Christine
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http://www.thecheers.org/news/Health/ne ... ystem.html
Washington, December 9 (ANI): Cancer specialists at Stony Brook University Medical Center say that a new radiotherapy system that combines high-tech imaging with precision tumour-targeting capability is proving to be very beneficial for the patients.
The doctors say that people with medically inoperable tumours or the ones who do not want surgical treatment may benefit most from the ExacTrac X-ray 6D System for image-guided radiotherapy.
They have revealed that the system adds to patient options for stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), a technique that features high radiation doses with pinpoint precision to tumours.
This procedure is the least invasive method available to treat his disease.
"Other than mild redness, I experienced no side effects from the treatment and feel very good," says Denis Keefe, a 63-year-old lung cancer patient, whose tumour has shrunk since the treatment.
"I was comfortable during the procedure and only needed to go for three treatment sessions," he added.
The power and precision of the system also allows for short therapeutic duration. Treatments take one-to-two weeks to complete and require only three or four doses, compared to conventional beam therapy that often lasts many weeks and many doses.
"We have had substantial success in treating patients with tumours of the lung, brain, spine, head and neck, and prostate with the ExacTrac system," says Dr. Allen G. Meek, Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, indicating that the system has become an integral part of the department's therapeutic options after several months in operation.
"ExacTrac enables us to deliver treatment to some previously irradiated sites without damaging critical structures like the spinal cord. This greatly improves our ability to treat some inoperable tumours and cancers that spread from primary sites," Dr. Meek added.
Dr. Bong S. Kim, Assistant Professor of Clinical Radiation Oncology, said: "The imaging component is critical to the process. We can position the patient within two millimetres precision, which maximizes radiation treatment directly to the tumour." (ANI)
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http://www.news-medical.net/?id=33265
The latest research says that by eating just three servings a month of raw broccoli or cabbage a person can reduce their risk of bladder cancer by as much as 40 percent.
The researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, reached this conclusion after conducting a survey of over 1,000 people where the participants were asked specifically about their intake of cruciferous vegetables.
The researchers were particularly interested in vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage which are rich in compounds called isothiocyanates and are known to lower the cancer risk.
Of the participants 275 people had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and 825 were healthy.
They were asked about pre-diagnosis intakes of raw and cooked vegetables, their cigarette smoking habits, and other risk factors.
The researchers found that the effects were most significant in nonsmokers who ate at least three servings a month and were about 73% less likely to develop bladder cancer than those who smoked and ate less than three servings a month.
Among both smokers and nonsmokers, those who ate this minimal amount of raw veggies had a 40 percent lower risk, but the team did not find the same effect for cooked vegetables.
Dr. Li Tang, who led the study, says cooking can reduce by 60 to 90 percent the isothiocyanates (ITCs) in foods.
ITCs are found in broccoli, cauliflower, kale, turnips, collards, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, radish, turnip and watercress.
When the vegetables are eaten raw isothiocyanates are released which have been shown to neutralise carcinogens and stimulate their secretion.
Studies have shown that isothiocyanates help to prevent lung cancer and esophageal cancer and also lower the risk of other cancers, including gastrointestinal cancer.
The researchers tested the theory using broccoli sprouts in rats who had been engineered to develop bladder cancer.
The rodents were fed a freeze-dried extract of broccoli sprouts and it was found that the more they ate, the less likely they were to develop bladder cancer.
The researchers say the compounds were processed and excreted within 12 hours of feeding which suggests that the compounds are protecting the bladder from the inside.
Lead researcher Dr. Yuesheng Zhang says the bladder is like a storage bag, and cancers in the bladder occur almost entirely along the inner surface, the epithelium, that faces the urine, presumably because this tissue is assaulted all the time by noxious materials in the urine.
In another study from a team at Ohio State University patients with a condition known as Barrett's esophagus which often leads to esophageal cancer, were given black raspberries, also called blackberries or blackcaps, which are also rich in cancer-fighting compounds.
The researchers fed 32 grams of freeze-dried black raspberries to women with Barrett's esophagus and 45 grams to men, every day for a six month period.
They also measured the levels of two compounds in their urine 8-isoprostane and GSTpi -- which indicate whether cancer-causing processes are going on in the body.
The researchers found that 58 percent of patients had marked declines of 8-isoprostane levels, suggesting less damage, and 37 percent had higher levels of GSTpi, which can help interfere with cancer causing damage and which is usually low in patients with Barrett's.
