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MONTREAL, Canada--The centerpiece of efforts to develop gene therapy to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease at the University of California, San Diego, has been the use of ribozymes, Flossie Wong-Staal, PhD, said at the 19th International Congress of Chemotherapy.

HR1725, a bill introduced by Sen. Mink (D-HI), to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to remove the requirement that exposure resulting in stomach cancer occur before age 30.

The University of Pittsburgh registry of pregnancies exposed to cancer chemotherapy now has more than 260 cases on file. The registry, a summary of published and unpublished outcomes of such pregnancies, is available to expedite counseling for concerned patients and clinicians who may face dilemmas in weighing the benefits of cancer therapy against the risks of teratogenicity.

LONG BEACH, Calif--The Office of Technology Assessment recently gave a rather harsh assessment of the performance of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), stating in its report that the agency has been largely unsuccessful in evaluating treatments, in preparing practice guidelines, and in saving significant health-care dollars, said Samuel Turner, an attorney with Fox, Bennett & Turner, Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON--Medicare coverage for diagnostic mammography has been extended to include men. The Federal Register published a correction to the regulation that had inadvertently omitted men from coverage, but it should be noted that men are not included in coverage for screening mammograms.

CRYSTAL CITY, Va--Candle-lighters Childhood Cancer Foundation, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, met to celebrate its 25th anniversary, to update the 550 parents and children with cancer who attended the meeting, and to honor individuals and organizations making a contribution to childhood cancer research.

SEATTLE--A mixture of neutron radiation with conventional photon radiation, using a custom tailored pelvic template for each patient, appears to provide more effective therapy for prostate cancer than photon radiation alone (eg, external beam or I-125), while reducing the complications caused by neutron radiation alone, said Jeffrey Forman, MD, of Wayne State University, Detroit.

An outpatient therapy for malignant pleural effusions can improvea cancer patient's quality of life while reducing hospital costs

Recent broad interest in euthanasia and assisted suicide by society at large has prompted this review of euthanasia. This fine,

A study published in Annals of Internal Medicine reportsthat early treatment with Famvir (famciclovir) significantly shortens

ANNAPOLIS, Md--"Of the 1 million people diagnosed with cancer each year, at least half will not receive adequate pain control," said June L. Dahl, PhD, professor of pharmacology, University of Wisconsin Medical School, and chair, Wisconsin Cancer Pain Initiative.

WASHINGTON--As more states use prepaid managed care to control costs and improve access for Medicaid patients, the number of participating community health centers continues to grow. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) finds that such financial arrangements are not incompatible with a mission of delivering health care to the medically underserved, but that these institutions face substantial risks and challenges, which require new knowledge, skills, and information systems.

SEATTLE--A study of 1,695 cancer-free men found that PSA density provides a far more accurate screening assay for detection of prostate cancer than PSA serum concentration, Robert Kane, MD, of Harvard Medical School, said at the Pacific Northwest Cancer Foundation Meeting on Transperineal Brachytherapy for Early Stage Prostate Cancer.

Minimizing oral manifestations of cancer treatment is a major concern for both dentists and physicians. This article, by dentists from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, addresses the prevention and minimization of oral complications by describing their observations and considerations for a wide range of oncologic treatments.

Aggressive cancer therapy places patients at greater risk for oral complications and treatment-related consequences. Unfortunately, prevention and/or treatment of such oral sequelae have become often overlooked priorities of the treatment team.

Toth and his colleagues present an increasingly important subject in their review; not only do oral complications adversely affect patients' quality of life, but also, as nonsurgical antineoplastic therapy becomes more aggressive, they represent an increasingly more common source of sepsis and local and distant-site infection.

Widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) as a screening tool has led to an increased incidence of biopsy-proven prostate cancer, as well as a shift toward more cases with clinically confined disease (stage T1 to T2). The two traditional therapeutic modalities, radical prostatectomy and external-beam radiation therapy, have undergone technical refinements. Other modalities, such as brachytherapy and cryosurgery, are also being used to treat early-stage disease. Comparisons between treatment results are difficult. Biochemical failure, based on PSA findings, is currently used to measure treatment efficacy, but the precise definition and clinical relevance of biochemical failure have yet to be established. The author presents current analyses of biochemical failure, cause-specific survival, distant metastasis, and morbidity rates following various treatment modalities. [ONCOLOGY 9(9):803-816, 1995]

Dr. Stock provides a thorough summary of recent data on the principal modes of treatment for early-stage prostate cancer. Prostatectomy, external radiation, and brachytherapy have all improved substantially over the last 15 years. Despite these improvements, however, it is still unclear how these modalities compare in terms of efficacy and morbidity. To provide some balance to his evenhanded approach, I will add a few remarks.

NEW YORK--Getting good nutrition can be hard for patients undergoing cancer treatment. But taking in as much nourishment as possible while they still have an appetite can help, advises Memorial Sloan-Kettering dietitian Maria Biasucci.

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ--Last month, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey welcomed Joseph Aisner, MD, as its new associate director of clinical science, and added four new physician/scientists to its staff.

MIAMI BEACH, Fla--"The future of the NSABP [National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project] can't be built upon rejection of the past," said Bernard Fisher, MD, Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Need to consult a clinical pathologist in Tokyo? Trying to contact a particular urologic oncologist in Milwaukee? Looking for an epidemiologist on the Internet? The Cancer Fax Directory may be the best place to start your search.

BETHESDA, Md--The three-member President's Cancer Panel heard evidence from a number of speakers that HIV-related malignancies are increasing at a significant rate.

BETHESDA, Md--One hundred years after W. Konrad Roentgen's discovery of the x-ray (which he refused to patent), the field of radiology continues to produce "wondrous accomplishments," such as modern digital, cross-sectional, and interventional radiology, Alexander R. Margulis, MD, associate chancellor, Special Projects, University of California, San Francisco, said at a conference sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services.

CONCORD, NH--Pharmaceutical companies were the pioneers in establishing cancer screening and information programs for their employees. This is why Jack Gentile went first to the pharmaceutical industry for help in founding the Industries' Coalition Against Cancer, an organization dedicated to encouraging corporations to initiate their own cancer screen/prevention programs or to enhance existing programs.

SAN FRANCISCO--A retrospective study of 61 endometrial cancers, collected from patients at the City of Hope Hospital, Duarte, Calif, found that approximately 49% of the tumors had some type of DNA abnormality, Kristi Van Nostrand, MD, reported at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) annual clinical meeting.

ATLANTA--Two studies from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have shown that neutropenic fever can be safely and effectively managed on an outpatient basis in a select, low-risk group of patients, Edward Rubenstein, MD, said at the Third International Conference on Clinical Applications of Cytokines and Growth Factors in Hematology and Oncology.

DURHAM, NC--Duke University Medical Center and ExVivo Therapies have announced a collaboration to construct and operate a cell processing center, the first on the East Coast. ExVivo is a joint venture between Applied Immune Sciences (AIS) and Rhône-Poulenc Rorer.

NEW YORK--The "right" dose of pain medication is the one that works, Ronald Blum, MD, said at a conference on cancer pain sponsored by Cancer Care, Inc. But that simple maxim is not so easy to follow.

BALTIMORE--A review of randomized trials shows that local recurrence rates for breast-conserving therapy are comparable to those for mastectomy for early-stage patients, Irene Gage, MD, said at a conference sponsored by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.