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NEW YORK-On October 4, Sister Elizabeth Vermaelen, president of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul of New York, welcomed His Eminence John Cardinal O’Connor, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and more than 200 other guests to celebrate the grand opening and dedication of The Saint Vincents Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The Senate’s only physician, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), told FDA Commissioner Jane Henney, MD, that when Congress rewrites the “off-label” drug marketing law, the new version should give physicians more credit for being sophisticated

TOWSON, Md-New breast biopsy techniques are making it more likely that one-stop procedures will become standard of care for small lesions. With this technique, lesions are sampled and removed for biopsy in a minimally invasive procedure, said Rachel Brem, MD, assistant professor of radiology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions’ Breast Imaging Center.

WASHINGTON-National Cancer Institute director Richard D. Klausner, MD, was among the names immediately mentioned as Washington policy wonks and the biomedical community began speculating about who might replace Harold Varmus, MD, as director of the National Institutes of Health.

BUFFALO, NY-The 1990s have seen a new focus on cancer prevention, particularly chemoprevention. Researchers must use results of basic, clinical, and translational chemoprevention studies to design more effective trials to further this field, Scott M. Lippman, MD, said at the New Horizons in Cancer Prevention Symposium, hosted by Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

HOUSTON--Development of a specialized anesthesiology pain team led to a jump in pain consultations by anesthesiologists and in the number of anesthetic procedures performed for pain control at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

MADISON, Wis-In attempting to increase availability of opiates for pain, "we are really up against the war on drugs," David E. Joranson, MSSW, said, "because it is the same laws aimed at preventing illicit narcotic trafficking that also control medical availability of opioid analgesics, and some governments may be reluctant to relinquish that control."

MINNEAPOLIS-United-Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, has announced that it is further advancing its philosophies on consumer choice and physician autonomy through an initiative called Care Coordination. The new initiative makes obsolete certain programs associated with traditional managed care, such as preauthorization for inpatient hospital procedures.

A three-day interdisciplinary cancer conference will be held March 2 through 4, 2000, at the Best Western Gateway Grand in Gainesville, Florida. The seminar will emphasize the latest advances in radiation therapy techniques and results. It will include refresher courses by senior faculty, panel discussions, and new departmental research results. Visiting Professor will be Professeur Jean-Pierre Gerard, Service de Radiotherapie-Oncologie, Hôpitaux de Lyon, France. Other presentations will be made by clinicians from the Department of Radiation Oncology,University of Florida.

CLEVELAND-Communication between patients and a medical team can be improved with a single, brief workshop, according to a study conducted by the Toronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre, University of Toronto.

VANCOUVER, BC-Drug dependence is not physical dependence alone, nor is it the same as drug tolerance. "Drug dependence is primarily psychological dependence, or compulsive use of drugs for their mood-altering effects and continued use despite harm," David E. Joranson, MSSW, said at the WHO workshop on cancer pain.

ATLANTA, Ga-A group of mainly low-income African-American cancer patients had no difficulty completing a multidimensional pain measure, and among the unidimensional measures tested, preferred a faces scale, Deborah B. McGuire, PhD, RN, told Oncology News International at her poster presentation at the 8th World Congress on Pain

BETHESDA, Md-Two components of the National Institutes of Health will spend about $70 million over 5 years to fund Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers at seven universities. The first year’s grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will total $14.5 million. In addition, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has committed another $14 million over the 5 years.

WASHINGTON-The latest effort to establish whether exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons tests caused leukemia in some military personnel has left the issue largely unresolved. The study by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found a 14% increase in leukemia deaths among test participants, compared with a control group, but the increase was not significant. The increase was significant, however, for soldiers exposed to land-based testing.

WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court has granted expeditious status to an appeal seeking to overturn a US District Court decision that found parts of the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (FDAMA) unconstitutional. The district court ruling restricted the FDA’s powers to regulate the distribution by pharmaceutical companies to physicians of materials regarding off-label uses of drugs. [See Oncology News International, Oct. 1999, page 1.] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in the case on Jan. 4, 2000.

