December 2006 Archives

Kolkata, Dec 28 - Biotech firm Biocon Ltd is planning to submit the results of the post-marketing surveillance study (PMS) of its cancer drug, BIOMAB-EGFR, to the global safety database in US. The database, maintained by a consortium of companies, collects clinical trial data pertaining to the safety and efficacy of new drugs.

Dr Subir Basak, Biocon's general manager for business development, said: "Head and neck cancer is not studied in the US, while the Indian sub-continent accounts for one-third of the head and neck cancer patients in the world. The PMS study report will be beneficial to the research of cancer the world over".

The trial results for this drug, touted as being the world's first humanised monoclonal antibody for cancer, have been published in Journal of Clinical Oncology of US in 2004.

HealthDay News  -- The same mechanism that drives tumor development can also suppress tumor growth, new research shows.

A team at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine studied mice that had cells with one or more extra or missing chromosomes -- a characteristic known as aneuploidy, a common feature of cancer cells.

"We questioned whether the wrong number of chromosomes contributed to tumor growth or was a consequence of the accrued damage in cancerous cells," Don Cleveland, a professor of medicine at UCSD, explained in a prepared statement.

"We found that, with age, having cells which inherited the wrong composition of chromosomes resulted in a larger number of spontaneous tumors," Cleveland said.

Healthday comes with another incompetent article which is instantly being spread over other news websites.

What their article proposes is to absolutely minimize your exposure to the sunlight. This kind of advice is worth absolutely nothing. The American Cancer Society experts are forgetting the vitalizing and healing properties of the sunlight. However, abuse of everything good and useful will result in negative reaction. Laying on the beach for hours, visiting tanning salon every two days, etc - all this is too much.

The list of advices provided by Healthday should not be applied to everyone. People with sensitive skin, with sunlight allergy, with pigment spots, over certain age - they may benefit from such information. However, this info should be already known by them.

Anyways, off to read the Health Tip: Keep Deadly Skin Cancer Away on Yahoo News.

Dec. 27, 2006 -- A combination of breast cancer drugs -- Tykerb and Xeloda -- slows metastatic breast cancer after Herceptin finally fails.

However, the combination treatment did not extend patients' lives in an international clinical trial.

In the trial, Charles E. Geyer, MD, of Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, and colleagues studied 324 women with metastatic breast cancer, meaning their cancer had spread to other organs.

Nearly all had been treated with Herceptin for a median of 42-44 weeks.

Medical News Today - Compelling new data confirming the survival benefits of Herceptin(REG) (trastuzumab) in early and advanced HER2-positive breast cancer were presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).

Efficacy in Early Breast Cancer

BCIRG 006

Updated results of the BCIRG 006 study[i] showed that adding Herceptin to either of two adjuvant chemotherapy regimens reduced the risk of death by 34 to 41% compared with chemotherapy alone. Furthermore, the addition of Herceptin significantly reduced the risk of cancer coming back by 33-39%. These remarkable data confirm the survival benefit provided by Herceptin to women with HER2-positive early breast cancer, as previously seen in three other large adjuvant Herceptin studies[ii], [iii].

Canadian and international researchers are recruiting men for a clinical trial to test whether combining a high-dose vitamin D pill with chemotherapy improves treatment for advanced prostate cancer.

Dr. Kim Chi of the B.C. Cancer Agency and two other lead investigators will study about 1,000 men over the next two years.

Currently, there is little to offer prostate cancer patients who have stopped responding to standard hormone therapy, Chi said.

BETHESDA, Md. An environmental group says Maryland's air has cancer-causing toxins at levels far above what the federal government deems safe.

The report was released by Environment Maryland as part of a push to make Maryland the eleventh state to follow California's stricter auto emissions standards.The group's report is based on an analysis of federal data released earlier this year.

It found that the risk of cancer from all air toxins was at least ten times higher than the federal standard in each of the state's 23 counties and Baltimore City. The report didn't include data on how Maryland's levels compare with the rest of the country.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press.

When researchers reported recently that a precipitous drop in breast cancer rates might be explained by a corresponding decrease in the use of hormones for menopause, women reacted with shock, anger and, in some cases, profound relief that they had never taken the drugs.

But many also had questions. How certain were scientists that the hormones were responsible? How could stopping hormones have such an immediate and pronounced effect? And how much did scientists really know about the biology of breast cancer and hormones?

The data seemed clear enough. In 2003, after climbing for almost seven decades, the breast cancer rate fell for the first time in the United States, and it fell sharply. Over all, the incidence of newly diagnosed breast cancer dropped 7 percent, and it dropped 15 percent among women with cancers whose growth is fueled by estrogen.

Scientists have pinpointed a possible reason why pancreatic cancer is such an aggressive disease.

A University of Liverpool team found a family of proteins involved in controlling cell movement could be key.

The study, which appears in the journal Gut, could offer a new lead on a disease which is hard to treat.

There are around 7,000 cases of pancreatic cancer in the UK each year. It can be hard to spot as the pancreas is located deep inside the body.

Korean scientists say they have developed a diagnostic technique to discover tiny cancer cells that existing magnetic resonance imaging devices cannot locate, paving the way for early diagnosis and thus more effective treatment. The team led by Cheon Jin-woo and Suh Jin-suck, a chemical and medical professor at Yonsei University, said Monday they developed a super-sensitive nano particle that helped them photograph a 2 mm cancer cell in an animal test.

