Cancer victim Shelford to front advertising campaign

A day after announcing his battle with cancer, former All Back Wayne "Buck" Shelford has been named the "face" of a footwear brand.

Shelford will be the frontman for John Bull footwear, which sells work boots in New Zealand and Australia.

Yesterday he revealed he was undergoing treatment for lymphoma, a cancer which affects white blood cells.

Shelford said it was a "lower-grade cancer" and there wasn't much of a story in it.

John Bull marketing manager Phillip Dewis said the former All Black's toughness and resilience made him a an apt representative of the company's boots.

Shelford's powers of endurance were witnessed in a 1986 match against France, Mr Dewis said.

"During a bloody game, Buck received a torn scrotum whilst in a scrum. This alone would leave most men screaming in agony and heading for the nearest hospital, yet Buck calmly instructed the physio to stitch him up, and he played on."

Shelford said he was happy to work with John Bull because the company did a lot of good work in the community.

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Former All Blacks rugby hardman Shelford battles cancer

Former All Blacks captain Wayne "Buck" Shelford, one of international rugby's iconic hardmen, is battling cancer, his wife told the Sunday Star-Times newspaper.

"We found out a month ago and he has five more months of treatment," Jo Shelford said. "We are very positive and pleased with how the treatment is going."

The famous backrower No. 8 is being treated for lymphoma, a cancer affecting white blood cells.

Shelford, 49, captained the All Blacks from 1987 to 1990 during a golden era when they never lost a game.

His reputation as a fearless, uncomprising player was born from his second international in 1986 when in a Test against France his scrotum was torn open, leaving one testicle hanging out.

He calmly told the team physio to stitch the wound and carried on playing.

"I was knocked out cold, lost a few teeth and had a few stitches down below," he later recalled of that game.

"It's a game I still can't remember -- I have no memory of it whatsoever."

The All Blacks lost the match 16-3, the only time Shelford was on the losing side during his distinguished 22-Test career.

When he was dropped from the All Blacks in 1990 there was a national "Bring Back Buck" campaign, which was ignored by the New Zealand selectors, and he moved to England where he coached successfully for several seasons.

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New cancer research centre for Sydney

A $100 million cancer research centre to be built at Sydney University is already being credited with luring leading scientists home to undertake crucial research.

The centre, an Australian first to establish facilities for research and clinical drugs trials into both adult and children's cancers, was announced by University of New South Wales Vice-Chancellor Fred Hilmer.

The Lowy Cancer Research Centre, which will house up to 400 cancer researchers, will be located adjacent to UNSW's Faculty of Medicine at its Randwick campus, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Westfield founder Frank Lowy and his family have donated $10 million toward the facility - the largest single philanthropic donation ever received by the university.

Top grants have come from the NSW government, $18.3 million, and from the federal government - $13.3 million.

Professor Philip Hogg, director of the UNSW Cancer Research Centre, will head adult cancer research at the Lowy centre and will be able to bring back the British trial of a new cancer drug his team developed.

Development of a drug known as glutathionarsenoxide (or GSAO) was completed in 2003 but Prof Hogg was unable to get funding for early trials.

The drug aims to stop cancer tumours from developing blood vessels to continue their growth after initial cell development.

Clinical trials are about to begin at the Cancer Research UK, a non-profit cancer foundation.

Trials of a second generation of the drug would also have had to be shipped overseas but the creation of the Lowy Centre has attracted the people and the $2 million to trial the drug at the one location in Sydney.

"What the facility does is it enables us to take our research efforts to the next level," Prof Hogg said.

He said both an Australian cancer researcher now at Cambridge University and one at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, will return to work at the Lowy Centre.

"It provides a beacon if you like for other great cancer researchers and gives them a reason to come here and work in Sydney."

Another prominent clinician, oncologist Robyn Ward, recently joined the UNSW team as a professor of medicine, a move which helped Prof Hogg win further funding for the second drug trial.

