Higher Screening Rates Credited With Drop in Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer is on the decline in the United States, but doctors aren't declaring victory just yet against the deadly disease.

It's one of the few completely preventable forms of cancer -- but only if people get regular screenings, doctors say.

"Unfortunately, only about half of individuals who should be screened are not up to date in their screenings," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of colorectal cancer for the American Cancer Society.

The American Cancer Society estimates there will be about 112,340 new cases of colon cancer and 41,420 new cases of rectal cancer in 2007 in the United States. Combined, they will cause about 52,180 deaths.

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that increased screening for colorectal cancer may have contributed to the disease's decline in the United States between 1988 and 2002. According to the researchers, colorectal cancer decreased from 42.8 cases per 100,000 people in 1988-90 to 38.6 cases per 100,000 in 2000-02.

Meanwhile, there was an 80 percent increased use of colonoscopy to test for the disease by Americans between 1997 and 2002.

Many health experts also credit the "Katie Couric Effect," citing the TV newswoman's nationally televised 2000 colonoscopy, prompting more Americans to get screened for the malignancy.

The falling colorectal cancer rates and the climbing colonoscopy rates are linked, because the disease can be averted by removing polyps in the colon that are known to lead to cancer. Those polyps are found through colonoscopy and other screening methods.

"By finding non-cancerous polyps and removing them, we can actually prevent cancer," Brooks said. "Avoiding the disease is probably the most important reason screening needs to be done."

Beginning at age 50, both men and women should follow one of five screening options, according to the American Cancer Society:

* A yearly stool blood test or fecal immunochemical test.
* A flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years.
* A yearly stool blood test plus flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years.
* A double contrast barium enema every five years.
* A colonoscopy every 10 years.

Colonoscopy has been presented as the best option, because polyps can be detected and removed during the same procedure. During a colonoscopy, a slender, lighted tube is inserted through the anus up into the colon, allowing a thorough scan of the organ.

But Dr. Bernard Levin, vice president of cancer prevention at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said the emphasis on a colonoscopy shouldn't keep people from pursuing other forms of screening if colonoscopy isn't available where they live.

Any screening test that gets done is the best, Levin said. "We have to accept that colonoscopy is not available to everybody. Other screening methods should not be considered second-rate," he said.

Other screening methods might also seem more palatable to patients who don't want to be anaesthetized, undergo the cleansing process necessary to prepare themselves for a colonoscopy, or have some other objection to the procedure.

"Some patients absolutely refuse having anything inserted into their body as a screening tool," Brooks said.

Flexible sigmoidoscopy is similar to colonoscopy, but the tube is inserted only into the lower part of the colon, making the procedure less invasive.

In a barium enema screening, a chalky substance is used to partly fill and open up the colon. Air is then pumped in to cause the colon to expand, allowing X-rays to be taken.

An additional screening tool, virtual colonoscopy, could make it easier than ever to be checked. Virtual colonoscopy uses CT scans and computers to produce two- and three-dimensional images of the colon and display them on a screen.

However, Brooks said, it's too soon to tell whether virtual colonoscopy is a dependable means of detecting or preventing colon cancer.

"Right now, virtual colonoscopy is not recommended as a screening tool," he said. "There is a significant body of evidence that supports its usefulness as a test, but it is being evaluated."

Levin decries another misconception about colon cancer, that men are more likely than women to get the disease.

"Over a woman's lifetime, they have the same chance as men," Levin said. "It's not a man's disease."

Those who are screened regularly for colorectal cancer are being met halfway by the medical profession, which is working to improve the quality of its screenings.

For example, a recent study found that doctors are more likely to get better results during a colonoscopy if they spend at least six minutes looking for abnormal growths.

The key is withdrawing the instrument slowly after it has been fully inserted, Levin and Brooks said.

"You have to do a high-quality examination for that examination to be effective," Brooks said. "Doctors who took their time and removed the scope slowly were able to find abnormalities at a rate of three times more compared with doctors who removed the scope at a more rapid rate."

Levin agreed. "If you're not withdrawing slowly enough to see every aspect of the colon, you're short-changing that patient," he said.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Glaxo aims to launch five cancer drugs in 3 years

GlaxoSmithKline aims to launch five new drugs for cancer in the next three years, its head of research said on Monday at the start of a presentation to analysts on the group's pipeline.

