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With the increased use of doxorubicin-based chemotherapy, chemoendocrine therapy, and high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation or peripheral blood progenitor-cell reinfusion, the role

WASHINGTON--A new player has entered the cancer policy arena. At the instigation of NCI director Richard D. Klausner, MD, the National Research Council has established the National Cancer Policy Board to aid the NCI in dealing with policy matters and strategic planning issues outside of cancer research.

Clinical practice guidelines have been a subject of increasing interest for the past several years, and, recently, they have been developed for oncology. In March, 1996, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a coalition of 15 major US cancer centers, presented the first version of their practice guidelines in oncology. These guidelines covered most of the major cancer sites.

BETHESDA, Md--Nobel laureate David Baltimore, PhD, will lead a National Institutes of Health effort to revive the flagging search for an effective HIV vaccine. NIH Director Harold Varmus, MD, named Dr. Baltimore to head a committee that will search for new ideas and new approaches to a research endeavor that has failed to yield a vaccine after a decade of intense work.

NEW YORK--Cancer Care, Inc. has a new booklet, "Pain in HIV/AIDS: Control Your Pain So It Doesn't Control You," that provides information about pain management to people with HIV, to help them advocate for themselves and receive

Researchers at Ohio State University have developed a technique that fuses the images produced by nuclear medicine scans with images produced by CT scans.

Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University have discovered that the protein guanylyl cyclase C (GCC) is expressed in humans solely in the intestines, including the colon and rectum, making it a selective marker for colorectal tumors that

NEW YORK--When selecting a physician, the most important question an HIV patient can ask is, How many HIV/AIDS patients have you treated? Ramon A. Gabriel Torres, MD, medical director, AIDS Center, St. Vincent's Hospital, NY, said at a teleconference sponsored by Cancer Care Inc. and the Gay Men's Health Crisis.

WASHINGTON--An announcement by NIH director Harold E. Varmus, MD, of a plan to form a national pain research consortium came as a complete, but pleasant surprise to the American Pain Society, Martin Grabois, MD, president of the Society, said in an interview with Oncology News International.

CHICAGO--Medical groups that advocate routine screening mammogra-phy for women between the ages of 40 and 49 have new ammunition to challenge the NCI's controversial 1993 decision to raise the suggested age for beginning mammography screening to 50 years.

ORLANDO--Fludarabine (Flu-dara) improves response, duration of response, and progression-free survival over standard therapy in previously untreated patients with active B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and it should be included in the list of drugs for first-line treatment of this disease, Kanti R. Rai, MD, said at the 38th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).

Secondary lymphedema is quite prevalent in cancer patients who require lymph node dissection for staging and/or treatment of their disease. Chronic lymphedema may arise shortly after surgical intervention or months to years afterward. The tendency of chronic lymphedema is to worsen over time.

Lymphedema continues to plague women after breast cancer treatment. The cosmetic deformity cannot be disguised with normal clothing; physical discomfort and disability are associated with the enlargement; and recurrent episodes of cellulitis and lymphangitis may be expected. Added to the physical symptoms is the distress caused unintentionally by clinicians, who are more interested in cancer recurrence and often trivialize the nonlethal nature of lymphedema.

We treated 119 consecutive patients with lymphedema with complex lymphedema therapy (CLT). Lymphedema reductions after CLT averaged 62.6% in the 56 patients with one affected arm and 68.6% in the 38 patients with

Managed care and proper cancer care need not be mutually exclusive entities. Managed-care organizations (MCOs) that are committed to patients and society should have the following characteristics: accountability for

WASHINGTON--The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) has funded a new analysis of the impact of the recent growth and concentration of HMOs on employers, health-insurance coverage decisions, health care premiums, and employees' health insurance choices. Jack Hadley, MD, of Georgetown University, will lead the $307,437, year-long project.

About one in three newly diagnosed cancer patients in the United States receives radiation treatment, which is being used increasingly as the first line of cancer therapy, according to Dr. Steven Leibel, president of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO).

Women who take sex hormones before and during pregnancy are three times more likely to have children who develop cancer, according to researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

LOS ANGELES--The American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO) honored two of its members at its 38th annual meeting, and welcomed two renowned physicians into the society as honorary members.

WASHINGTON--The national cancer community has joined together to create a nonprofit organization, the Friends of Cancer Research, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the National Cancer Act through a public awareness and education campaign on the importance of cancer research.

MANHASSET, NY--High-risk individuals are being enrolled in four multicenter clinical trials aimed at preventing lung, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. These cancers together account for more than half of all cancer deaths, Laura Donahue, MD, said as she recruited participants at North Shore University Hospital's Don Monti Cancer Center Screening and Education Day.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala--After 60 years of steadily increasing cancer mortality, the tide appears to have turned. From 1990 to 1995, age-adjusted cancer mortality declined by a total of 3.1%, say Philip Cole, MD, and Brad Rodu, DDS, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health and School of Dentistry.

NEW YORK--To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the American Cancer Society has led an effort to anticipate how the world might be in 2015 and how that might affect the control of cancer.

In August, AIDS researchers received some good news when two teams of scientists reported that people born with changes in both copies of a gene called CKR5 seem to have a natural resistance to HIV-1 infection.

WASHINGTON--The two Congressional branches will meet in early January to organize, set the size of committees, and select committee and subcommittee chairmen.

CHICAGO--Findings from the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) may support the routine use of G-CSF (Neupogen) during the induction phase of therapy in elderly patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Richard Larson, MD, said at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Network for Oncology Communication & Research, based in Atlanta.

BETHESDA, Md--The human gene map has found a worldwide audience via the Internet. Researchers have published a new map containing the locations of more than 16,000 genes identified so far in the Human Genome Project (Science 274:547-562, 1996).

NEW YORK--People often continue to smoke even after a diagnosis of cancer, Jamie Ostroff, PhD, said at a symposium on tobacco control at the Third World Congress of Psycho-Oncology.

Dr. William Brose, director of the Pain Management Center for Stanford University, reported detailed study results from a chronic pain study with SNX-111 at the American Pain Society on November 16, 1996.

Combining two widely known anticancer drugs with radiation therapy can dramatically improve the survival of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a new clinical trial has shown. In most cases, physicians now recommend only radiation therapy for such patients.