Other studies have also shown that dark-colored berries can reduce the risk of cancer and add to the growing body of research that suggests that fruits and vegetables, especially richly coloured varieties, can reduce the risk of cancer.
The research was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Philadelphia.
Their findings confirm and strengthen previous research that have linked a high intake of fruits and vegetables with a reduced cancer risk
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Thanks Rich. I have some mighty big shoes to fill and my only hope is that I do half as good a job as you.
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http://www.wnbc.com/news/14821128/detail.html
1 in 10 Cases Of Some Cancer Tied To Diet
People who eat a lot of red and processed meats have greater risk of developing bowel and lung cancer than people who eat small quantities, according to a new study at the National Cancer Institute.
Researchers studied data from a long-term study of more than 500,000 people over age 50. The participants -- who had never had cancer -- recorded their food for a year.
Those who were in the top fifth of meat intake had an increased risk of colon, liver and lung cancer when compared to those on the lowest fifth for meat eating.
The risks for other cancers were not raised, researchers said.
The authors of the study said the results show that 1 in 10 colorectal and lung cancers could be avoided with lower meat consumption.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/health-S ... 2220071205
Wed Dec 5, 2007 1:35am EST
ZURICH, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Novartis AG (NOVN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) aims to start selling four new cancer drugs by 2011 and at least one of the drugs could reach sales of $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Novartis plans to report positive data on RAD001, the first new drug it plans to bring to the market, regarding its effectiveness against lymphoma, another type of cancer, at the American Society of Hematology later this week, the WSJ quoted David Epstein, president of Novartis Oncology, as saying.
Novartis is testing RAD001 against several types of cancer, including endocrine tumours and renal-cell cancer, the paper reported.
Novartis also aims to launch ASA404 for non-small-cell lung cancer, SOM230 for a rare group of neroendocrine tumours and LBH589 for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.
(Reporting by Katie Reid, editing by Will Waterman)
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Thanks for the update Don. I hope it is inflammation, AND that it just goes away. I'll be hoping for a miracle everyday too.
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Loved it! Thanks.
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http://www.mdanderson.org/publications/ ... rintPage=1
Conquest Magazine
Fall 2007
MD Anderson Cancer Center
In a novel project matching drugs to molecular targets in lung cancer, M. D. Anderson
investigators are engaging in an intensive and ongoing interrogation of the tumors themselves.
The underlying premise of the landmark package of clinical trials — known collectively as the Biomarker-based Approaches of Targeted Therapy for Lung Cancer Elimination — is to let the biology of a patient’s tumor teach physicians how to treat that tumor. A major step toward individualized therapy, BATTLE examines four treatment options against biomarkers representing four molecular pathways that fuel lung cancer, and relies heavily on core biopsies of patients’ tumors before and during the trial.
Despite the approval of new drugs in recent years, lung cancer remains stubbornly difficult to treat and is the leading cause of death due to cancer, says Edward Kim, M.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology and BATTLE clinical trial principal investigator.
“We have no targeted therapies for lung cancer,” he says. “There’s been a tunnel vision approach to research, with clinical trials focusing on a single drug and a single biomarker. Those trials are costly, and often they don’t pan out. We’re broadening our approach.”
In the BATTLE study, patients with previously treated, advanced non-small cell lung cancer are randomly assigned to one of four treatment options.
They are evaluated eight weeks after treatment begins. If the cancer remains stable or has improved, they stay on the first treatment. Patients whose disease has progressed may drop out of their initial study arm and enter one of the other studies of a drug that targets a different molecular pathway.
As the four clinical trials progress under the BATTLE umbrella, investigators evaluate disease progression and changes in the genomic profiles of the tumors after treatment via follow-up biopsies. Information from early patients in the trial gradually influences which treatment may be best for later patients, a unique adaptive randomization study design that learns as it goes.
“Patient accrual is like a ramp,” Kim explains. “As the statistical model learns from each patient enrolled in the study, assignment to a treatment arm becomes more targeted and less random. As we learn more about which biomarkers respond best to which drugs, more patients will go on a treatment arm favoring that biomarker.”
As the trial progresses, the number of patients enrolled in a treatment arm may increase or decrease, or a treatment arm might be discontinued.
Using this approach, investigators are trying to “understand the biologic properties of tumor tissue, to detect a dominant tumor progression pathway and then to give the right agent to block that molecular pathway, seeing whether it correlates with tumor response,” says Waun Ki Hong, M.D., head of M. D. Anderson’s Division of Cancer Medicine and director of the BATTLE program.
