All News

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.

Using antiseptic-impregnated catheters reduces the risk of catheter-related infection, according to a study authored by Dr. Joseph Civetta in the October 1996 issue of Critical Care Medicine.

WASHINGTON--Before a group of reporters assembled in the White House Rose Garden, President Clinton recently announced three new federal cancer programs that he predicted would "bring us closer to a cure and improve the lives of those who do survive."

WASHINGTON--Exposure to residential electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) appears to pose no serious threat to human health, according to a National Research Council (NRC) committee. The panel reviewed more than 500 studies conducted in the 17 years since researchers reported that children living near high-voltage power lines were 1.5 times more likely to develop leukemia.

WASHINGTON--The number of new AIDS cases diagnosed in the United States last year totaled 62,600, according to the first estimate of the 1995 AIDS incidence released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The incidence rose from 61,500 in 1994.

Intense lobbying by the Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC) resulted in Congress providing $600,000 for a study on "the status of research into cancer among minorities and the medically underserved at the National Institutes of Health." The study will be carried out by an advisory committee expected to be established in early 1997 by the Institute of Medicine. The committee will examine a laundry list of issues, some of them already the subject of analysis by the new NCI office of special populations headed by Otis Brawley, md, an oncologist. Brawley says he is trying to come up with a research agenda that gets beyond some of the myths that have politicized the cancer field. For example, he notes that contrary to conventional wisdom, blacks in many cases form a disproportionately high percentage of participants in cancer treatment trials. Lovell Jones, phd, director of experimental gynecology-endocrinology at the Univeristy of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and co-founder of the ICC, says, "Our hope is that the IOM's findings will reveal new research directions and opportunities, and help overcome research shortcomings of earlier years when minority scientists were only on the fringes of U.S. medicine." The IOM will be reporting their findings back to Congress by January, 1998

A national study underway at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) will determine whether breast cancer patients can benefit from a biopsy procedure that has been successfully used for skin cancer patients. Patients with melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer, have benefited from an advance that has reduced the pain and complications of surgery performed to ascertain whether their cancer has spread.

Researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute have cast doubt on the widely held belief that the mutation of the p53 gene triggers the chain reaction of cancer development.

A new 20-member National Cancer Policy Board (NCPB) is being set up within the National Academy of Sciences. Just as we went to press, it was announced that Peter Howley, chairman of pathology at Harvard, had been named chairman and Joseph Simone of the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah had been named vice-chairman. Bob Cook-Deegan, the executive director of the NCPB, said that other members will be appointed soon and the first meeting is scheduled for mid-February. Joe Harford, associate director of special projects at the National Cancer Institute, says the new Board hopes to provide a common meeting ground for all interested in furthering cancer research and treatment, including governmental bodies-- federal, state, and local--and private organizations. The Board is not meant to replace but rather supplement other advisory groups already in existence. Its function will be to make recommendations on various aspects of cancer policy. These might be issues such as how managed care affects payment for patients in cancer clinical trials, or the advisability of restrictions on tobacco advertising. The Board may also lend its recommendations to various groups as to how research monies might best be spent. Richard Klausner, Director of the National Cancer Institute, has been an enthusiastic advocate for the new Board, according to Harford. Of course, there already is a three-member President's Cancer Panel. But its members are presidential appointees, and the executive secretary is a member of Klausner's office. The NCI will not have a representative on the NCPB, Harford says. Susan Polan, director of government relations for the American Cancer Society, says the ACS "supports the idea of coordination of all agencies involved in the fight against cancer."

The FDA has granted orphan drug status to methylnaltrexone, a medication that blocks the side effects of morphine without interfering with pain relief.

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Champions in the Kitchen, a cookbook with more than 200 recipes for healthful eating, is now available from the Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Research Institute and The Ohio State University (OSU) Extension. The book is a combined effort to raise awareness of cancer prevention through a healthy diet.

A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) found that taking Salagen tablets (pilocarpine hydrochloride) during radiation therapy reduces the symptoms of xerostomia more effectively than taking the drug after radiation therapy is completed.

WILMINGTON, Del--Nine leading health care professionals from the United States' top cancer hospitals, research facilities, and nonprofit organizations have joined together as members of the National Cancer Pain Coalition (NCPC), with the goal of improving chronic cancer pain treatment (see box).

BETHESDA, Md--Intermittent infusions of interleukin-2 (aldesleukin, Proleukin) in HIV-infected patients produced "substantial and sustained" increases in the number and percentage of CD4 cells, with no associated increase in plasma HIV RNA levels, says Joseph A. Kovacs, MD, and his associates at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Keeping a daily record of sun-exposure behavior is the latest way for people to find out what they are doing wrong.

Results of a newly published study show that initial empiric monotherapy with the antibiotic meropenem (Merrem) has positive clinical benefits, is well-tolerated, and is a realistic alternative to standard combination therapy (ceftazidime plus amikacin) in the treatment of febrile episodes in neutropenic patients, including those with persistent, profound neutropenia who are at high risk of infection. The study was published in a recent issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

LOS ANGELES--In the first positive randomized US trial of hyperthermia in cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients who received hyperthermia in addition to bra-chytherapy survived significantly longer than those who did not get the heat treatment, Penny K. Sneed, MD, said at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) meeting.

NeXstar Pharmaceuticals announced that a team of independent investigators has reported the findings of a phase II study in which DaunoXome (liposomal daunorubicin citrate for injection) was evaluated as a treatment for low- and intermediate-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). The data, presented November 7, 1996, at the 16th Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium in New York City, included 14 patients whose disease was resistant to conventional chemotherapy or who had relapsed after prior therapy. DaunoXome is NeXstar's proprietary liposomal formulation of the anthracycline chemotherapy agent daunorubicin.

Myth: Cancer patients will become addicted to the morphine doctors prescribe for pain relief.

This paper consists of a review of the literature on carcinoma of the anal margin, as well as the authors' institutional experience with this uncommon malignancy. The authors offer recommendations for treatment based on the size of the tumor, which correlates with the T-stage from the TNM or Union Internationale Contre le Cancer (UICC) staging systems. They recommend radiation alone or local excision for T1 lesions, radiation and elective nodal irradiation for T2 lesions, and chemoradiation, including irradiation of the primary tumor and inguinal and pelvic nodes, for T3 and T4 lesions.

Soft-tissue sarcomas arising from the retroperitoneum are rare tumors, and their successful treatment is problematic. This group of tumors tends to be large at presentation, and they exist in a body cavity with few fascial planes to contain them. They frequently abut vital organs or major blood vessels, which further complicates their complete removal.

The modern pandemic known as AIDS continues to spread at an alarming rate, with approximately 5,000 people becoming infected with HIV daily.[1] The World Health Organization estimated in 1995 that 20 million people worldwide were HIV infected, and that there were more than 4 million cases of AIDS.[1]

PHILADELPHIA--The use of all-trans-retinoic acid (RA, Vesanoid) in-duces a very high incidence of complete remission in patients with acute promye-locytic leukemia (APL) who have not received previous retinoid therapy.