nadri

Leslie I am babsitting and using my daughter's pc. We are routing for you. We were very upset to read your post but you will get through this. Sending ourlove. Jennie and Barry

Hi Shirl I am also living in the UK and my Dad is currently undergoing treatment. I just wanted to say that he has CT scans regularly as part of his check ups. They are available on the NHS, I don't understand why your onc hasn't offered them to you. Best wishes Sarah

Hi found this on the web: http://members3.boardhost.com/kidsof/ It is attached to a breast cancer support site, but this board is for support for children of parents with any kind of cancer. From what I have read it seems caring and supportive. Best wishes

Are chest x-rays sensitive enough to pick up cancer at an early stage though? It is my understanding that many tumors do not become visible on a chest x-ray until they are relatively advanced. In which case I wonder if a clear chest x-ray is false reassurance. A CT scan is more sensitive but I suppose it would be even harder to persuade the average doctor to do this for a "healthy" person than it would be to persuade them to do an x-ray.

http://www.pharmalive.com/news/index.cf ... &newslette r=1 Above is a link that was sent to me regarding a comparative study of the cardiovascular risks of COX2 inhibitors, explaining why Vioxx presents cardiovascular problems while Celebrex apparently does not. I thought it might be of interest to those taking, or contemplating taking, Celebrex. Best Wishes

November 02, 2004 Success of lung cancer vaccine brings hope of a breakthrough By Nigel Hawkes Patients with advanced tumours lived more than twice as long as expected after a series of injections A VACCINE for treating lung cancer has shown very promising results in a trial, according to results presented yesterday. The trial adds to optimism that vaccines against cancer will work and that one day they will be used alongside surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy as standard tools in the cancer clinic. In the new trial, more than half the patients with advanced disease that had not spread to other organs were alive two years after treatment with a vaccine designed to enhance the body's own ability to fight cancer. On average, such patients would be expected to survive for just over a year, so the results, announced yesterday at the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Vienna, are a big advance. “Breakthrough is not a word I use, but this comes close,” said Håkan Mellstedt, from the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, commenting on the trial. “I have been involved in cancer vaccines for 20 years, and scientists are always cautious. But these are very exciting results.” This year three teams reported good results from trials of vaccines to treat prostate cancer. Success has also been reported recently with a more conventional vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline to prevent cervical cancer by combating the sexually transmitted virus that triggers most cases of the disease. The new study, carried out in Canada and four centres in the UK — Guy’s Hospital and St George’s Hospital in London, Western General Hospital in Edinburgh and Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology in the Wirral — involved 171 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, the commonest form of the disease. Half were given standard treatment, while the other half were also given the new vaccine. Overall survival was 13 months in the normally treated group, and 17.4 months in those given the vaccine, a slightly disappointing result as the team had been hoping for better. But in a subset of the patients — those with tumours too advanced for surgery, but that had not spread to any other organs — 60 per cent of those given the vaccine were still alive after two years, compared with 36.7 per cent of the unvaccinated group. One survivor has been taking the vaccine for 3½ years. Charles Butts from the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton said that these results had been good enough to take the vaccine, developed by Biomira Inc, a Canadian company, and the drug company Merck, into larger trials. These will involve 1,000 patients from across the world, he said yesterday, and would last at least two years. The US Food and Drug Administration has granted the drug “fast-track” status and the new trial should start next year. The vaccine works by stimulating the body’s immune system to attack the tumours more vigorously. A sugar- protein molecule that is found on the surface of many cells in the body is slightly altered in cancer cells, making it more visible to the immune system. The vaccine, given weekly by injection for eight weeks and then at six-weekly intervals, is designed to alert the immune system to the target protein and increase the intensity of attacks, while leaving normal cells unaffected. Professor Mellstedt said that several cancer vaccines were showing signs of progress. “We are seeing encouraging results in colorectal and kidney cancer and in malignant melanoma (skin cancer),” he said. “This trial in lung cancer is very promising, and an attractive feature is that the vaccine may also work for a lot of other tumours, including pancreatic and colorectal tumours.” Some cancer vaccines are made by taking extracts of an individual’s tumour and modifying them to create a personalised vaccine. But the Biomira vaccine could be produced in large scale by a pharmaceutical company and used for all patients with a particular disease, he said. The trial had also shown that the vaccine treatment is active in advanced disease after chemotherapy, where the majority of patients still had visible tumours. “There is now no doubt that the non-toxic vaccine treatment concept will be incorporated into the therapeutic arsenal of cancer drugs,” Professor Mellstedt said. Bernard Ehmer of Merck said that the results “offered a potentially meaningful benefit to patients”. Every year 31,000 cases of lung cancer are diagnosed in the UK, 19,000 in men and 12,000 in women. Four fifths are non-small-cell lung cancer. Deaths, at 27,000 a year, are almost as high as the incidence, reflecting the fact that treatments for lung cancer are poor, and survival rates have not improved much since the 1970s. Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer. TRYING TO SAVE THOUSANDS OF LIVES Three cancers have been the subject of vaccine trials Lung cancer: the greatest killer in men, with 31,000 cases diagnosed in Britain every year, 19,000 in men and 12,000 in women. Four fifths are non-small-cell lung cancers. Deaths, at 27,000 a year, are almost as high as incidence, reflecting the fact that treatments for lung cancer are poor and survival rates have not improved much since the 1970s Prostate cancer: the top male cancer, with 27,000 new cases every year. Much better treatments exist than for lung cancer, so survival is higher, but the disease still accounts for almost 10,000 deaths a year. Five-year survival is now almost two thirds, but better treatments would still be welcome Malignant melanoma: the cancer with the fastest- growing number of new cases. There are 7,000 a year, 4,000 in women and 3,000 in men. Survival depends on the stage of development of the tumour at the time of detection. Five-year survival in patients with thin tumours is now more than 90 per cent, while in those with thicker tumours it is only 40 per cent in men and 54 per cent in women Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions . Please read our Privacy Policy . To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website .