The results were published in the latest online edition of Nature Medicine on Monday. The team created a nano particle that is one 100,000th the size of a hair, named MEIO, which they combined with an antibody that sticks only to cancerous cells and then injected it to mice with breast cancer and ovarian cancer before performing an MRI. Prof. Cheon said oxidized steel adhering to cancer cells responds to the magnetic field of the MRI and makes a unique sound as if a magnet draws metals.

Hyperthermia therapy with radiation have been added to the 2007 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for Breast Cancer as an approved treatment for recurrent breast cancer and other localized cancer recurrences.

According to an explanation by the BSD Medical Treat with Heat website, hyperthermia therapy uses heat, which has been shown to kill cancer cells, in the treatment of cancerous tumors. Hyperthermia therapy also appears to make radiation therapy more effective. "While it has been known for hundreds of years that fevers can kill cancer, only recently has technology been developed that can control and focus heat specifically on tumors. This technology is found in the BSD-500 Hyperthermia System."

BALTIMORE, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Men with early prostate cancer who eat a vegetarian diet, exercise and reduce stress may lower their risk of cancer progression, says a U.S. study.

The 93 study participants were men with early-stage prostate cancer who had chosen "watchful waiting" instead of active treatment for their prostate cancer.

During the one-year study, six men in the usual care group underwent conventional treatment because of rising prostate specific antigen, known as PSA, or evidence of progression from magnetic resonance imaging. In contrast, none of the men in the comprehensive lifestyle group, who followed a very-low-fat diet of 10 percent or less of daily calories, needed treatment. PSA levels decreased 4 percent in the lifestyle group, whereas PSA levels increased 6 percent in the usual-care group.

A study has found that men with advanced, often untreatable prostate cancer who received a therapeutic cancer vaccine went on to survive longer than those receiving a placebo.
Study findings showed the vaccine group lived up to an average of four-and-a-half months longer and had a greater than three-fold increase in survival at 36 months when compared to patients in the placebo group.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III clinical trial was conducted to test the efficacy of the vaccine, called sipuleucel-T, in delaying disease progression and prolonging survival in patients with asymptomatic metastatic hormone refractory prostate cancer (HRPC).

When given to ease pain and other complaints in patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer, a longer, less intense course of radiotherapy offers better value for the money than short-course intense treatment, concludes a study by Dutch researchers.

A previous study by the Leiden University Medical Center team compared a short course of two treatments of 8 gray (Gy) of radiation each, or a long course of 10 treatments of 3 Gy each. Patients who received the long course had more symptom improvement and improved one-year survival compared to patients who received the short course.

In this new study, the researchers analyzed the costs of the two treatment approaches to determine which one offered the best value for the money. They estimated the costs of treatment and related expenses, such as medical care for people who survived their cancer.

London, Britain (AHN) - A new study by the Cancer Research U.K. at University College London found that British teen are putting their health at risk by spending more hours watching TV and playing computer games and not doing physical excercise.

The study, involving nearly 6,000 11-12 year olds from several London schools, tracked teen's physical activity and sedentary behavior over a five-year period. The study found that physical activity declined in girls by 46 percent and in boys by 23 percent over five years.

Girls increased their sedentary behavior by 2.8 hours a week while in boys the increase was 2.5 hours a week. By age 16, girls were physically active on less than two days a week and boys for just over three days a week.

According to results presented at the 2006 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), updated results continue to demonstrate better efficacy with dose-dense chemotherapy than with conventional chemotherapy in early breast cancer.

Dose-dense chemotherapy (chemotherapy with a shortened interval between doses), has demonstrated improvement in outcomes compared to conventional chemotherapy in patients with high-risk, early breast cancer. Due to concerns about side effects, however, studies continue to evaluate the long-term effects of dose-dense therapy.

To compare dose-dense chemotherapy to conventional chemotherapy in patients with high-risk early breast cancer, researchers in Germany conducted a Phase III clinical trial.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the file and granted priority review status to the Company's New Drug Application (NDA) for the investigational drug Torisel(TM) (temsirolimus). Wyeth Pharmaceuticals is seeking an indication for Torisel for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). A priority designation can be given to an NDA for a drug that, if approved, would be a significant improvement compared with existing treatments.

The FDA previously granted fast track designation and orphan drug status for investigational temsirolimus for the treatment of advanced RCC.

ISLAMABAD - People with a family history of pancreatic cancer should make an extra effort to stay off tobacco.

A new study suggests smoking could trigger this deadly form of cancer in people who are at high risk of developing the disease. Researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, studied 826 people with pancreatic cancer, of whom 30 had at least one close relative who had also had the disease.

They found that people with a family history were more likely to develop the disease at a younger age -- below 50 -- and also more likely to be smokers. Smoking is known to raise the risk of pancreatic cancer, said study co-author John Gibbs, MD, FACS, a surgical oncologist and chief of the department of gastrointestinal surgery and endoscopy at Roswell Park.

"What was surprising is that when you have people with familial pancreatic cancer and they present at a younger age, [smoking] seems to be an added risk factor contributing to the malignant transformation," he explained.

BOSTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY.N) said on Thursday that it has stopped a trial of its experimental brain cancer drug after a monitoring committee determined the treatment would probably prove no more effective than chemotherapy in delaying progression of the disease.

Lilly said an interim analysis of data from a late-stage, or Phase III, study suggested the drug, enzastaurin, would not stave off an aggressive and recurrent form of brain cancer known as recurrent glioblastoma any better than chemotherapy.