All four treatment regimens have shown some activity against lung cancer and are taken in pill form. They are erlotinib (Tarceva®), vandetanib (Zactima™), sorafenib (Nexavar®), and a combination of erlotinib and bexarotene (Targretin®).
Tarceva and other new medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in recent years to treat lung cancer have been shown to slightly increase overall patient survival. Biomarkers are needed to predict which patients are likely to benefit from the drugs.
“Tarceva won’t be any more effective in lung cancer than it already is, which is a little bit, unless we know who to give it to, at what dose and at what time,” says Roy Herbst, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology and BATTLE clinical trial co-principal investigator.
As of mid-September, 75 patients were enrolled in BATTLE and assigned to one of the four clinical trials. The team expects to begin selective randomization this fall, with patients statistically nudged toward specific treatment arms. A total of 250 patients will be enrolled.
Research Nurse Christine Alden meets with potentially eligible patients to explain the trial and, in particular, to review the need for multiple biopsies and the possible risks and discomforts of that procedure.
Interested patients return a week later to review the trial and give their informed consent to join. Next, they meet with interventional radiology to arrange for a biopsy the next day. Two weeks after the biopsy, patients have a return appointment, are randomized to one of the four treatment options and leave with the medication that day.
After eight weeks, another biopsy is performed, adds Ignacio Wistuba, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Pathology. Typically, “many biologic and biomarker studies are done only in specimens taken from the tumor before treatment. We think, however, it will be useful to do these studies in real-time so we can learn what’s happening after treatment because the tumor changes during therapy.”
Defeating lung cancer has never been easy, but it’s one battle investigators hope to win.
— Scott Merville
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MD Anderson's CancerWise, December 2007
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CELEBRATION
in HOPE
Belated congratulations Donna! You truly are an inspiration to many.
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http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/ ... gnosis.htm
TUESDAY, Nov. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The use of PET imaging may improve the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, say Canadian researchers who reviewed several recent studies.
Tumor imaging is frequently used to diagnosis lung cancer and to make treatment decisions. Imaging technologies such as MRI and CT detect anatomical changes, while PET is based on biochemical processes that may alert doctors to the presence of disease before any anatomical changes occur, the researchers noted.
In this review, a team led by Dr. Yee Ung of the Odette Cancer Center in Toronto concluded that PET can accurately distinguish between benign and malignant tumors as small as one centimeter. In addition, the available data suggests that PET can accurately differentiate between limited and extensive disease and appears to be better than CT for making treatment decisions for non-small-cell lung cancer.
"Further research is needed to determine not only if PET should be integrated into the standard staging and diagnostic processes of lung cancer but also how PET would be incorporated into the staging algorithm," Ung and colleagues wrote.
The review appears online Nov. 27 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone of the U.S. National Cancer Institute wrote that PET imaging "is being increasingly used in lung cancer and has acquired a relevant role in staging patients, assessing treatment strategies, and monitoring treatment effects. Although (PET) has not replaced more accurate and invasive procedures, improvements in the integration of (PET) with other imaging modalities are promising and likely to affect the management of patients with lung cancer in the future."
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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gLVl ... AD8T6UBDG5
Millions of Americans, especially children, are needlessly getting dangerous radiation from "super X-rays" that raise the risk of cancer and are increasingly used to diagnose medical problems, a new report warns.
In a few decades, as many as 2 percent of all cancers in the United States might be due to radiation from CT scans given now, according to the authors of the report.
Some experts say that estimate is overly alarming. But they agree with the need to curb these tests particularly in children, who are more susceptible to radiation and more likely to develop cancer from it.
"There are some serious concerns about the methodology used," but the authors "have brought to attention some real serious potential public health issues," said Dr. Arl Van Moore, head of the American College of Radiology's board of chancellors.
The risk from a single CT, or computed tomography, scan to an individual is small. But "we are very concerned about the built-up public health risk over a long period of time," said Eric J. Hall, who wrote the report with fellow Columbia University medical physicist David J. Brenner.
It was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine and paid for by federal grants.
The average American's total radiation exposure has nearly doubled since 1980, largely because of CT scans. Medical radiation now accounts for more than half of the population's total exposure; it used to be just one-sixth, and the top source was the normal background rate in the environment, from things like radon in soil and cosmic energy from the sun.
A previous study by the same scientists in 2001 led the federal Food and Drug Administration to recommend ways to limit scans and risks in children.