Katie So sorry to hear about your Dad's dx, this is the right place to ask for support and advice. They are all the nicest and most compassionate people I have ever come accross. Best wishes Hi Dr Joe Thank-you very much for the time and interest you show in this board it is greatly appreciated. I always look for your posts because they alway seem to clarify areas I don't understand. Could you expand on your above comments about RFA for this. I would like to understand your reasons for saying this and some context for this. Also I have a query. In the UK on TV they recently had a programme showing a breast cancer sugery. In it the women in question had 4 tumors 2 in both breasts. The surgeon didn't say oh she's stage IV, just she must have some inbuilt weakness which means she grows tumors in her breasts. Is it not possible that someone could have a similar weakness in their lung, causing more than one tumor? Thanks Sarah

I read David's posts and was inspired and comforted, he was a special special man. Back to the top it goes!

Heather I would love to read this article but am in the UK so can't get hold of this magazine, is there anyway you could get a copy of it to me? Perhaps pdf by email. Thanks a lot Sarah

Of course I didn't mean that smokers don't deserve the funds, but with all of the emphasis on non smoking and never smoking women, I thought I would point out that non smoking and never smoking men with lung cancer do exist as well. In fact I think that all lung cancer survivors and supporters should work together without any division.

I think that all of this advocacy sounds very encouraging indeed and certainly women with lung cancer deserve the same funds, commitment and energy as those with breast cancer. It is not just non-smoking women who get lung cancer never smoking men also can, and they too deserve the same commitment I hope this is a step forward for all lung cancer sufferers.