The company said it will continue enrolling patients in a late-stage trial to evaluate enzastaurin as a potential treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It will also continue mid-stage trials of the drug in other cancers, such as breast, colon, lung, ovarian and prostate.

source - Reuters 

Scientists have made astonishing progress in developing a "smart bomb" that can deliver powerful cancer-fighting drugs directly to tumors scattered throughout the body, thus minimizing damage to healthy tissue and easing the wretched side effects of chemotherapy.

The research builds on earlier work that showed that an engineered version of the stem cell could home in on a brain tumor and deliver drugs directly to the target area. But this is the first time that research has shown that the same process might be used to attack cancer that has metastasized throughout the body.

So far the research has been limited to mice, but scientists are hopeful that clinical trials involving humans with advanced cancer can begin reasonably soon, possibly in less than a couple of years.

A key enzyme that cuts short our cellular lifespan in an effort to thwart cancer has now been linked to body mass.

Until now, scientists believed that our relatively long lifespans controlled the expression of telomerase—an enzyme that can lengthen the lives of cells, but can also increase the rate of cancer.

Vera Gorbunova, assistant professor of biology at the University of Rochester, conducted a first-of-its-kind study to discover why some animals express telomerase while others, like humans, don't. The findings are reported in today's issue of Aging Cell.

Scientists said on Wednesday they were developing new experimental drugs that block the blood supply to tumors in a novel way which could be effective for treating difficult types of cancer.

Unlike other drugs that starve tumors of blood by preventing the growth of blood vessels, or angiogenesis, the new treatment takes a different approach.

It increases the formation of blood vessels but they do not work well so the tumor cannot grow and survive.

"You seem to end up with more blood vessels but they are less functional," Dr Gavin Thurston, of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, New York, said in an interview.

Chris Knutson, ANP, MN

"Survivorship medicine" is becoming a more frequent challenge for practitioners of all specialties. Women cancer survivors who make their way back into "routine" care following cancer treatment have questions and concerns that could hardly be considered routine. Some will ultimately be cured. Some will deal with cancer's chronicity. All of them find their lives forever changed by cancer.

Michael Krychman, MD, Co-Director of the Sexual Medicine Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, recently spoke of the reproductive and sexual concerns of women with cancer. He reminds his patients that "you may survive this illness but your life will never, ever be the same." Helping patients come to grips with that concept and making accommodations to enhance or preserve sexual functioning and fertility are increasingly frequent and critical components of cancer care.

A test that characterizes each breast tumor by its unique genetic fingerprint may soon allow doctors to identify those women whose cancer is most likely to recur despite tamoxifen therapy, Dutch researchers report.

The powerful genetic tool can help spare many women from unnecessary treatment that is doomed to fail, says researcher Marleen Kok, M.D., of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam.

The test, which looks for the presence of 81 genes involved in tamoxifen response, was described at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).

Currently, doctors rely on tests that detect levels of hormone receptors to decide if a woman should get the hormone drug tamoxifen. That's because the drug tends to benefit women whose cancers are fueled by hormones. "But those tests don't tell us the whole story," says SABCS Co-director C. Kent Osborne, M.D., head of the cancer center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

HOUSTON, Dec. 19 -- Cromolyn, an old-line asthma and allergy drug, has shown a marked effect on the progress of pancreatic cancer -- at least in mice.

In several experiments reported in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Craig Logsdon, Ph.D., of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center here, and colleagues, found that:

• Cromolyn binds to S100P, a protein that is over-expressed in pancreatic cancer and is associated with tumor growth and invasion.
• S100P itself binds to the receptor for advanced glycation end-products (or RAGE) to initiate downstream signaling that leads to tumor growth. The researchers showed that cromolyn blocks that interaction in vitro.
• In mice with tumors that express S100P, the medication, in combination with the standard chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer, Gemzar (gemcitabine), sharply reduced tumor growth.
• Finally, in tumors that do not express S100P, cromolyn had no effect.

Laura Bush's skin cancer came with a classic symptom, a slow-healing sore.

That made it hard to ignore, a good thing: Remove skin cancer early, and it's easy to cure.

Better is preventing skin cancer, and key is protecting yourself - and your children, starting when they're tots - from the sun. Sunburns early in life are considered the most dangerous.

Too few heed that advice. Skin cancer strikes over 1 million Americans annually, and is on the rise.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who use plenty of olive oil in their diets may be helping to prevent damage to body cells that can eventually lead to cancer, new research suggests.

In a study of 182 European men, researchers found evidence that olive oil can reduce oxidative damage to cells' genetic material, a process that can initiate cancer development.

They say the findings may help explain why rates of several cancers are higher in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe, where olive oil is a dietary staple.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) had said Alimta (pemetrexed disodium) should not be used in England and Wales.

The drug is used to treat mesothelioma, a type of cancer which most often affects the lining of the lungs and is mainly linked to asbestos exposure.

The original ruling was appealed by manufacturers Eli Lilly.

NICE has now announced the case will be reviewed by its appraisal committee.

SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 18 -- Tamoxifen has a "true preventive effect" on breast cancer in women with a strong family history of the disease -- but it may take several years of treatment before the benefit is seen.

The finding emerged in the second decade of the long-running Royal Marsden cancer prevention study, according to Trevor Powles, Ph.D., of the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. 

Two decades after the randomized, placebo-controlled trial started, women in the tamoxifen arm, with a median follow-up of 13 years, have a significantly lower rate of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer than those getting placebo, Dr. Powles told the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium here. 

WOMEN with aggressive breast cancer stand to benefit from new treatment regimens after trials showed improved survival if new drugs were added in combination with older ones.

Tumours that test positive to high levels of the protein HER2 - about a quarter of breast cancers - have a poorer prognosis.

But results presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference in Texas show survival is doubled in women who take the drug Herceptin along with standard chemotherapy, at least four years after the start of their treatment.

TORONTO -- Common breast cancer chemotherapy regimes are inferior at preventing the disease from coming back, Canadian researchers have discovered.

Widely-used breast cancer chemotherapy treatment known as AC/T is not as effective at preventing a recurrence of the disease as another commonly-used treatment regime called CEF.

Researchers also found that AC/T was less effective at preventing breast cancer from recurring than a new experimental treatment regime called EC/T.

Because no one likes a group who misrepresents the truth to promote a private agenda, The National Breast Cancer Coalition, NBCC, announced they were hosting the first annual Golden Boob Awards to expose the biggest boobs in the fight to stop breast cancer.

The nominees in this year's Golden Boob Awards were the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer (ABC) for threatening the integrity of serious efforts to find ways to prevent, treat, cure, and ultimately end breast cancer; and Mark For Life for trying to make money from a product with no impact in the fight against breast cancer.

A promising new breast scanning technology with none of the radiation dangers associated with mammograms has been approved for sale by Health Canada.

Known as SoftScan, the device uses infrared lasers to detect and monitor malignancies, even in dense breast tissue that mammography can fail to penetrate.

The new machine will not replace mammograms, which will continue to be the standard tool for pinpointing breast cancers for the foreseeable future, said Dr. Nathalie Duchesne, a professor of radiology at Quebec City's Laval University.

HealthDay News -- For years, experts have noted that people who take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for pain relief also lower their risk for a variety of cancers.

Now, scientists believe they know why that happens.

New research shows that NSAIDs -- which include aspirin, ibuprofen, Aleve and Celebrex -- boost the level of a cellular molecule that causes malignant cells to die off.

The finding "opens up our understanding of how anti-inflammatory drugs are effective against cancer cells. This could also lead to new drug development and of monitoring drugs' effect on cancer cells," said study senior author Towia Libermann, director of the Genomics Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A synthetic version of the active ingredient in marijuana, a legal treatment for nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, also helps symptoms like pain, anxiety and depression, according to research presented on Friday.

"The findings show how great the potential is to improve the quality of life for cancer patients," said lead investigator Dr. Vincent Maida of the University of Toronto.

The 139-patient study involved a drug called nabilone, sold under the brand name Cesamet by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. It has been available in Canada for years, and was approved in May by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for patients who have failed to respond adequately to conventional anti-nausea treatments.

BALTIMORE, MD, United States (UPI) -- U.S. and Italian scientists have inhibited human brain cancers in mice by inducing positive changes in cells behaving as cancer stem cells.

The most common type of brain cancer -- glioblastoma -- is marked by the presence of the stem cell-like brain cells, which, instead of triggering the replacement of damaged cells, form cancer tissue.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Milan in Italy used bone morphogenic proteins, which cause neural stem cell-like clusters to lose their stem cell property, which, in turn, stops their ability to divide.

BEIJING, Dec.14 (Xinhuanet) -- Want to be healthier? Be vegetarian, giving up delicious roast meat.

Researchers studying a group of vegetarians who'd maintained a diet relatively low in protein and calories found that they had lower blood levels of several hormones and other substances that have been tied to certain cancers.

"I believe our findings suggest that protein intake may be very important in regulating cancer risk," lead study author Dr. Luigi Fontana of Washington University in St. Louis said on Wednesday.

TAIPEI - One person was diagnosed with cancer every 8.4 minutes on average in Taiwan in 2003, compared with 8.5 minutes in 2001 and nine minutes in 2000, a report released yesterday by the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

The 2003 figures were calculated based on the number of cancer cases at 212 hospitals around the country with at least 50 beds.

There were 250.77 cancer patients out of every 100,000 people in Taiwan in 2003, with liver cancer and breast cancer the most common types of cancer among men and women, respectively, the report showed.

Yoga may help people with cancer face the fear and uncertainty of the disease, a growing body of research suggests.

Cancer treatment and defeating it often take precedence over addressing emotional needs, such as what the diagnosis means to a person's life and plans, family, retirement and future, said Linda Carlson, a psychologist who teaches yoga and studies it effects on patients.

Carlson says yoga participants tend to have less tension, sleep better and carry fewer stress hormones.

Breast cancer could be sexually transmitted, says a researcher who has found the same virus that causes cervical cancer in breast cancer tumours from Australian women.

Emeritus Professor James Lawson of the University of New South Wales and colleagues have found the same form of the human papillomavirus (HPV) associated with cervical cancer in almost half the breast tumour samples they tested.

It's the first study of its kind in Australia, although international studies have also found cervical cancer-related HPV in breast cancer cells.

ISLAMABAD - Add another food to the list of those that can help fight off cancer. Called autumn olives, the berries have tremendously high levels of lycopene, which is supposed to help prevent cancer, according to an article.

The berries have up to 17 times more lycopene than tomatoes. The berries look and taste a little bit like cranberries. In Asia, they are eaten as a fruit. The bush itself is pretty common and is considered an invasive species in the United States. The bushes generally thrive, even in poor soil, and are often planted along roads and streams for erosion control and as a source of food for wildlife. The bushes often spread when birds eat the berries and scatter the seeds.

