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BOSTON, Mass--Under a grant from the US Army Breast Cancer Program, Harvard researchers are attempting to create medullary carcinoma of the breast (MCB) cell lines as part of their immunologic studies. There is currently only one line in the world for this infrequent tumor. "We are especially interested in pleural effusions (or ascites)--the best source to make cell lines--but will also use fresh, unfixed tumor tissue, and will pay all shipping costs," said investigator Richard Junghans, PhD, MD.

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded a broad patent on gene therapy to the National Institutes of Health. Six years after filing the application, NIH and its licensee, Genetic Therapy, Inc. of Gaithersburg, Maryland, can now use the patent for ex vivo human gene therapy.

WASHINGTON--The number of women over age 40 who have ever had a mammography has risen significantly in the past few decades, P. Ellen Parsons, MPH, PhD, said at the spring meeting of the National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee.

WASHINGTON--By the end of the century, cancer will surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. According to a report to Congress from the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) Subcommittee to Evaluate the National Cancer Program, if the nation fails to address six major issues (see table "the resulting health-care costs, lost productivity, and personal tragedy [will be] staggering."

A study of 166 women with suspicious mammograms who underwent ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration cytology (USFNAC) showed the technique to be 100% accurate in diagnosing cancers, reported Dr. Thomas G. Frazier at the annual

WASHINGTON--The FDA's Biological Response Modifiers Advisory Committee unanimously recommended approval of Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.'s Roferon-A (interferon alfa-2a, recombinant) for the treatment of adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). The interferon is currently approved for use in hairy cell leukemia and AIDS related Kaposi's sarcoma.

WASHINGTON--The US Public Health Service's 10-year plan for improving Americans' health, dubbed Healthy People 2000, will be a disappointment to antismoking forces. The goal--to decrease the number of smokers to only 15% of the population--will not be reached, and it is likely that 20% of Americans will still be smoking by the end of the century. "We're talking about a lot of people who are going to die," said Harold Freeman, MD, chairman of the President's Cancer Panel.

WASHINGTON--Managed care holds tremendous opportunities for oncologists who are able to restructure their practices to meet the challenge, Merrick Reese, MD, said at the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) meeting.

WASHINGTON--Physicians and hospitals have good reason to learn as much as possible about the expanded Stark self-referral law, which went into effect last January, and federal anti-kickback legislation. The penalties if convicted under these measures can be large, and the federal government is committed to their enforcement.

LOS ANGELES--An economic analysis has shown that use of filgrastim-primed peripheral blood progenitor cells (PBPCs) in relapsed lymphoma patients undergoing high-dose chemotherapy is significantly less expensive than autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT), Thomas J. Smith, MD, said at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.

BETHESDA--Harold Varmus, MD, Director of the NIH, has removed the "reasonable pricing" clause from the Public Health Service's model Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). Many believe that the clause has driven industry away from potentially beneficial collaboration with government scientists. "Eliminating [it] will promote research that can enhance the health of the American people," Dr. Varmus said.

A new blood substitute with broad life-saving potential is being tested at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). The unique blood product is made with a patented chemical modification process developed by Enzon

BALTIMORE, Md--The results of a phase III double-blind trial of Guilford Pharmaceutical Inc.'s Gliadel have been published in Lancet (April 22, 1995). In patients with malignant brain tumors, 6-month median survival rates increased from 23 weeks with placebo to 31 weeks with Gliadel treatment, the company said. For patients with glioblastoma multiforme, the increase was from 20 weeks to 28 weeks, a 55% improvement.

PARIS, France--Cyclophosphamide with total body irradiation (TBI) provides better survival rates than cyclophosphamide plus busulfan when used as a pre-autologous bone marrow transplant (ABMT) conditioning regimen in patients with advanced acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a University of Minnesota study has found.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla--Cancer education and screening in the worksite need not be an expensive venture, several speakers said at a session on costs at the Industries' Coalition Against Cancer (ICAC) conference.