He said drug companies back 99 per cent of advanced drug trials but only after initial trials show promise for a new drug.

"The combination of the two of us was good enough to get funding outside of the drug-company-sphere to do the trial," Prof Hogg said.

"The trial on this second drug is a good example of how that sort of initiative will allow things to happen that probably wouldn't have happened otherwise."

The Lowy Centre also will house the Children's Cancer Institute of Australia, which was looking to expand into a now home.

It will be the first time adult and children's cancer research will be located at the same facility, Prof Hogg said.

Since cancer in children and cancer in adults develop for inherently different reasons, there has never previously been one centre to house research for both.

But Prof Hogg said that by combining them, and with clinical trials, the Lowy Centre would continue to attract top researchers and trial funding.

"It's more than just a building," he added.

The Lowy Centre is due to be completed by late 2009.

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New Cancer Drugs Prove Their Worth

New cancer drugs often save lives, but are they cost-effective?

Two new analyses of two new breast cancer drugs found that they are indeed worth what you pay for them.

The aromatase inhibitor Aromasin (exemestane) and the monoclonal antibody Herceptin (trastuzumab) have already been proven in clinical trials to improve survival.

As new breast cancer drugs exit the pipeline and enter the market, the U.S. health-care system, including the insurance companies or governments paying for therapy, want to know if the drugs are economically, as well as clinically, viable. And new drugs are almost always more expensive compared to the usual standards.

"This is always important to do when you have a drug or a procedure or intervention that is expensive compared to standard care," said Nicole Mittmann, senior author of the Aromasin study, and a scientist with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Toronto. "The clinical data still drives the decision to use the medication, and this is another piece of the puzzle in the decision-making process."

Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology with Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La., said, "The clinical research trials we've done in the last 50 years have been spectacular, and we know how good or how not good our treatments are, and because of the excellent clinical research that's been done, we can then ask ourselves can we afford these treatments.

"These two studies involving Herceptin and Aromasin clearly show that doing these two maneuvers are very, very cost effective in certain subgroups of women with breast cancer. When insurance companies come to you and ask why are you doing this, you have excellent studies to back them up," he added.

A large clinical study had already shown that women with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer who switched from tamoxifen to Aromasin after two to three years lived longer than women who took tamoxifen continuously for five years.

But aromatase inhibitors are more expensive than tamoxifen, which has been around for years. And aromatase inhibitors do have some side effects, including musculoskeletal problems such as osteoporosis and fractures.

"Tamoxifen is pretty cheap. Aromasin is newer and more expensive," Mittmann said. "Is the added cost worth the added benefit?"

Cost-effectiveness is measured in number of life years gained and is also adjusted for the quality of life gained, expressed as quality-adjusted life year (QALY).

In Canada and elsewhere, the commonly accepted threshold for a QALY is $50,000 (Canadian dollars).

In this case, the authors found that using tamoxifen and Aromasin sequentially for five years (after 2.5 years of surgery and other standard therapies) improved disease-free survival at an additional cost of $2,889 (Canadian) per patient. This translates into an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $24,185/QALY gained, well below the $50,000 bar.

"If this is $24,000, it seems to make sense that this is good value for money," Mittmann said.

According to Mittmann, the model would be applicable to the U.S. market.

The authors of the second study estimated that women would gain three years of life, on average, by adding Herceptin to therapy.

Over a woman's lifetime, the cost-effectiveness ratio would be $26,417/QALY (U.S.), again, below the commonly accepted threshold.

The Aromasin study was funded by an unrestricted grant from Pfizer Inc., which makes the drug. The Herceptin study was funded partly by Genentech, which makes Herceptin.

The new studies are published in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal Cancer.

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Breast Cancer Risk May Be Hidden In Small Families

A new study has found that the genetic risk for breast cancer may be hidden in small families.

Women who have mutations in the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are at an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Only around 2 percent of breast cancers are due to mutations in these specific genes, doctors said.

In families where multiple women are diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancers, the chance that other related females have the mutations increases dramatically.