BRUSSELS (MarketWatch) -- OncoMethylome Sciences (ONCOB.BT) Wednesday announced it successfully completed the initial research activities of its urine-based prostate cancer test, and that the test has been licensed to Veridex LLC, a Johnson & Johnson company (JNJ).

The test, which uses urine as the patient sample, is being developed to improve the current process for prostate cancer screening. For men, prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Tests that screen for prostate cancer today, such as the PSA test, are commonly criticized by the medical community for their inaccuracy.

Up to 75% of the men who are recommended for a prostate biopsy procedure based on their elevated PSA levels have negative biopsy results.

NEW YORK, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Young adults with cancer can now seek support from a new U.S. online Web portal, the site's developers said Monday.

The site, designed for cancer survivors ages 15 to 39, offers support like online blogs, social networking and fertility education tailored to the group's unique demographic and lifestyle needs.

ImTooYoungForThis.org was founded by Steps For Living, a non-profit advocacy group, as part of a larger campaign featuring a CD release and support literature distributed to cancer treatment centers.

"Too often, adolescents and young adults are not aware of, and therefore do not access free services that are available to them," said Archie Bleyer, former chairman of the Children's Cancer Group.

source - UPI 

ZURICH (AFX) - Novartis AG said new data from a Phase II study with cancer drug Tasigna shows impressive response rates in leukaemia patients with resistance or intolerance to treatment with Glivec.

According to the data, which forms the basis for US and EU regulatory approvals, Tasigna eliminated or significantly reduced the presence of blood cells containing a defective chromosome in approximately half of the adult patients.

The reductions may be the highest ever reported with a targeted therapy at a minimum of six months follow-up, the Basel-based drugs maker said.

source - AFX 

A researcher from Toowoomba, in southern Queensland, is hoping his research into vitamin D could reduce the high rate of skin cancers in Queensland.

A vitamin D deficiency can lead to problems like osteoporosis, rickets and has been linked to diabetes and bacterial infections.

The University of Southern Queensland's Dr David Turnbull is trying to prove that people do not need direct sunlight to receive their vitamin intake.

He says exposure to good ultraviolet B rays under the shade could do the trick.

Ovarian cancer is often considered a "silent killer" with no readily identifiable symptoms, but new research challenges this view in the hopes of finding more of the deadly malignancies early.

Because there is no effective screening test to identify early-stage ovarian cancer, roughly three out of four patients are diagnosed with late-stage disease, when the chance for a cure is greatly diminished.

Many patients are misdiagnosed before their cancer is found, with vague symptoms such as pelvic pain and abdominal bloating attributed to other causes.

In their latest study, researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine identified the six symptoms most closely associated with ovarian cancer by comparing the clinical histories of women with the disease to those of high-risk women without cancer.

PATIENTS suffering from cancer in Yorkshire are set to be infected with a common virus in a new trial which could herald a revolution in treatment for the disease.

Laboratory tests have shown the viral infection, which is harmless to humans, has a dramatic impact in killing cancer cells.

A group of patients at St James's Hospital in Leeds will have the virus injected directly into tumours and undergo a course of radiotherapy to examine the impact on the disease.

If Prof Ananda M. Chakrabarty — the scientist who fought a long legal battle to patent the first living organism — has his way, we could soon have a bacteria drug that can fight HIV and cancer.

"In three years time, I can have a bacteria product ready for clinical trials provided that administrative hurdles and funding is taken care of," says the eminent scientist, currently Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Illinois at Chicago.

"All it will take is Rs 30 crore to bring the drug to clinical trials stage in India. However, there is a cultural problem in India. The industry just does not want to take risks," says Prof Chakrabarty.

Beijing, Dec 11. (PTI) - Only 25 per cent of Chinese cancer patients can survive for five years, compared with Western countries' 68 per cent due to failure in timely diagnosis and treatment, a health expert has said.

China lags far behind developed countries on the key health indicator and 90 per cent of different types of cancer can be cured given that they are spotted and treated at an early stage, secretary-general of the China anti-cancer association, Zhang Zongwe said.

But lack of knowledge on cancer slows the public reaction to the disease. Over 80 per cent of Chinese cancer patients know they have the disease only after it evolves into the middle or later stage.

Housework could help reduce the risk of bowel cancer, a report claims.

Just one hour of "vigorous" housework - scrubbing the floor, vacuuming the stairs or polishing furniture - is the equivalent of a session on the treadmill or a brisk walk. That is considered enough activity to help cut down on the chance of colon tumours.

Bowel cancer is the third commonest cancer in men and the second in women.

Naisan Naingisan, 25, from Korr village in Marsabit District has a large wound that started as a growth on her left leg. She cannot afford to go to hospital.

Could death caused by cancer be looming behind the expensive prospecting for oil going on in Kenya?

A survey in some remote villages where foreign companies sunk oil wells in Marsabit District almost two decades ago reveals shocking statistics of villagers who have contracted throat cancer and others who have died of it.

The new claims are likely to turn the spotlight on international oil firms, which are currently engaged in the search for oil at the Kenyan Coast and elsewhere.

The genetically modified bacterium, Clostridium novyi-NT (C.novyi-NT) has been found to have a special taste for the oxygen-starved regions found at the centres of large cancerous growths by researchers at the John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Centre. The bacterium also secretes a protein that opens up anti-cancer therapies encapsulated in fatty capsules, known as liposomes, turning the normal slow-release mechanism into a targeted chemotherapy bomb.