But CT use continued to soar. About 62 million scans were done in the U.S. last year, up from 3 million in 1980. More than 4 million were in children.
Since previous studies suggest that a third of all diagnostic tests are unnecessary, that means that 20 million adults and more than 1 million children getting CT scans are needlessly being put at risk, Brenner and Hall write.
Ultrasound and MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scans often are safer options that do not expose people to radiation, they contend.
CT scans became popular because they offer a quick, relatively cheap and painless way to get 3D pictures so detailed they give an almost surgical view into the body. Doctors use them to evaluate trauma, belly pain, seizures, chronic headaches, kidney stones and other woes, especially in busy emergency rooms. In kids, they are used to diagnose or rule out appendicitis.
But they put out a lot of radiation. A CT scan of the chest involves 10 to 15 millisieverts (a measure of dose) versus 0.01 to 0.15 for a regular chest X-ray, 3 for a mammogram and a mere 0.005 for a dental X-ray.
The dose depends on the type of machine and the person — obese people require more radiation than slim ones — and the risk accumulates over a lifetime.
"Medical care in this country is naturally so fragmented. Any one doctor is not going to be aware of the fact that a particular patient has had three or four CT scans at some point in the past," said Dr. Michael Lauer, prevention chief at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
People with chronic problems like kidney stones are likely to get too many scans, said Dr. Fred Mettler, radiology chief in the New Mexico Veterans Administration health care system.
"I've seen people who are 30 years old who have had at least 18 scans done," he said.
That puts them at risk of developing radiation-induced cancer, Brenner and Hall said. They base this on studies of thousands of Japanese atomic bomb survivors who had excess cancer risk after exposures of 50 to 150 millisieverts — the equivalent of several big CT scans.
"That's very controversial. There's a large portion of the medical physics community that would disagree with that" comparison, said Richard Morin, a medical physicist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. However, others defended the data, which has been widely cited in other radiation studies.
"It's the best evidence we've got" on cancer risks, Lauer said.
Dr. Robert Smith, the American Cancer Society's director of screening, said the authors' estimate that 2 percent of future cancers may be due to CT scans "seems high." But since cancers take 10 to 20 years to develop, "the ability to even observe that kind of an increase is going to be very difficult," he said.
The authors stressed that they were not trying to scare people who need CT scans away from having them. In most cases, the benefits exceed the risks, especially for diagnostic scans.
However, using the scans to screen people with no symptoms of illness — like screening smokers for signs of lung cancer — has not been shown to save lives and is not currently recommended.
Many groups also condemn whole-body scans, often peddled by private practitioners in shopping centers as peace of mind to the worried well. Many of these centers are not accredited by the College of Radiology; only a third of all places that do CT scans in the U.S. are, although insurers are starting to require it for reimbursement, Moore said.
Many CT centers also are set up for adults and rarely image children, who need adjustments to limit dose and radiation risk, said Dr. Alan Brody, a radiologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center who wrote a report on the topic. He said parents should seek a center that often handles children.
Both doctors and patients need to be more aware of radiation risks and discuss them openly, Brenner and Hall said.
"We were astonished to find, when we were researching materials for this paper, how many doctors, particularly emergency room physicians, really had no idea of the magnitude of the doses or the potential risks that were involved," Hall said.
Other studies found the opposite problem: Three out of 10 parents in one study insisted on CT scans instead of observing the child's condition for awhile even after they were told of the radiation risk, Brody said.
"This is what our patients want," and they expect fast answers from doctors, he said.
The pressure is greatest for ER doctors who "are in a bind ... they have all these patients stacked up" and need to make quick decisions, Mettler said.
Future generations of devices using less radiation should help alleviate the concern, but these mostly are directed at the emerging field of heart scans, Lauer said.
"When we order a CT scan it just doesn't seem like such a big deal" but it should be, he said. "The threshold for ordering these tests is low and it's getting lower and lower over time, which means that the risks become potentially all that more important."
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Sloanie, I am so very sorry for your loss. My deepest sympathy to you and your family.
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Wishing you a very successful surgery Connie. It will be my birthday wish! I will be thinking of you that day and sending prayers your way. And, I hope Maurie gets some relief soon.
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My mom had WBR and only 1 cycle of chemo, which she did not tolerate at all. Her hair never grew back. But, her hair was a little thin to begin with so that may have been the reason.
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David, please accept my condolences. I am so sorry for your loss.
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http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... 1056/COL02
Francis Schlueter wants to know whether a technique that kills cancer in the liver and kidneys also works on lung tumors.
