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The period immediately after a cancer diagnosis is generally a time of stress and uncertainty, and the need to make treatment decisions may further add to the distress. If you have been diagnosed with cancer, you need to be able to talk openly with your doctor about your treatment options, and continue to ask questions and stay informed throughout your treatment and follow-up.

BUFFALO, NY--Despite a history of aggressive chemotherapy, survivors of childhood cancer are capable of conceiving and giving birth to healthy children, Daniel M. Green, MD, of the Department of Pediatrics, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, said at the 4th International Conference on Long-Term Complications of Children and Adolescents for Cancer.

For persons with AIDS, current health status does not necessarily affect their desire to be revived if their heart stops, according to a study supported by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (HS06239).

BALTIMORE--Following the battlefield tactic of divide and conquer (in this case, dividing a molecule into two fragments), University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) researchers have determined the three-dimensional structure of a key part of the HIV-1 p24 capsid protein (see illustration on page 1).

BETHESDA, Md--As part of its resolution commemorating the 25th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) has voted to initiate a 1-year public education program to reaffirm the national commitment to cancer research.

Both physicians and public health specialists can learn valuable lessons about communicating cancer risks from the experiences of those engaged in environmental risk communications, said Frank Baker, phd, a senior official of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

VANCOUVER, BC--The goals of cost-effective therapy for HIV infection are to suppress viral replication to a level that halts disease progression, maximizes immune recovery, and limits the emergence of drug resistance, Margaret Fischl, MD, said at the 11th International Conference on AIDS.

NEW YORK--Choice In Dying is offering a new service that electronically stores advance directives (living wills and health care proxies). The service provides instant access to these documents with one phone call, thus avoiding the search for documents at a critical time, as, for example, when a patient becomes unconscious or unable to speak for himself.

NEW YORK--Scientists at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center appear to have solved one of the long-standing enigmas of HIV infection--why some people remain uninfected even after repeated exposures to the virus. The answer lies in the genes, and in basic research published only a few months earlier.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla--In a scenario out of a recent John Grisham novel (The Runaway Jury), a Florida jury has returned a verdict in favor of a plaintiff suing a large tobacco company, causing a precipitous fall in the price of stocks of all the major tobacco companies. Philip Morris shares, for example, lost more than 10% of their value.

BETHESDA, Md--A smoking-cessation study involving 11 pairs of communities and more than 20,000 smokers found a slight advantage for intervention among light-to-moderate smokers but no statistically significant difference among heavy smokers.

LOS ANGELES, Calif--The first annual National Lymphoma Awareness Week, sponsored by the Lymphoma Research Foundation of America, is scheduled for October 13 to 19. Members of the Foundation will launch local awareness activities and educational events throughout the week to inform the public about lymphatic cancers.

SECAUCUS, NJ--To accommodate community-based physicians who may not be able to attend national professional meetings, the newly formed not-for-profit Solid Tumor Oncology Education Foundation, Inc. will sponsor a series of free local seminars and audioconferences, led by a faculty of expert physicians.

When organizers asked Tim Byers, MD, MPH, to speak at the American Cancer Society's National Conference on Cancer Prevention and Early Detection, he liked their proposed title for his talk--"Nutrition: The Data Are There."

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, which is much more expensive than AIDS antibody tests, should be used routinely to detect HIV infection in infants but not in adults, according to two new studies from Veterans Affairs and Stanford researchers.

VANCOUVER, BC--Discussions of Kaposi's sarcoma at the 11th International Conference on AIDS included reports on a promising topical treatment, photodynamic therapy (PDT), a chemotherapy regimen that could save up to $1,000 per course, and the possibility of prevention using antiherpes drugs.

SAN DIEGO--For hospitals that haven't already established a hematopoietic stem cell program, Bruce E. Hillner, MD, advises them not to do so. "If you don't have a program now, buy the services elsewhere. That is a much smarter way to go," said Dr. Hillner, associate professor of medicine, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond.

Quality of life of patients undergoing androgen deprivation is an issue that has received limited attention in the past but is currently being actively evaluated in clinical trials. This issue becomes more important as patients with longer life expectancy and no metastatic disease are treated for longer durations.

In most developed nations, cancer is second only to heart disease as a cause of death; in less developed countries, it is second to infectious disease. It is estimated that if the current trends of rising worldwide incidence continue, cancer will become the leading cause of death in the 21st century. This is particularly troubling since many of the factors contributing to cancer (eg, occupation, diet, lifestyle, and tobacco use) are known.

The past 20 years have witnessed important changes in the manner in which many people with cancer are opting to deal with their disease. In the past, patients yielded to their physicians' treatment choices and assumed that they

The mortality for patients who had colorectal surgery performed by board-certified colon and rectal surgeons over an 8-year period (1986-1994) was 1.4%, as compared with 7.3% for a similar group of patients operated on by other surgeons,

BUFFALO, NY--When young cancer patients have a question about their illness, they need an educator who has time and patience, and can talk to them in language they can understand.

Although laparoscopic surgery is a less invasive technique for abdominal surgery, a drawback is the fact that it visualizes only the surface of the abdominal cavity and may miss abnormalities within solid abdominal organs, such as the liver. The use of

dvances in cell biology and basic science are made in step-by-step increments of understanding, achieved over years of painstaking research. While not usually typical headline-grabbing material, such research has led to some of the most important

Damage occurs to our genes every day, some of it due to chemical or physical agents that have the potential to cause mutations leading to cancer. Luckily, cell proteins detect such damage and repair it before the cell reproduces, preventing a

VANCOUVER, BC--The new understanding of the importance of viral dynamics in the progression of HIV infection (see "New Thinking on HIV Progression Leads to New Strategies") has led to new guidelines for deploying drugs now available to treat HIV (a list of available agents is on page 13). Experts now recommend reducing viral load to below detectable limits, as an indication that viral replication has been curtailed as much as possible.

By analyzing DNA from a strange mass of tissue found in a man's abdomen, researchers have discovered a previously unknown parasite that can infect and kill humans. The researchers have yet to name the parasite or determine what it looks

DALLAS--Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) breast biopsies in women with mammographically apparent, nonpal-pable breast lesions were deemed impractical due to the high rate of insufficient samples in a Radiologic Diagnostic Oncology Group (RDOG) study, and were stopped 19 months into the trial, Etta D. Pisano, MD, said at the American College of Radiology (ACR) National Conference on Breast Cancer.

VANCOUVER, BC--The new more aggressive approach to HIV infection, using antiviral drugs early and in combination, reflects not only the availability of new drugs but also the application of new thinking about HIV infection (see reports "Early Combination Treatment May Provide HIV Control" and "Researchers Propose New Treatment Guidlines for HIV"). Initial (primary) HIV infection causes an acute flu-like syndrome that is followed by years of relatively asymptomatic disease. This period of "clinical latency" had been thought to reflect viral latency, but work by David D. Ho, MD, and his colleagues at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, has shown otherwise.

SAN DIEGO--There are many sound reasons why a medical center may want to capitate its oncology services and just as many wrong reasons, said Paul M. Kennelly, who recently assumed the position of president and CEO of the management services organization at the City of Hope Oncology Network in Southern California.