When tumours grow to a size greater than that of a pinhead the centre of the cancerous growth becomes starved of oxygen due to the lack of organized blood capillaries feeding the growth.

The genetically modified C.novyi-NT bacterium thrives in these oxygen-deficient areas, which are unique to cancerous growths, and starts to kill the tumour from the inside out. Normal surrounding cells were largely unaffected as were the exterior of the tumours as the bacteria don’t like the more oxygen rich conditions.

Mantle cell is a rare type of lymphoma that accounts for about 1 in 20 cases of non-Hodgkin lymphomas and about 3300 people are diagnosed in the United States per year. It is a cancer of the B-lymphocytes in the portion of lymph nodes called the mantle zone or outer edge of the lymph node.

There are different patterns of mantle cell lymphoma that can be seen under the microscope: mantle zone, nodular, diffuse and blastic. The mantle zone type may be slow growing and very responsive to standard chemotherapy, unlike the other types.

This type of lymphoma frequently spreads to the bone marrow and is not as responsive to chemotherapy as other types of lymphomas. Mantle cell lymphoma can occur at any age from the late 30's to old age, but is more common in people over 50. It is three times more common in men than in women.

Many elderly men are getting screened for prostate cancer unnecessarily, according to researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

In a study of nearly 600,000 men aged 70 and older who had been seen at dozens of VA hospitals across the United States, the research team found high rates of inappropriate PSA testing, even among men with multiple illnesses who were unlikely to survive more than 10 years.

The older a man is, the more likely he is to develop prostate cancer. At the same time, however, the older the man, the more likely he is to die of something else before the prostate cancer can even begin to cause symptoms.

HealthDay News -- There were important advances in the detection and treatment of cancer this year -- more people than ever are now surviving the disease -- but cuts in government cancer research dollars could slow progress in the fight.

Those are the conclusions of new research released Friday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

The report, Clinical Cancer Advances 2006: Major Research Advances in Treatment, Prevention, and Screening, identified six important advances in cancer research for the year, including five new drugs that prolong life.

News Author: Laurie Barclay, MD
CME Author: Désirée Lie, MD, MSEd

December 8, 2006 — The American Cancer Society (ACS) has issued nutrition and physical activity guidelines for cancer survivors during phases of treatment and recovery and for others living with advanced cancer. The new recommendations appear in the November/December issue of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

"Cancer survivors are often highly motivated to seek information about food choices, physical activity, and dietary supplement use to improve their treatment outcomes, quality of life, and survival," write Ted Gansler, MD, MBA, of the 2006 Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer Survivorship Advisory Committee, and colleagues. "To address these concerns, the ACS convened a group of experts in nutrition, physical activity, and cancer to evaluate the scientific evidence and best clinical practices related to optimal nutrition and physical activity after the diagnosis of cancer. This report summarizes their findings and is intended to present health care providers with the best possible information from which to help cancer survivors and their families make informed choices related to nutrition and physical activity."

ISLAMABAD - Green and black tea can slow down the spread of prostate cancer, while a highly touted antioxidant found in red wine, grapes and peanuts does not perform well as a cancer preventive, two new studies have found.

For the tea study, Susanne Henning, an associate researcher at the Center for Human Nutrition at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, assigned 20 men, all scheduled for prostate removal due to cancer, to drink either black tea, green tea or soda, five

The aim was to see if substances called polyphenols found in tea might slow prostate cancer cell growth. Other researchers have found these polyphenols induce death in cancer cells.

SCOTLAND'S NHS boards have been set a five-month deadline to meet a national target on cancer waiting times.

Andy Kerr, the health minister, said he wanted the key target of 95 per cent of cancer patients starting treatment within two months of urgent referral by their doctor to be met by April. It was originally supposed to have been met by the end of last year. Waiting time figures released last week revealed that only 79.2 per cent of patients had been seen within that timescale.

Then, the minister said he could not give a specific date by which the target would be met. But he told MSPs yesterday: "I would expect the target to be met by April 2007 and consistently maintained thereafter."

source - The Scotsman 

Cell Therapeutics said late Thursday it has shut down its most important clinical trial because patients who took its cancer drug were dying more quickly than those receiving a standard chemotherapy drug.

The Seattle biotech company, which suspended the trial a month ago, will submit a newly designed study to the Food and Drug Administration by year's end. The company said data from the 200 patients who were treated so far will not be used if it eventually seeks FDA approval for the drug, called Xyotax.

The trial, called Pioneer, had the unusual feature of being limited exclusively to women with lung cance

HealthDay News -- Armed with findings from experiments in mice, researchers say they've gained key insights into potential treatments for the deadliest form of brain cancer.

Italian and American scientists say they've identified a protein that may reduce tumor growth by targeting cells that help bring cancer to life.

There aren't any immediate ramifications for doctors and patients. However, "we have identified a novel strategy for the treatment of malignant, incurable human brain tumors which could potentially lead to more effective therapies," said Angelo L. Vescovi, lead author of the study and a researcher at University of Milan-Bicocca in Italy.

The founding family of cable operator Comcast Corp. will donate $15 million toward a new proton therapy center for treating cancer at the University of Pennsylvania, the company and school officials said Wednesday.

The $144 million Penn center would be one of six in the nation using proton therapy, which targets cancerous tumors precisely by using a beam of tiny particles accelerated to near light-speed.