Schlueter, a radiologist at Good Samaritan Hospital in Clifton, is recruiting lung cancer patients who aren't healthy enough for surgical treatment for a national study looking at the effectiveness of radiofrequency ablation, or RFA, to treat the disease.
Good Samaritan is the only Greater Cincinnati site participating in the National Cancer Institute-sponsored study looking at how effective RFA is in treating Stage 1 non-small cell lung cancer, which makes up 90 percent of lung cancers.
For the study, Schlueter will deliver radio waves through a needle to the tumor. The radio waves will burn away cancerous cells.
Patients will be sedated, but won't need general anesthesia, Schlueter said.
Surgical removal of cancerous tumors remains the "gold standard" for treating lung cancer, he said, but some patients just aren't strong enough to undergo a major incision or general anesthesia.
This year, about 213,000 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer, and about 160,000 will die from it. About 40 percent of people are alive one year after learning they have lung cancer.
"The survival rate for lung cancer hasn't changed much in the last 20 years," Schlueter said.
Part of the problem is that the disease is often detected only after it has spread to another part of the body or is too advanced to respond well to treatment.
In the case of lung cancer, which is primarily linked to smoking, patients might also have emphysema or another type of lung disease, which makes them poor candidates for surgery.
Donald Pennekamp, 73, of Delhi Township, underwent RFA on Oct. 17 to treat a tumor on his lung.
"My doctor said it was the easiest way to treat it," Pennekamp said. "It was a relief ... he'd pretty much have to take my lung out to get the tumor out of there."
In Pennekamp's case, the tumor had traveled from his colon to his lung; he'd been treated for colon cancer a few years before and thought he'd beaten it, but it reappeared in his left lung.
RFA is a good option for cancers that might appear in several spots in an organ, not uncommon with lung cancer, Schlueter said.
The procedure is also good for cancers that tend to keep coming back, including lung and liver cancers, he said.
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Congrats!
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Congratulations! This is wonderful news. I'm so happy for you both.
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My deepest sympathy on the loss of your mom.
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Here is the link for the UK Lung Cancer Coalition
And here is the link to the PDF of their "lung cancer plan". The 12 points are listed on page 5.
http://www.uklcc.org.uk/pdf/PRX2651[1].UKLCC.brochure.pdf
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http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/b ... s_bcn_html
Scientists examining over 500 specimens of lung cancer tumors have made strides in discovering what causes tumor cells to uncontrollably grow, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Institutes of Health announced today.
The study was conducted as part of the Tumor Sequencing Project, an organization researching adenocarcinoma, which is the most commonly diagnosed form of lung cancer in the United States.
Support from the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is one of the National Institutes of Health, contributed to the study's finding that lung cancer can be connected to "a critical gene alteration not previously linked to any form of cancer," according to officials.
Researchers found 57 genomic changes that occur frequently in lung cancer patients, and discovered that 40 of the genomic changes were not previously associated with lung cancer.
Officials report that these discoveries may help doctors discover new ways to combat the disease, which kills an estimated 150,000 people in the country each year, according to the National Cancer Institute.
"(This finding) lays an essential foundation, and has already pinpointed an important gene that controls the growth of lung cells. This information offers crucial inroads to the biology of lung cancer and will help shape new strategies for cancer diagnosis and therapy," said Mathew Meyerson, senior author of the report.
Reports conducted as part of the Tumor Sequencing Project are available to the public and can be accessed by visiting www.genome.gov/cancersequencing.
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http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wal ... -20061213/
A 12-POINT plan could almost double cancer survival rates, the strategy’s authors claim.
Leading lung cancer experts today unveiled ideas to eradicate inequalities in the disease’s care. The group wants to see greater research funding, the development of screening programmes and earlier diagnosis to ensure patients have the best survival chances.
It also wants lung cancer patients to have access to the full range of specialist practitioners, and would like their care strategy to be implemented wherever possible.
The plan was created by the UK Lung Cancer Coalition (UKLCC), using the country’s leading cancer care experts from the NHS and the Department of Health.
Cancer charities and healthcare companies also had an input into the strategy, which is thought to be the first of its kind for lung cancer care in the UK.
A recent analysis of cancer survival rates showed the UK’s fell below the European average, despite high national spending on health services.
Dr Mick Peake, chair of the UKLCC’s clinical subgroup, said thousands of lives could be saved if the plan was implemented now.
Col's Update
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Wonderful news! Enjoy the holidays!