Came across this and thought it was interesting. Sarah Chinese gene therapy offers hope to terminally ill cancer patients By Adam Luck in Hong Kong (Filed: 04/07/2004) Terminally ill cancer patients from Europe and America are travelling to China for treatment with a revolutionary anti-tumour drug - the world's first officially licensed "gene therapy". The Chinese government approved the manufacture and use of the drug at the end of last year after clinical trials found that it markedly improved the survival rate for patients with cancer of the head and neck. Doctors are now extending the treatment, named Gendicine, to patients with lung and stomach cancer. Injected directly into the tumour, Gendicine works by, in effect, programming cancer cells to commit suicide. About 400 patients - 20 of them from abroad - have been treated with the drug in eight-week courses which cost the equivalent of £1,800. Peng Zhaohui, a medical scientist who helped develop Gendicine, said: "I believe this revolutionary form of gene therapy represents the future for treating cancer patients. "There is still a lot of work to be done, but the results have been very promising so far and - unlike experimental forms of gene therapy attempted elsewhere - there is no evidence of serious side-effects. We have treated foreign patients successfully and word is beginning to spread." Mr Peng has been inundated with requests from overseas, including Britain, from patients desperate to try Gendicine. Arthur Winiarski, 48, a Polish-American businessman based in Warsaw, who was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in his sinuses after a routine medical check-up 18 months ago, was one of them. After operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy in Poland, America and Germany, he was told by doctors at a hospital in Berlin that he had almost no hope. "They wanted to get rid of me. The only thing they could suggest was chemotherapy but they and I both knew this does not work with this kind of cancer," he said. Then a friend saw a sentence about the new drug on the internet, which mentioned Mr Peng. Mr Winiarski emailed a short history of his case to the scientist. To his astonishment, within three hours came a reply: "I think I will be able to help you." Still sceptical about his prospects, Mr Winiarski travelled to China and presented himself to Dr Niu Qi, an oncologist at Beijing's elite Tongren hospital, in April. He was told he needed surgery as well as the drug treatment. He said: "They inject the drug into the tumour and it goes bananas: it invades itself and commits suicide. My tumour was so big - the size of a fist - that they had to use the drug to shrink it first." After further doses of Gendicine Mr Winiarski was given the all-clear. He said: "To have a life like mine, to be a successful businessman, with everything going well and then all of sudden be told you have months to live - you cannot understand. This experience has been incredible and you could not believe the care I have had. I came here in desperation and they have treated me like a king." Gendicine works by inserting a gene, called p53, into a virus, which is then injected into patients. The gene is naturally present in healthy cells but is "switched off" or mutated in many cancer patients. When reinserted into tumour cells by the virus, it triggers their self-destruction. Mr Peng's company SiBiono, in Shenzhen, southern China, first tested Gendicine on head and neck squamous cancers which are relatively common in China. In a clinical trial 120 patients were treated, some with the drug combined with radiotherapy, others with radiotherapy alone. All were then monitored for more than a year. There was complete regression of the tumours in 64 per cent of those given the drug, three times the rate of those given radiotherapy alone. The only recorded side-effect was a mild fever. Mr Peng said: "I don't think that there are likely to be any long-term effects because Gendicine cannot replicate in the patients' cells." China's State Food and Drug Administration approved use of the drug in October and SiBiono was granted permission to begin manufacturing it in February. Prof French Anderson, director of Gene Therapy Laboratories at the University of Southern California, who is widely regarded as the father of gene therapy, has given the production plant his approval. He said: "It is an impressive manufacturing facility." Prof Anderson said that the adenovirus being used by the Chinese to deliver the p53 gene to cells had largely been abandoned by Western scientists. He said, however: "Sometimes simpler is best." Mr Winiarski's oncologist, Dr Niu, who trained at Harvard, said that his patient would need to return to China for further checks, but added: "So far this has been very good and I would be happy to use it with other patients." Dr Niu said: "I plan to use it for liver cancer and gastric cancer because p53 is widely mutated in other forms of cancer, not just head and neck. My colleagues are excited by this and want to try it." Mr Peng said: "This is no overnight success. It has taken 15 years of development and several years of clinical trials before we have reached this stage. "There is still work to be done but we are proud of what we have achieved." SiBiono has held "preliminary discussions" with Western pharmaceutical companies about possible manufacture and sale of the drug abroad, where testing requirements are far stricter. 8 June 2004[Health]: Deadly genes that run in families 10 November 2002: Cancer scientists closing in on key 'death gene' Related reports health.telegraph External links Cancer gene therapy is first to be approved [28 Nov '04] - New Scientist Cancer Research UK SiBiono (in Chinese) © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. Terms & Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy and Cookie Policy

Tina, so sorry to hear that Charlie's not feeling so well. I hope he is feeling much better really soon. You are both in my thoughts and prayers.

I feel the need to apologise as well now. I'm not upset/angry with you for posting the article, I hope it didn't come across as if I was.

Hi Everyone This article has made me quite angry as well. Early detection is the key to treating all cancers, lung included and x-ray isn't good enough as a screening device. Also another quote from the article seemed wrong to me: Has anyone out there come across a case of nonprogressive lung cancer, or a lung cancer that is not clinically relevant, I've certainly never heard of one and I've searched the internet exhaustively. I certainly hope that I haven't upset anyone by posting this, but I think everyone here realises that lung cancer is a serious disease that needs aggressive treatment, how they can talk about overdiagnosis and overtreatment is beyond me. Regards to all,