November 13, 2006, 8:01 AM CT

Vaccine Shows Promise Against Breast Cancer

A diagnosis of breast cancer has taken on a new meaning in the past 10 years, as research has produced a host of new therapies and detection techniques, significantly improving long-term survival for women who have been fighting the disease. To build on these successes, researchers are now harnessing what they have learned about treating breast cancer and applying it to possible methods of prevention to reduce the total incidence of the disease. One study presented today at the American Association for Cancer Research's Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Boston looks at a specific target in the fight against breast cancer and evaluates a potential vaccine that is yielding promising results for women who are at high-risk for the disease.

Targeted immunoediting of critical pathways responsible for breast cancer development: treatment of early breast cancer using HER-2/neu pulsed dendritic cells.

Multiple genetic targets have been discovered that may help fight breast cancer, including BRCA, estrogen receptors, and HER-2/neu, all of which have been known to predict the severity of disease, recurrence and overall survival. Developing novel therapies that target these specific genetic variances may be extremely beneficial in preventing breast cancer for many women.........

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November 13, 2006, 7:47 AM CT

Psychological Needs Of New Breast Cancer Patients

Almost half of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients are found to have clinically significant emotional distress or symptoms of psychiatric disorders before treatment is begun, according to a new study published in the recent issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study reveals that while virtually all of the women admitted to,experiencing some level of emotional distress, 47 percent met clinically significant screening criteria for emotional distress or a psychiatric disorder, including major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Studies have shown that significant emotional distress, including mood disorders and related functional impairments, afflict up to one-third of breast cancer survivors for up to 20 years after treatment. However, little was previously known about the baseline psychological status of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients.

To help characterize pre-treatment psychological status, Mark T. Hegel, Ph.D. of the Department of Psychiatry and the Norris Cotton Cancer Center of Dartmouth Medical School and colleagues conducted psychiatric and functional screening of 236 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.

Their findings indicate that almost one in two women met clinically significant criteria for emotional distress or a psychiatric disorder. The most common problem was moderate to severe emotional distress (41 percent). The most commonly reported source of distress was related to the cancer diagnosis (100 percent), followed by uncertainty about treatment (96 percent) and concern about physical problems (81 percent). Twenty-one percent of women met criteria for psychiatric disorders, including major depression (11 percent) and PTSD (10 percent). These women also demonstrated significant declines in daily functioning that were due to the emotional disorders. Treatment for their cancer had not yet begun.........

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November 8, 2006, 9:38 PM CT

Nanoparticle Hold Promise in Reducing Radiation Side Effects

With the help of tiny, transparent zebrafish embryos, scientists at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Medical College are hoping to prove that a microscopic nanoparticle can be part of a "new class of radioprotective agents" that help protect normal tissue from radiation damage just as well as standard drugs.

Reporting November 7, 2006 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Philadelphia, they show that the nanoparticle, DF-1 - a soccer ball-shaped, hollow, carbon-based structure known as a fullerene - is as good as two other antioxidant drugs and the FDA-approved drug, Amifostine in fending off radiation damage from normal tissue.

The scientists, led by Adam Dicker, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiation oncology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and at Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center, and Ulrich Rodeck, M.D., professor of dermatology at Jefferson Medical College, compared DF-1 to two superoxidase dismutase mimetics, which are antioxidant drugs. They exposed zebrafish embryos to radiation with either DF-1 or a sod or amifostine. Each of the three markedly reduced radiation damage and increased overall survival and was comparable to the protection provided by the Amifostine.........

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November 5, 2006, 9:12 PM CT

Smoking, Radiation And Prostate Cancer

Smoking has been found to contribute to poorer outcomes for people treated for many kinds of cancer and now, researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have associated smoking and acute side-effects following radiation therapy for prostate cancer. The study was presented today at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Philadelphia.