The donation from Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian L. Roberts and his wife, Aileen, and by Brian's mother and father, Suzanne and Ralph Roberts comes 11 days after Aileen Roberts completed radiation treatment for breast cancer. Comcast is the nation's biggest cable system operator.

A new guide has been published to help employers deal with cancer and cancer-related issues in the workplace.

The guide from the  followed research which showed that more than 40% of employers failed to provide any support or information to employees with cancer, even though the issue affected the vast majority of workplaces at some time.

According to the CIPD around 90,000 people of working age receive a cancer diagnosis each year, and often they require support from employers during their treatment and recuperation, as well as in their rehabilitation and return-to-work.

The Cancer Council says the long awaited cancer treatment facility for the Royal Darwin Hospital will not be a fully equipped oncology unit.

In 2001, Labor promised to build an oncology unit if it won power.

But the project stalled until the Commonwealth agreed to contribute $13 million earlier this year.

Former health minister Peter Toyne promised construction would begin in 2007.

Agrochemicals firm Syngenta has agreed to pay compensation to eleven former employees of an insecticide factory in southwestern Switzerland.

The Unia trade union said on Wednesday the deal was exemplary, but both sides agreed to withhold details of the payouts.

The agreement comes more than a year after reports of a number of cases of bladder cancer around the southwestern town of Monthey that could be connected to exposure to the chemical galecron.

A CHINESE mushroom can help stomach cancer patients survive longer.

An analysis by Japanese researchers of eight studies involving 8000 patients over almost 20 years has found extract of the mushroom coriolus versicolor boosts the human immune system.

People have been using the mushroom in Asian countries since antiquity and it has become a prescription medication in Japan, said Professor Thomas Borody, director of Sydney's PSK Information Foundation and the Centre for Digestive Diseases.

A comprehensive study into treatments for prostate cancer has found that palladium-based therapies provide more effective than iodine alternatives.

According to the research, carried out by experts from a number of US institutions including the New York Prostate Institute, patients treated with palladium therapies were less likely to suffer a recurrence of prostate cancer than those who were treated with iodine.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiation Oncologists (Astro), Dr Louis Potters, of the New York Prostate Institute, revealed: "Based on the experience of the multi-institutional team of physicians who tested the patients and generated the data presented, there was a more positive outcome for patients that were treated with palladium over iodine."

BEIJING (Reuters) - China accounts for about half of the global annual death toll from stomach cancer due to the Chinese taste for pickled and smoked food and unabashed enthusiasm for smoking, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The disease kills about 300,000 people in China a year and there are 400,000 new cases reported annually, Xinhua said in a report seen on Wednesday.

Only lung and liver cancer kill more people in China, it quoted Jin Maolin, a doctor at Peking University, as saying.

A Danish study shows no rise in cancer among people who've used cell phones as long as 21 years.

The study included more than 420,000 Danes who got their first cell phone between 1982 and 1995.

Some of those people kept their phones as long as 21 years. But, on average, they had cell phone service for 8.5 years.

The study's researchers included Joachim Schuz, PhD, of the Danish Cancer Society. It tracked cancers among the cell phone users from the start in 1982-1995 through 2002.

LONDON (Reuters) - A popular baldness drug taken by more than 4 million men worldwide can mask an important marker used in screening tests to detect prostate cancer, scientists said on Monday.

Finasteride, which is made by Merck & Co Inc under the name Propecia, is a leading drug to treat male-pattern baldness.

But researchers have discovered it artificially lowers a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA). High levels of PSA in the blood can signal prostate cancer or other problems.

Dr Anthony D'Amico, the lead author of the study from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, recommends middle-aged men taking Propecia should have their PSA levels multiplied by 2 in tests to account for the difference.

A second opinion from a team of specialists after an initial diagnosis of breast cancer resulted in a significant change in the recommended surgical treatment in more than half of cases, a new study has found.

Disagreement involved everything from the interpretation of mammograms to the necessity for mastectomy, and 6 of the 149 women in the one-year study were found on second consideration to have no breast cancer at all. The report was published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer.

All of the women had been referred by their doctors to a specialized cancer center for a second opinion, and all arrived with biopsy slides, X-rays and a surgeon’s recommendation for treatment.

Fat Britons are more likely to get cancer, experts warn. The obesity epidemic is set to drive up cancer rates, causing 1,500 extra cases a year by 2010, the charity Cancer Research UK says.

In all, 12,000 cases of cancer caused by excess weight will be diagnosed annually, if the present upward trend in obesity rates continues, the specialists say.

Almost 4 per cent of cancers are attributed to being overweight and government figures suggest the total of obese and overweight people is set to rise by 14 per cent by 2010, from 24.2 million in 2003 to 27.6 million.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has won a $6 million U.S. National Cancer Institute grant to research the microenvironment of tumor cells.

"It has been clear for a long time that tumor cells do not proliferate and progress in isolation -- rather, they are dependent on support from their surroundings, which include extracellular matrix and various supporting (or stromal) cells," said Professor Richard Hynes, the principal investigator for the grant. Similarly, he said, tumor cells can also be controlled by elements in their environment, including a variety of cell types of the immune system.

To Megan Schanie, blueberries, broccoli and tuna steaks are no longer just foods -- they're weapons in her battle with breast cancer.

"How can food not affect me? I'm putting it into my body three times a day," said Megan, who has already fought the cancer with surgery and is undergoing chemotherapy. "Part of it is a control issue. It's something else I can do to prevent it from coming back."