SAN FRANCISCO-Long-term estimates of survival utilizing data on 4,500 patients suggest that some people with HIV taking HAART (highly active antiviral therapy) may have a near-normal life expectancy. In a session on HIV at the 39th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), A.C. Justice, MD, of the Veterans Administration Pittsburgh Healthcare System, presented 2 years of recent data estimating long-term or immediate survival in the post-HAART era.

Physician groups are apt to seize on two aspects of the Clintonmedical records privacy proposal, which came out at the end of October and is expected to be finalized in February. The proposal

BUFFALO, NY-Cancer encompasses more than 100 different diseases and is caused by a series of molecular changes affecting cellular function. “We will find the solution to cancer at the molecular level. There are common patterns in tumor formation and certain keys that are associated with those patterns,” said Carlo Croce, MD, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center, and professor of microbiology and immunology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia.

The article by Drs. Labriola and Livingston is the first written collaboration of which I am aware between a doctor of naturopathic medicine and a professor of medicine at a major state university. The authors present a thorough review of the available information on interactions between dietary antioxidants, both natural and supplements, and chemotherapy.

NEW YORK-The 24-year-old patient recuperating from a bone marrow transplant in a hospital room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center was depressed and not communicating. The staff thought Lucanne Magill, the hospital music therapist, could help.

DENTON, Tex-Music has long been used, albeit unscientifically, to relax patients in an effort to relieve pain. Now, a researcher from the University of North Texas College of Music is attempting an approach to music therapy that involves vibration and appears to have a neurophysiologic mechanism of action.

SAN ANTONIO -Pretreatment with amifostine (Ethyol) reduced the incidence of both acute and chronic xero-stomia in patients undergoing head and neck radiotherapy, David M. Brizel, MD, reported at the 41st Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO).

BUFFALO, NY-Just by looking at the words cancer pain patients used to describe their pain, researchers were able to correctly predict in 66% of cases which patients had neuropathic pain, Dr. Thomas Sist, of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, said in his poster presentation at the 8th World Congress on Pain.

EDMONTON, Alberta-Vigorous worldwide pain education efforts emphasizing undertreatment have resulted in a "very healthy increase" in the use of opioids around the world, including increases in dose and length of exposure, Eduardo Bruera, MD, of the University of Alberta and Edmonton General Hospital, said at a plenary session of the 8th World Congress on Pain.

PHOENIX, Arizona-Drugs that inhibit cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) are the hottest thing in arthritis care this year and may have a role to play in combating colorectal cancer, according to a study presented at the American College of Gastroenterology 64th Annual Scientific Meeting.

VANCOUVER, BC-The US Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) cancer pain practice guidelines, like the World Health Organization (WHO) 3-step ladder, emphasize a hierarchical pain management strategy, Richard Payne, MD, said at a symposium held in conjunction with the 8th World Congress on Pain of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).

DULUTH, Minn-Effective strategies to improve cancer pain management in the community may be elusive, but researchers from the Minnesota Cancer Pain Project, led by Thomas E. Elliott, MD, believe they are on the right track with an intervention program that combines education of community opinion leaders with community outreach programs.

ST. LOUIS--When tramadol (Ultram) received FDA approval last year for use in moderate to moderately severe pain, its abuse potential was felt to be low (1.5 cases of abuse per 100,000 patients in the European experience).

BETHESDA, Md-Researchers at five institutions have received the first contracts awarded by a new National Cancer Institute program intended to develop novel “one-stop” technologies capable of both detecting and destroying tumor cells. The five contracts, each of which is for 3 years, totaled nearly $11.3 million.

VIENNA, Austria-Cancer pain patients with chronic renal failure are more likely than others to need changes in their morphine regimen, reported M. Escher, MD, of the Multidisciplinary Pain Center, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland. This retrospective study, reported at the 9th World Congress on Pain, reviewed medical records of 110 cancer patients who had been referred for a pain consultation and had been prescribed morphine.