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April
10, 2009
News
Headlines
Experimental Prostate Drug Shows
Promise-Study
Spending More to Treat Early Bladder Cancer
Does Not Alter
Colorectal Cancer
Screening Decisions Should Consider Life Expectancy
Gemcitabine-Cisplatin Could Be Clinically
Useful in Metastatic Breast Cancer
Triple Therapy Boosts Quit Rates in Sick
Smokers
Radiation Exposure Tied to
Lymphoma Risk in Men
Cancerpage news is updated daily, Monday
through Friday, and on the weekends as
warranted. More than 19 new
articles have been added to cancerpage news since the last newsletter.
To see ALL the latest stories, go to the
cancerpage.com search page and click on Submit (but
leave search field black.)
NCI Peanut Recall Info Sheet for Cancer
Patients
Did You
Know?
-
Among adults, the 5-year survival rate for
all cancers combined is now approximately 65%; among whites, it is about
66%; among blacks, it is about 56%
-
The 5-year survival rate for all childhood cancers
combined is now nearly 80%.
-
As of 2001, the latest year for which we have
updated statistics, the 5-year survival rates for the five most common cancers
were: breast, 90%; colon, 65%; lung, 16%, prostate, 100%; and rectum,
65%.
-
There's so much more to know ---- here.
Source: NCI
South Pole Doctor
Update
Do you remember Dr. Jerri Nelson? In early 1999, many
were riveted by her story. She was the National Science Foundation
physician living her dream, posted to the South Pole when she discovered a
lump in her right breast. The problem - She was stuck there with no hope of
leaving the South Pole for months. (Susan Sarandon depicted her in a 2003 made-for-tv
movie.) Medicines were airdropped but she wasn't able to be evacuated
until October, 1999, when the weather allowed a New York Air National Guard
LC-130 Hercules to pick her up and dropped off another doc. She was declared
cancer free in 2000 but the cancer is back now and in her brain. Read her story
here
.
Acupressure to Reduce
Nausea
Skeptics are sure that the placebo effect explains why some treaments like acupressure
work because some people can convince themselves of anything. If they want it badly
enough, they'll get it. If you are sure that putting pressure on certain points
on your wrist will aleve nausea during radiation treatments for cancer, your
nausea will be aleved. University of Rochester Medical Center researchers
wanted to see if they could circumvent the placebo effect with their clinical
trial design of wristband use in nausea control following radiation treatment.
Their patients were divided into three groups. One got no wristband - one got a
wristband with a education sheet describing the benefits of nausea
reduction from wristbands - and the third group got a wristbands with
a neutral education sheet. The wristband group expectations would have
been different. The no-wristband group had 4 times the
nausea of the wristband groups but there was no difference between the two
wristband groups so expectations seemed to have had no difference. Read
more here
.
Genetic Testing
Gaining in Colon Cancer
In January, the American Society of
Clinical Oncology recommended genetic testing for the normal
(wild-type) KRAS gene before making treatment decisions in certain
cases. Clinical trials have shown that patients with metastatic
colon cancer with mutations in the KRAS gene do respond to
treatment with two of the new - and expensive - targeted therapies -
Erbitux (cetuximab) and Vectibix (panitumumab). Following the ASCO move,
several insurance companies according to the PinkSheet Daily,
have decided to back KRAS testing and require documented evidence from
patients that they do not have the mutation, before covering these
therapies. An estimated 40% of colon cancer patients carry the KRAS gene
mutation.
In the Lab/In the
Clinic
The economic slowdown in being felt in labs with layoffs and
bigtime researchers being forced to closedown operations.
Scientist.com has put together a guide to NIH
stimulus $$. You have to register to see this but registration is
free and worth the registration. Scientists is a great online mag. At Johns Hopkins, Researcher Akhilesh Pandey, MD, PhD, has
convinced colleagues to step back from their own quests to find new
cancer biomarkers to help ferret out those biomarkers that may lay hidden in data
that has already been published in some 50,000 scientific journal articles about
pancreatic cancer. At some point, he argues, you have to start collecting
and cataloging what you already have to assess its importance. Read
more about the work that could one day give us cancer tests as accurate as
pregnancy tests
.
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