"This late-stage oncology pipeline has the potential, effectively, to deliver five new oncology medicines in the next three years," Moncef Slaoui told reporters in a conference call.

The total does not include Tykerb, which was recently launched for breast cancer in the United States.

Europe's biggest drugmaker aims to establish itself as a major player in the fast-growing oncology market, although industry analysts say its ambitions will do little to offset short-term worries about sales and profits.

Glaxo suffered a major blow last month after a critical study linked its diabetes drug Avandia to heart-attack risk, hitting demand for its second biggest selling medicine.

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Talcum powder kills lung cancer cells

Scientists have found that the talcum powder that we have been using since generations to soothe babies' diaper rash or freshen our faces helps in inhibiting the growth of cancer cells.

For the last 30 years, scientists have closely scrutinized talc particles and found dangerous similarities to asbestos. They had earlier said that talc is toxic and its particles could cause tumours in human ovaries and lungs, reported health portal Medical News Today.

However, a new study by researchers at University of Florida found that talcum power has the ability to stunt cancer growth by cutting the flow of blood to metastatic lung tumours - a cancer that starts somewhere else in the body and then spreads to the lungs.

The study, published in the European Respiratory Journal revealed that talc stimulates healthy cells to produce endostatin, a hormone that helps in treating metastatic lung cancer.

The researchers said talc is an exciting new therapeutic agent for a cancer largely considered incurable.

'We found, to our surprise that talc causes tumour growth to slow down and actually decreases the tumour bulk,' said Veena Antony,a professor of pulmonary medicine.

'Talc is able to prevent the formation of blood vessels, thereby killing the tumour and choking off its growth. The tumours appeared to grow much slower and in some cases completely disappeared,' she added.

About half of all patients suffering from metastatic lung tumors accumulate fluid around the surface of the lungs, a condition known as malignant pleural effusion.

'That fluid can press down upon the lung, impair the breathing of the patient and cause the patient to feel very short of breath,' said Antony.

Pleural effusions indicate that the cancer has spread throughout the body and most patients die within six months.

To make life more bearable for these patients, doctors close the extra space between the lung and the chest wall, where the troublesome fluid collects.

The trick is gluing the two surfaces together. Talc is blown into the patients' chest cavity to irritate the tissue and create tiny abrasions. When the lung tissue heals, it becomes permanently adhered to the chest wall without impairing the patients' breathing.

The effects of the procedure, called medical thoracoscopy with talc pleurodesis, are immediate and last a lifetime, the scientists said. Talc was approved in the US for use in medical thoracoscopy in 2003.

Doctors have noticed that patients who undergo medical thoracoscopy with talcum powder live up to 18 months longer than expected. To figure out why, Antony compared lung fluid from 16 patients with malignant pleural effusions before and after doctors dusted their lungs with talc.

'We were surprised to find that talc has added benefits besides causing scarring and taking away the fluid that surrounds the lung,' Antony said.

'The cells that cover the lining of the lung are stimulated by the presence of talc to produce a factor that inhibits the growth of blood vessels and kills the tumour cells,' she added.

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Take more vitamin D, cancer group tells Canadians

The Canadian Cancer Society says all Canadian adults should take large doses of vitamin D during the sun-poor winter months, and says the elderly and those with dark skins should take the supplements year round.

The unusual recommendation to an entire adult population follows this week's release of a report that said large doses of vitamin D can cut the risk of cancer. People get vitamin D from exposure to sunshine, although some foods contain the vitamin and tablets are available as supplements.

"The sun is just not strong enough at our latitude to be able to produce vitamin D in the skin at those times (winter and fall)," said Heather Chappell, senior manager, cancer control policy, at the Canadian Cancer Society.

"This is a made-in-Canada recommendation because our population is at greater risk because of its latitude."

The society recommends that adults take 1,000 international units of vitamin D a day during fall and winter, while the elderly, dark-skinned people, or those who don't go outside often, should consider supplements year round.

The latest study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed that women who took calcium and a dose of vitamin D almost three times the government's recommended daily intake saw a 60 percent lower incidence of cancer than women who were not taking the vitamin.

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New drug increases survival time of liver cancer patient

Latest research has shown that a drug developed by US pharmaceutical companies Bayer and Onyx could extend the survival period for people with advanced liver cancer.

The pill Nexavar, which has been developed after more than 30 years of research and hundreds of studies, was tested on more than 600 people with advanced liver cancer. Those given Nexavar lived nearly three month longer than those given a placebo, reported online edition of health magazine WebMD.

Liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Globally, 560,000 people get liver cancer each year, with 595,000 people a year dying from it. Doctors say there is little hope of survival for people with an advanced stage of liver cancer.

In the study, people with advanced liver cancer were randomly assigned to receive either Nexavar or placebo twice a day. Those who took Nexavar lived for about 10 months whereas those on the placebo lived for about 7 months. The drug also delayed progression of the cancer by 5.5 months.

'Now for the first time we have a drug that works in people with advanced liver cancer,' said Josep M. Llovet, a liver cancer specialist at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Reserchers said Nexavar is very safe, with the most common side effect being diarrhoea and fatigue. It will cost $5,000 a month.

A. William Blackstock, a cancer specialist at North Carolina's Wake Forest University School of Medicine said since Nexavar is already approved for the treatment for kidney cancer, doctors are likely to prescribe it to people with liver cancer while waiting for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to formally approve it for that use.

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Brain radiation increases lung cancer survival

Preventive radiation to the brain significantly reduces the risk of lung cancer spreading to this organ and improves survival, according to data presented in a session Monday at the 43rd annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

All of the patients studied had advanced small-cell lung cancer, a type that carries a poor prognosis and is generally not amenable to surgical removal.

"Brain metastases are a common problem in small-cell lung cancer," study coordinator Dr. Ben Slotman, professor and chairman of radiation oncology at VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, noted at a press briefing.

Previous studies have shown that brain radiation to prevent the cancer from invading this organ can extend survival in patients with limited small-cell lung cancer. The current study suggests that "all patients with small-cell lung cancer who respond to chemotherapy could benefit from" brain radiation, Slotman said.

In the study, 286 patients with advanced small-cell lung cancer and any response to chemotherapy were randomly assigned to preventative brain radiation or no radiation.

Preventative radiation was well tolerated; side effects were generally mild and consisted largely of headache, nausea/vomiting and fatigue, Slotman reported. Moreover, this treatment "did not adversely affect quality of life," he said.

Results showed that brain radiation significantly reduced the risk cancer spreading to the brain. After 1 year, there was brain involvement in 14.6 percent in the radiation group versus 40.4 percent in the comparison group.

Moreover, brain irradiation improved survival. At 1-year, the survival rate was 27.1 percent in the group that received preventative radiation compared to only 13.3 percent in the group that did not.

"Because improvements in treatment results for patients with advanced small-cell lung cancer have been minimal in the past two decades, these findings represent a significant advance," Slotman noted in a written statement.

Based on these findings, preventative radiation of the cranium should be "routinely be offered to all responding patients with (advanced) small-cell lung cancer," he told conference members.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Diabetes drugs may lower risk of lung cancer

The use of diabetes drugs called thiazolidinediones, such as rosiglitazone (Avandia) and pioglitazone (Actos), may reduce the risk of lung cancer, according to a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

These are preliminary findings, Dr. Rangaswamy Govindarajan from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, told Reuters Health. "Physicians should be cautioned not to start using these agents for cancer prevention."

Govindarajan and colleagues investigated the effect of thiazolidinediones on the risk of lung, prostate, and colon cancer in men aged 40 years and older with diabetes, using a database covering 10 Veterans Affairs medical centers.
Among 87,678 individuals identified, there were 1137 cases of colon cancer, 3246 cases of prostate cancer and 1371 cases of lung cancer.

After accounting for all other risk factors, patients who were prescribed thiazolidinediones had a 33 percent lower risk of lung cancer than patients who were not prescribed thiazolidinediones, the researchers report. These drugs may also reduce the risk of prostate and colon cancer, but the findings were not statistically significant.

The lung cancer risk reduction seen with thiazolidinedione use was much greater among African American men than among white men, the researchers note. Similar subgroup analyses yielded inconsistent results for prostate and colorectal cancer.

"We are still in the process of designing further studies," Govindarajan said.

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Oncology, April 20, 2007.

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