LOS ANGELES--Use of a radiolabeled monoclonal antibody in patients with relapsed B-cell lymphoma may allow higher doses of radiation to the tumor and less toxicity to normal organs, Oliver W. Press, MD, PhD, of the University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, said in his ASCO presentation.

STANFORD, Calif--Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have found profound shortages of naïve T cells among individuals infected with HIV. In contrast, previous studies have suggested that naïve T cells remain stable with the progression of HIV disease.

TORONTO, Canada--The benefits of annual mammography screening for women aged 50 and over are undisputed, but experts are still polarized over whether the screening procedure is worthwhile for women aged 40 to 49.

NEW YORK--Depression is more common in patients with advanced cancer and can have an adverse effect on cancer pain. For example, in patients with advanced breast cancers, a study showed that concomitant depression and interpretation of pain influenced pain more than site of disease or presence of metastases, Memorial Sloan-Kettering psychiatrist William S. Breitbart, MD, said at a conference sponsored by Cancer Care, Inc., a social work agency for cancer patients and their families.

WASHINGTON--Probably the best-informed group of American consumers of health care are the 9 million federal employees enrolled in the government's health-care plan, Representative Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) said at the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) annual meeting.

ROCKVILLE, Md--Diane Van Ostenberg, BS, RN, has assumed the office of president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC), a national organization of 478 hospital cancer programs.

NEW YORK--In its aggressive attacks on the American Medical Association and American Academy of Dermatology, the tanning industry uses disinformation to obscure the fact that artificial sources of ultraviolet (UV) light are no safer than the sun, said Rex Amonette, MD, president of the American Academy of Dermatology and clinical professor of dermatology at the University of Memphis.

An estimated 22 million US women were current smokers in 1993; of these, 73% wanted to quit smoking [1]. However, attempts to quit smoking and to remain abstinent are hindered by nicotine addiction and by the subsequent effects of nicotine

The environment for medical practice is changing very rapidly. Much greater accountability is being demanded of all health-care providers, including oncologists. Issues related to the philosophy of care, financial management, and ethics are all being

GAITHERSBURG, Md--The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has licensed its broad patent covering gene therapy techniques to Genetic Therapy, Inc. The inventors cited on the patent are gene therapy pioneers W. French Anderson, Steven Rosenberg, and Michael Blaese.

NEW ORLEANS--Diphtheria toxin-based "fusion toxins" can produce durable remissions in malignancies that express the targeted receptor, and they are safe and well-tolerated, said John R. Murphy, PhD, chief of biomolecular medicine, Boston University Medical Center Hospital.

TORONTO, Canada--For years, scientists have known that defective genes allow tumors to grow. Today, researchers blame as many as 30% of all cancers on just one of those genes, the ras gene, the first oncogene discovered in human cancers. Animal research presented at the meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) may someday lead to cancer drugs that can block the effects of this oncogene in humans.

BOULDER, Colo--NeXagen, Inc. and Vestar, Inc. have merged to form NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. One focus of the new company will be the liposomal delivery of oligonucleotides. The company's initial product, AmBisome, is a liposomal formulation of amphotericin B, which has been approved for marketing in 16 countries for the treatment of life-threatening systemic fungal infections that fail to respond to conventional amphotericin B therapy.

NEW YORK--If the immune system represents the front runner in the fight against cancer, opinion remains divided on the best way to harness it. Some researchers are betting on the interleu-kins; others believe that the tumor cell itself must be altered to make the immune system recognize it as the enemy.

NEW ORLEANS--Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have initiated a trial of an angiogenesis inhibitor in children with recurrent solid tumors, the idea being to stunt the growth of new blood vessels that nourish the tumor. Speaking at the American Cancer Society Science Writers Seminar, Dr. Stephen Skapek, of the Department of Pediatrics, Harvard, said that an agent known as TNP-470 (formerly AGM-1470) was found to be a "potent" inhibitor of blood vessel growth in immunosuppressed mice and produced a desirable adverse effects profile.