Smoking is associated with an increased risk of radiation-related side effects in cancers of the head and neck, cervix, lung and breast. For this study, researchers analyzed the impact of smoking on gastrointestinal (GI) and genitourinary (GU) side effects for 1,194 patients with prostate cancer treated at Fox Chase Cancer Center with 3D conformal radiation therapy between 1991 and 2001. Smoking information collected prior to treatment included status as a current smoker, ex-smoker or non-smoker. Patients treated with androgen deprivation prior to or during treatment were excluded.

"Our patients who smoked during treatment reported having more acute gastrointestinal side-effects such as diarrhea," said Niraj Pahlajani, M.D., lead author on the study and a resident in the radiation oncology department at Fox Chase.

"Fortunately, smoking didn't appear to impact long-term GI side effects or genitourinary side-effects. These results underscore the importance of smoking cessation prior to radiation therapy".........

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November 5, 2006, 9:07 PM CT

3-D Radiation And Feeding-tube Use

Although current surgical techniques and multi-modality treatment regimens allow organ preservation for a growing number of patients with head and neck cancers, remaining dependent on a feeding tube after treatment is a major problem for these patients. An analysis by Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers sought to identify which treatment-related factors are more likely to avoid feeding-tube dependency.

"Three-dimensional treatment planning appears to have a significant impact on improving quality of life by reducing feeding tube dependency," said medical intern Linna Li, M.D., who presented the results today at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Philadelphia.

The retrospective study analyzed treatment records since 1997 for patients receiving definitive radiation therapy--with or without surgery and chemotherapy--for squamous-cell carcinomas of the throat, including oropharynx, hypoharynx and larynx. Definitive radiotherapy is a curative course of radiation treatment designed to eradicate a known cancer.

Eligible patients--a total of 90--had either stage III or IV cancer with no prior surgery or radiation therapy in the head and neck region and remained cancer-free 18 months or more after completing radiation therapy. The majority of patients were men (82 percent) who had oropharyngeal cancer (63 percent) with a T stage (extent of primary tumor, including size, at diagnosis) of either T2 or T3 (71 percent).........

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November 2, 2006, 5:18 AM CT

Breakthrough In Eye Cancer Treatment

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have demonstrated in a mouse model a new, locally applied treatment for the eye cancer retinoblastoma that not only greatly reduces the size of the tumor, but does so without causing the side effects common with standard chemotherapy. The treatment also appears to be suitable for certain forms of breast, lung, prostate and colon cancer, and is simple enough for widespread use even in countries with limited resources.

A report on this work appears in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Nature.

Retinoblastoma occurs in about 5,000 young children worldwide each year, arising from the immature retina, which is the part of the eye responsible for detecting light and color. The cancer is fatal if left untreated.

The new treatment holds promise for a simpler, more effective and less-toxic treatment for retinoblastoma that would eliminate the need for the current, complex therapy, according to senior author Michael Dyer, Ph.D., a Pew Scholar and associate member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology. The treatment is based on a discovery by Dyer's laboratory that overturned a widely held belief about the process of apoptosis (cell suicide) in retinoblastoma. Apoptosis is the way the body rids itself of abnormal cells that might become cancerous or cause other problems.........

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November 1, 2006, 5:08 AM CT

Stress Hormones May Speed Up Cancer Growth

New research here suggests that hormones produced during periods of stress may increase the growth rate of a especially nasty kind of cancer.

The study showed that an increase in norepinephrine, a stress hormone, can stimulate tumor cells to produce two compounds. These compounds can break down the tissue around the tumor cells and allow the cells to more easily move into the bloodstream. From there, they can travel to another location in the body to form additional tumors, a process called metastasis.

The research also suggests the same hormone can also stimulate the tumor cells to release another compound that can aid in the growth of new blood vessels that feed cancer cells, hastening the growth and spread of the disease. The work was published in the latest issue of the journal Cancer Research.

"This opens up an entirely new way of looking at stress and cancer that's different from current interpretations," explained Ronald Glaser, a professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics, and director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University.

Glaser and Eric Yang, a research scientist in the same institute, focused on the role of these three compounds. Two of them, both matrix metalloproteinases -- MMP-2 and MMP-9 -- play a role in breaking down the scaffolding that cells attach to in order to maintain their shape. The third compound, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), is important in the growth of new blood vessels into tumor cells.........

