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SANTA MONICA, Calif-The managed care system of delivering medical benefits has not only altered the way physicians provide care but also drastically changed the landscape in health care law, said Mark O. Hiepler, Esq, a plaintiff attorney and partner in the firm of Hiepler & Hiepler, Oxnard, California.

PHOENIX, Ariz-A woman with an indeterminate mammogram is often told to “wait and see what develops,” and to schedule another mammogram in 3 to 6 months. The radiodiagnostic test Miraluma (Kit for the Preparation of Technetium Tc99m Sestamibi) offers a noninvasive second step to women who might otherwise have to “wait and see,” Hirsch Handmaker, MD, said in an interview.

NEW ORLEANS-Heavy drinking can lead to cancer of the head, neck, esophagus, and liver, but whether moderate alcohol consumption increases risk at these sites is still unclear, said Matthew P. Longnecker, MD, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sci-ences, Research Triangle Park, NC.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina-Saccharin just missed winning a reprieve. By a 4-to-3 vote, an advisory panel recommended that the federal government continue to list the artificial sweetener as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”

TORONTO-Neutropenic cancer patients are often given quinolones in an attempt to ward off infection, but a recent metaanalysis suggests that little is gained from prophylaxis. Furthermore, development of quinolone resistance in such patients may deprive clinicians of an effective oral therapy that could be used as outpatient treatment in patients who do develop infections.

TORONTO-A worldwide, longitudinal surveillance program of antimicrobial resistance, known as Sentry, is showing alarming resistance rates at sites in the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe, and some interesting geographical differences.

WASHINGTON-In a 650-page report prepared collaboratively by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund, international cancer experts have established that approximately one-third of all cancers are preventable through dietary changes, combined with physical activity and maintenance of recommended body weight. Avoidance of tobacco and alcohol could prevent another one-third of all cancers.

BETHESDA, Md-Fifteen consumer advocates will form the first Director’s Consumer Liaison Group (DCLG) at the National Cancer Institute. Panel members, most of them cancer survivors, were selected from a pool of 136 candidates. They will serve 3-year terms on the new advisory board, which will hold its first meeting in December.

Aboulafia provides an extensive review of the occurrence of and treatments for bone marrow disorders that complicate HIV infection and AIDS. Understanding of the pathogenesis of these disorders is increasing, and the availability of recombinant colony-stimulating factors (CSFs) has, in many ways, facilitated the treatment of HIV-1 infection and its complications. Nonetheless, numerous critical questions remain regarding the optimal use of these expensive and powerful reagents.

Neuroblastoma is a clinically heterogeneous disease which can have a benign, localized behavior or a rapidly progressive, widely disseminated, lethal character. In recent years, knowledge of tumor biology-genetic changes and other biological markers-has allowed for reliable prediction of patient outcomes. These markers, when combined with clinical staging and histologic findings, determine the relative risk for a given patient and allow therapy to be tailored to that particular level of risk.

B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHL) are an increasingly common cause of cancer morbidity and mortality. In 1996, approximately 52,700 new cases of NHL were diagnosed, representing a marked increase in incidence. Indeed, the incidence rose from 8.5 per 100,000 population in 1973 to 15.1 per 100,000 in 1992.[1] About 20% to 30% of these are NHLs of the indolent varieties.

The article, Promoting Smoking Cessation Among Cancer Patients, is an excellent complement to the clinical practice guideline on smoking cessation recently published by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR).[1] The guideline presented considerable detail for clinicians on how to help smokers who are prepared to quit. For the approximately 80% of smokers who are not prepared, the guideline included only a few paragraphs. The approach of Prokhorov, Hudman, and Gritz, seasoned clinicians and scientists, can help clinicians become much more confident when counseling all smokers, including those in the precontemplation and contemplation stages.

Anemia is a common complication of HIV infection. Erythropoietin (Procrit, Epogen) can correct anemia. When given to patients with HIV infection, erythropoietin ameliorates anemia and improves quality of life. Given these three facts, one wonders why an effective drug such as erythropoietin is not used appropriately in patients with HIV infections.

Neuroblastoma is the most common solid extracranial tumor in children. Although the outcome of patients with localized disease has improved substantially, the prognosis for those with advanced disease is still poor, despite multimodality therapeutic efforts of increasing intensity over the last 20 years. Dr. Matthay provides an excellent overview review of the biology and treatment of this devastating but fascinating childhood malignancy.

Bone marrow suppression is a substantial problem in patients infected with HIV. Contributing factors include the underlying HIV infection, alterations in the marrow microenvironment (resulting in abnormal cytokine regulation

The smoking cessation clinical practice guideline recently published by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) summarizes current knowledge on smoking cessation treatments. Among its

The indolent B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas are a diverse group of disorders that differ markedly with respect to presenting features and natural history. This article reviews entities that have generally been encompassed

BUFFALO, NY-In 1998, the year of its 100th anniversary celebration, Roswell Park Cancer Institute will move into its new $241 million campus, including a new hospital building (see photograph) and major renovations.

WASHINGTON-President Clinton, with Mrs. Clinton joining him, highlighted a three-pronged effort to ensure that women over age 40 have information about and access to regular and high-quality mammograms. The Clintons spoke during one of the President’s regular Saturday morning radio broadcasts.

BETHESDA, Md-The National Cancer Institute has established a program to investigate drug resistance in the AIDS virus. NCI director Richard D. Klausner, MD, told the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) that the new effort will cut across NCI’s intramural program and that he expects it to involve extramural researchers and scientists from other institutes within the National Institutes of Health.

NEW ORLEANS-It is possible to prevent most cases of chemotherapy-induced emesis by simple, convenient, and cost-effective regimens, Richard J. Gralla, MD, director of the Ochsner Foundation Cancer Institute, New Orleans, said at a cancer update sponsored by the Ochsner Medical Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

BETHESDA, Md-The National Cancer Institute’s mint-new Division of Cancer Control and Population Science got its marching orderings only days before officially beginning operations. The National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) accepted the recommendations of a committee report titled “A New Agenda for Cancer Control Research” as a basic operating plan for the division.

CHICAGO-Health care professionals who provide care to cancer patients need to help managers of employee benefits programs determine the cost and quality of the oncology services they purchase, said Dale Orred, corporate benefits manager for United Parcel Service, Atlanta.

CHICAGO-As the health care system in this country shifts from fee for service to managed care, private and public payers are being forced to make decisions about the oncology services they purchase. As payers struggle to define the scope of their coverage of oncology services, however, they may be ignoring the aspects of care that are most important to patients, speakers said at a conference on purchasing oncology services, sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

TORONTO-Cancer patients with febrile neutropenia have routinely been hospitalized and treated with intravenous antibiotics. A pilot study presented at the 37th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) suggests that low-risk patients can be treated just as well at home.

BROOKVILLE, NY-“Most of us wait until it’s too late to make decisions on end-of-life care,” Robert C. Cassidy, PhD, said at a conference on that subject. “But somewhere out there is an abyss, and we better start knitting a parachute before we get pushed out of the plane.”

The treatment of childhood cancer is a major success story. Twenty-five years ago, only 10% of children with leukemia

In 1995, tobacco use contributed to the deaths of 6,274 persons in Oregon (1995 population, 3,132,000) as reported by

Provisional surveillance data about acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) for the first 6 months of 1996 indicated a

HAMBURG-More than 6,000 cancer researchers, clinical oncologists, and specialist cancer nurses from all over the world attended the Ninth European Cancer Conference (ECCO 9), considered Europe’s foremost multidisciplinary oncology event. (See reports on pages 1, 2, 3, 8, 13, 15, 24, 27, and 40.)