Researchers observed over 300 women who had at least one relative diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50. They found that those with small families were almost three times more likely to have the breast cancer genes compared to women with large families.

Doctors recommend women in small families who have one female relative diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age or any relative with ovarian cancer to consider genetic testing.

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Omega-3 fatty acids rich diet may help lower genetic prostate cancer risk

A new study by boffins at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine has found that a diet rich in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids found in certain fish or fish oil, nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils may help lower prostate cancer risk in men with a genetic predisposition to cancer.

The study was conducted on a mouse model by a team of researchers led Yong Chen.

The researchers studied the effects of such a diet on Pten-knockout mice that are predisposed to develop prostate tumours.

The authors found that a nutritionally balanced diet high in omega-3 fatty acid reduced prostate tumour growth and increased survival in these animals, whereas omega-6 fatty acids had the opposite effects.

They also found that introducing the enzyme omega-3 desaturase into the Pten-knockout mice reduces tumour growth in a manner similar to the omega-3 rich diet as it converts omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids.

The researchers went on to show that the effect of polyunsaturated fatty acids on prostate cancer development is mediated in part through cell death that is dependent on a protein known as Bad.

Together, the data highlight the importance of the interaction between genes and diet in prostate cancer and imply a beneficial effect of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on delaying the onset of human prostate cancer.

The study appears in the July print issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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Diet plus exercise up survival after breast cancer

Among women who have been treated for breast cancer, those who stick to a healthy diet and are moderately active seem to live longer, results of a new study indicate. A good diet alone or exercise alone doesn't have the same benefit.

"It looks like if you get your physical activity going and get your fruits and vegetables in you can reduce your risk (of dying) significantly," study co-author Dr. John Pierce told Reuters Health.

Several studies have shown that diet and exercise may each contribute to breast cancer survival, but little research has looked at the effect of both diet and exercise together. Pierce, director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center, in La Jolla, California, and his team looked at the combined effects of diet and exercise for breast cancer survivors.

They studied 1,490 women who had been treated for breast cancer 2 years earlier, on average.

Overall, only 30 percent of these women maintained the healthiest type of lifestyle, including eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily and engaging in physical activity equivalent to a half-hour of brisk walking six days a week.

These women had a 44 percent lower risk of dying within a 10-year period than did their peers, Pierce and his team report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

What's more, this lower risk of death remained true regardless of whether the women were obese, study findings indicate. The effect of physical activity and diet was "so strong it wiped out the body mass index effect," Pierce said. However, obese women were less likely than nonobese women to report such healthy habits.

A similarly reduced risk of death was not apparent among non-physically active women who consumed the highest amounts of fruits and vegetables or among physically active women who did not eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, the investigators note.

"Doing each one alone didn't do it," Pierce said. "There was no benefit from each one alone, but there was a benefit from both together."

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Greek Orthodox church leader has cancer

The leader of Greece's influential Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, has cancer in his large intestine and liver, doctors said Thursday.

Christodoulos, who has helped thaw centuries of tension with the Vatican but is often accused of meddling in domestic politics, has been hospitalized since June 9, and has already undergone intestinal surgery.

The two cancers were not directly related and had not spread from one site to the other, said the head surgeon at the state-run Aretaion hospital, Dionysis Vorros.

Hospital doctors described the church leader's condition as treatable, saying he would remain in intensive care for at least three more days and likely be allowed to return home next week.

The 68-year-old Orthodox leader's illness has led to an outpouring of sympathy in a country where 97 percent of the population is baptized Orthodox Christian. Even officials who have criticized him for meddling in state affairs have visited him in the hospital.

Elected Church leader in 1998, Christodoulos received the late Pope John Paul II in 2001 in the first visit by a pontiff to the Orthodox country in nearly 1,300 years.

Christodoulos followed up last year with a historic visit to the Vatican, where he met Pope Benedict XVI.

