Jump to content

nadri

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    34

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by nadri

    What does this mean?

    in NSCLC GROUP

    Posted

    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

    How often do you as the "nonpatient" get a chest x

    in CAREGIVER RESOURCE CENTER

    Posted

    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.

    lung cancer vaccine

    in LUNG CANCER IN THE NEWS

    Posted

    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 .

    Starting on the journey (more like into the abyss)

    in NSCLC GROUP

    Posted

    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

    Women Against Lung Cancer Annual Meeting (WALC)

    in ADVOCACY

    Posted

    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.

    Women Against Lung Cancer Annual Meeting (WALC)

    in ADVOCACY

    Posted

    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.

    gene therapy offers hope

    in CLINICAL TRIALS

    Posted

    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

    When it comes to cancer screening, more isn't always better

    in LUNG CANCER IN THE NEWS

    Posted

    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:

    As Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health, said in a recent phone interview, the evidence that lung cancer, too, can be nonprogressive came as "an eye-opener"; "I would now say overdiagnosis is the rule, not the exception."

    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,

    CT/PET scan results

    in MEMBER UPDATES

    Posted

    My Dad got his results from the scan today. It showed that the cancer is in the pleural membrane, this showed up as little hot spots and it also showed hot spots in a couple of mediastinal nodes and a couple of other nodes, though the nodes themselves are not enlarged. His other lung is clear and there appears to be no metastsese elsewhere, although they will do another CT scan of the brain as apparently this is not the best way to scan the brain. The doctor though is confident that the cancer has not spread to the brain.

    He will start Chemotherapy in a few weeks, not sure myself why he's not starting it right away, but the oncologist has said that a few weeks won't make any difference. The oncologist has said that radiotherapy isn't appropriate as the cancer is too small and they need something to aim at. I don't really understand this as radiotherapy seems to be used very widely among the members of this community, sometimes post-op when there can't be much if any cancer left to aim at. Maybe someone can help to clear up my confusion.

    Thanks for your help, as always you are all in my thoughts,

    Need Advice

    in GENERAL

    Posted

    Hi Tina

    Sounds like Charlie really does take his work down a notch or two. Concentrating on his health right now should be his main concern. Having said that may be it helps him to have something else to think about in his day. Would it be possible for Charlie to carry on his role on a part time basis? Some people just don't like to rest too much!

    Charlie is in my prayers

    Sarah

    Hi! I'm New

    in INTRODUCE YOURSELF!

    Posted

    Hi Charlie

    My Dad worked as a research chemist and was naturally skeptical about any alternative remedies however he is willing to try anything that could help him. It is not necessarily true that doctors only advocate chemo he was told specificaly to take some of these supplements. But on the other hand like your Dad he is very stubborn and there are certain suggestions which I make which he can be very dismissive about. I suppose our job is present with suggestions and leave the decisions to them.

    I understand that it is difficult for you to share your feelings as you have no brothers or sisters and do not want to burden your parents, but I have found this board to be a good source of non judgemental support.

    Take care

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept