobacco took his good looks away. "I know I'm a little hard to understand, so you're going to have to bear with me and listen," he said to the packed auditorium. "This isn't a mask I can take off and throw in the closet. I'm like this 365 days a year." "This" began for Von Behrens when he was 17 and noticed a white spot on his tongue that began to grow and cause it to split. He told his mother the drooling she noticed was from a painful wisdom tooth. "I didn't want my mom to see what was going on in my mouth," he said. At the same time, he holed up in the bathroom, asking God why this was happening to him. "This" began with chewing tobacco when he was 13, a decision he regrets 33 surgeries later. "I liked the way it tasted," he said at the assembly. "It made me feel good." Concerned about his wisdom tooth, Von Behrens' mother took him to a dentist. Von Behrens told the dentist he wasn't there due to a tooth. He had cancer. The dentist [...]

1/15/2004 International Journal of Cancer, December 2003 The new drug Iressa, which is approved for treating a type of lung cancer, may also be useful for treating oral cancers, Japanese researchers report. The drug is an inhibitor of a molecule called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which is overactive in several cancers. Lab experiments show that Iressa triples the susceptibility of oral cancer cells to radiation therapy, by blocking the tumor's ability to repair DNA damage after such treatment. In fact, "this new treatment strategy with radiation in combination with an EGFR inhibitor may help overcome oral cancer without surgery," lead researcher Dr. Satoru Shintani suggested. Shintani and colleagues at Ehime University School of Medicine came to these conclusions following a series of experiments with human oral cancer cell lines. The study is reported in the International Journal of Cancer. Radiation or Iressa alone slowed proliferation of the cancer cells, and a cooperative anti-proliferative effect was seen when radiation was followed by Iressa treatment. After radiation, Iressa had a strong inhibitory effect on mechanisms in the tumor cells that repair DNA damage, and the researchers suggest this may help account for its enhancement of radiotherapy. Furthermore, when tumors were grafted into mice, the radiation and Iressa combination "caused a striking decrease in tumor cell proliferation." Thus they conclude that Iressa owes its action to "multiple mechanisms that may involve antiproliferative growth inhibition and effects on DNA repair after exposure to radiation."

1/14/2004 Washington Maggie Fox Reuters News Service Death rates continue to drop for the top three cancer killers in men -- lung, colon and prostate -- and for breast and colon cancer in women, according to the latest American Cancer Society statistics, published Wednesday. But more U.S. women are dying from lung cancer, the annual report shows. And more people are dying of obesity-related cancers such as some types of liver and esophageal cancer. It estimates that 1.368 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2004, and 563,700 will die of it. This works out to 1,500 Americans a day. Colon cancer death rates fell to 20.8 per 100,000 people per year in the latest year available, 2000. That compares to 20.9 per 100,000 in 1999 and 22.6 in 1995. Breast cancer deaths fell from 30.6 per 100,000 in 1995 to 26.7 in 2000, the group said. Cancer has long been the second leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease, accounting for about a quarter of all deaths. The statistics show it is possible to avoid many cancers, said Dr. Michael Thun, the Society's vice president of epidemiological and surveillance research. "Cancer is not an inescapable fact of life," Thun told reporters in a telephone briefing. Stopping smoking is one way to avoid cancer. The report estimates that tobacco use will cause 180,000 cancer deaths in 2004 -- 160,000 of them from lung cancer. In women, the epidemic of deaths from lung cancer trails that [...]