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October 31, 2006, 4:10 AM CT

Microwave Your French Fries Before You Fry Them

Microwaving your French fries before you fry them reduces the levels of a cancer-causing substance, reveals findings published recently in the SCI's Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

The discovery of acrylamide - a possible carcinogenic in humans - has led to much research being done to investigate the benefits of alternative cooking methods. Acrylamide forms during processes such as frying, baking and roasting where high-temperature and low-moisture conditions exist.

Eventhough numerous studies have been conducted to explore the possibilities of reducing acrylamide levels in French fries, a team of scientists from Turkey has shown that by reducing the frying time and hence the acrylamide formation by microwave pre-cooking of potato strips previous to frying.

Publishing their work in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, the researches showed that microwave application previous to frying resulted in a marked reduction of the acrylamide level in the surface region. When the potato strips were subjected to frying after a microwave pre-cooking step, acrylamide content in the whole potato strip was reduced by 36%, 41% and 60% for frying at 150, 170 and 190oC respectively.

"Microwaving French fries before cooking takes little time and in fact, microwave pre-cooked samples fried to the same degree of cooking appeared to have a more acceptable colour, probably due to the more gentle heat therapy they experienced during frying," says lead author Koray Palazoglu, of the University of Mersin, Turkey.........

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October 30, 2006, 6:34 PM CT

Breast Cancer Therapy In Which Order?

For women who have had surgery for early breast cancer, it may not matter whether they receive follow-up chemotherapy before, after or during radiation therapy, according to a new review of studies.

A woman's chances of survival or seeing the cancer return are similar in all three cases, if radiation therapy and chemotherapy begin within seven months after surgery, the review concludes.

However, the studies suggest that certain toxic side effects in the blood and esophagus -- common in chemotherapy and radiation patients -- may be up to 44 percent more likely when the two therapies are delivered at the same time, said Dr. Brigid Hickey and colleagues at the Southern Zone Radiation Oncology Service in Brisbane, Australia.

The reviewers also note that most of the women in the studies were treated about 10 years ago. "As a result, the trials do not assess the modern types of radiotherapy and newer types of chemotherapy" and other anti-cancer drugs such as Herceptin, Hickey said.

Studies show that radiation therapy can reduce the risk of breast cancer returning in the treated breast and boost the likelihood of survival after breast cancer surgery. Doctors may also prescribe chemotherapy to women at high risk for having the cancer spread to other parts of the body after surgery, to reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer.........

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October 30, 2006, 5:57 PM CT

Oral Contraceptives Increase Risk For Breast Cancer

A meta-analysis reported in the recent issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings indicts oral contraceptives as putting premenopausal women at significantly increased risk for breast cancer, particularly women who use them previous to having a child.

The meta-analysis builds on a number of studies with similar findings. But even as the findings stack up, a number of women are unaware of the risks posed by oral contraceptive use previous to pregnancy, says lead study author Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., of Altoona Hospital in Altoona, Pa.

Dr. Kahlenborn says the discrepancy between risk and patient awareness prompted the meta-analysis, which involved extracting data from 34 studies on whether oral contraceptive (OC) use is linked to premenopausal breast cancer. Included in the studies were women who were premenopausal or younger than 50 and who had been, in most cases, diagnosed with breast cancer during or after 1980.

"As I studied the medical literature, I noticed that a trend appeared," says Dr. Kahlenborn. "Namely, OC use previous to first-term pregnancy seemed to consistently increase the risk of premenopausal breast cancer. Eventhough the trend was apparent, premenopausal women have continued to hear that OCs are basically safe".

Rather, patients should know that sustained oral contraceptive use previous to pregnancy increases a premenopausal woman's risk of developing breast cancer, saysDr. Kahlenborn. He says physicians should better inform their patients of the risks linked to oral contraceptives and calls it a "clear-cut informed consent issue".........

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