The 31-year-old mother of two, who is sharing her story at courier-journal.com/megan, says she's always eaten pretty well. But before her cancer diagnosis, a routine doctor checkup showed she had high cholesterol. She started adding more fiber to her diet by switching to whole-grain breads and cereals. She lost a few pounds and felt better.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Genzyme Corporation announced today the commercial availability of a new laboratory test to help identify non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who may not respond to targeted therapies. Genzyme's KRAS Mutation Analysis will help identify NSCLC patients who test positive for specific KRAS mutations. Mutations in the KRAS gene have been associated with resistance to certain drugs currently used in treating this deadly form of cancer, including the tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) Tarceva(R) (erlotinib) and IRESSA(R) (gefitinib).

"Between 15 and 30 percent of tumors from NSCLC patients have mutations in the KRAS gene and clinical studies show that this information plays an important role in making treatment decisions," said Mara Aspinall, president of Genzyme Genetics, the business unit of Genzyme Corp. focused on the research, development and provision of complex testing services. "Genzyme Genetics is currently the only national commercial laboratory in the U.S. to offer this new test. We believe this test will provide physicians and their patients with critical information to help determine how best to move forward with their treatment."

UK - The government has announced that it will be producing a draft Cancer Reform Strategy, setting out its cancer care strategy until 2020.

The eventual strategy will replace the Cancer Plan launched in 2000.

Speaking at the Britain against Cancer conference, health secretary Patricia Hewitt admitted that, while the Cancer Plan had been a great success, it would soon become outdated.

Cancer Research UK has called for a renewed cancer plan to focus on changing needs, delivering a 250,000 signature petition backing its calls to Downing Street last week.

Heidelberg - A new genetic test helps doctors better predict the progression of neuroblastoma in children, the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg said. Neuroblastoma is the most common solid cancer in infancy and childhood outside the head and brain. Of 100,000 children up to age 14 between one and three die of neurobastoma.

The type of cancer, which is marked by malignant growths in the nervous system, progresses in different ways. In 10 per cent of the cases, tumours shrink even after metasteses have begun forming. In other cases the patients die despite intensive treatment.

Researchers at the German Cancer Research Centre and the University of Cologne have developed a method based on the genetic activity of the tumour cells that rates the aggressiveness of the neuroblastoma at the time of diagnosis.

Doctors have made a significant breakthrough in the treatment of ovarian cancer by discovering a way to reverse the resistance to drugs that denies thousands of women patients each year a chance of survival.

The disease is the fourth most common cancer in women in the UK - after breast, bowel and lung - but is also one of the hardest to treat. There are around 6,900 new cases each year, but 70 per cent of patients cannot be cured because they develop resistance to the chemotherapy which targets the malignant cells.

A new ultrasound technique is so good at helping a doctor determine whether a patient has breast cancer that it may eventually replace biopsies altogether, say researchers from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, USA. The new research was presented at the Radiological Society of North America annual meeting, by Dr. Richard Barr, professor of radiology.

The ultrasound technique is called elastography or real-time, free hand elasticity imaging. In an experiment involving 59 patients, they found this technique helped researchers distinguish harmless lumps from harmful (malignant) ones in 100% of cases - in other words, the technique appears to be 100% accurate. The technique correctly identified 16 out of 16 cancerous tumors and 56 out of 56 benign ones.

The nearly 240,000 men in the United States who will learn they have prostate cancer this year have one more thing to worry about: Are their doctors making treatment decisions on the basis of money as much as medicine?

Among several widely used treatments for prostate cancer, one stands out for its profit potential. The approach, a radiation therapy known as I.M.R.T., can mean reimbursement of $47,000 or more a patient.

That is many times the fees that urologists make on other accepted treatments for the disease, which include surgery and radioactive seed implants. And it may help explain why urologists have started buying multimillion-dollar I.M.R.T. equipment and software, and why many more are investigating it as a way to increase their incomes.

Skin cancer survivors could halve their chance of relapse by eating generous helpings of leafy green vegetables, new Australian research suggests.

Queensland scientists have investigated the impact of healthy dietary habits on skin cancer and discovered that green vegies can help guard against the disease.

They showed that spinach and silverbeet were linked with a reduction in the risk of skin cancer, particularly among those with a previous history of the disease.

Dr Jolieke van der Pols, from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, said these vegetables contain a variety of vitamins, minerals and other bioactive substances that are known to have anti-cancer properties.

An executive for a Kansas-based conglomerate had donated $20 million to support a newly constructed cancer research building on the Johns Hopkins campus in East Baltimore, Hopkins said.

David H. Koch of New York, executive vice president of privately held Koch Industries Inc. of Wichita, made the donation. The 267,000 square foot building, which opened in March, will be named after Koch and dedicated Dec. 4.

"I am sure that breakthrough discoveries on the treatment of cancer will be made in the future in this building," Koch, a Hopkins trustee and longtime supporter, said in a statement.

By Marsha Hitchcock, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new approach to treating breast cancer gives patients an alternative that cuts radiation treatments down from six weeks to five days.

This new minimally invasive approach, called partial breast irradiation therapy with brachytherapy, targets the tumor with precision and gives women with breast cancer more time to make decisions about their care.

"This new therapy gives hope to the some 212,000 women who we anticipate will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year," said Ellen Mendelson, M.D., Section Chief of Breast Imaging and a professor of radiology at Northwestern University in Chicago. "What we are looking at is a new way at administering the radiation part of it," she told Ivanhoe.