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Morning sickness tied to lower breast cancer risk

If there's any good news about morning sickness, this may be it. Women who experience nausea and vomiting during pregnancy may have a lower risk of breast cancer later in life, according to new research.

Dr. Jo Freudenheim from the University at Buffalo in New York reported the finding this week in Boston, at the annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research.

Freudenheim and her colleagues interviewed 1001 women with recently diagnosed breast cancer, ages 35 to 79, and 1917 "control" subjects matched to the case patients by age, race and county of residence.

Several pregnancy-related factors -- pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and weight gain -- were evaluated, but had no significant effect on future incidence of breast cancer.

In contrast, pregnancy-associated nausea and vomiting was associated with about a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer. Greater severity and longer duration of the symptoms reduced the risk even further.

Freudenheim cautioned, however, that this is an epidemiologic study, so the findings should not be "over-interpreted." Confirmation of their findings, she added, will require replication in other populations.

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New Procedure Detects Oral Cancer

The next trip to your dentist could save your life. That's because many local dentists have a new screening test that can detect oral cancer in its early stages. The test is called ViziLite.

The patient rinses with a special mouthwash for one minute to dehydrate potential cancer cells. The doctor then uses a special light to inspect the entire mouth.

Any suspicious tissue will glow in the dark.

Dr. Phil Golden has already done close to 200 of the screenings and sent at least four patients to have biopsies.

He said the test is extremely accurate.

"They have a negative predictive value of 99.1 percent, which means there's less than 1 percent chance of this screening missing oral cancer," Golden told WXII 12's Margaret Johnson.

The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 34,000 new cases of oral cancer will be diagnosed this year. It said about 7,500 of those patients will die.

Golden said the new screening could help reduce those numbers. He recommends it for anyone over 18.

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Breast cancer genes can come from father

A deadly gene's path can hide in a family tree when a woman has few aunts and older sisters, making it appear that her breast cancer struck out of nowhere when it really came from Dad.

A new study suggests thousands of young women with breast cancer — an estimated 8,000 a year in the U.S. — aren't offered testing to identify faulty genes and clarify their medical decisions.

Guidelines used by insurance companies to decide coverage for genetic testing should change to reflect the findings, said study co-author Dr. Jeffrey Weitzel of City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. Testing can cost more than $3,000.

"Interestingly, it's about Dad," Weitzel said. Half of genetic breast cancers are inherited from a woman's father, not her mother. But unless Dad has female relatives with breast cancer, the faulty gene may have been passed down silently, without causing cancer. (Men can get genetic breast cancer, too, but it's not common.)

Weitzel said doctors often overlook the genetic risk from the father's side of the family.

The study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at the genetic test results from 306 women diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50.

None of the cancer patients in the study had a family history of breast or ovarian cancer.

Among the women with plenty of female relatives, about 5 percent had BRCA gene mutations. But among those with few sisters and aunts older than 45 (when breast cancer would be likely to appear), almost 14 percent had mutations of the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2. That suggests that these cancer patients were unaware of their genetic mutations because there were so few women in the family to signal a cancer risk.

The researchers defined few female relatives as fewer than two on either the father's or mother's side of the family.

Women who were adopted and don't know their family medical history should be aware of the findings, Weitzel said. Women whose female relatives died young before breast cancer had time to show up also are affected.

When such a woman gets breast cancer before age 50, she should get a genetic test, said Dr. Noah Kauff, a cancer geneticist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. That would help her decide whether to have the unaffected breast or her ovaries removed to prevent more cancer. Kauff was not involved in the research, but wrote an accompanying editorial.

"The study allows physicians and patients to make an argument to insurance carriers that, although there's not a family history of breast cancer, it's still reasonable to test and it should be a covered benefit," Kauff said.

Genetic testing helps a woman choose her next medical steps. A woman with breast cancer who has a BRCA gene mutation has a four times greater risk of developing cancer in the other breast and a 10 times greater risk of ovarian cancer than does a woman with breast cancer who has no BRCA gene mutation.

Some women with a family history of breast cancer choose to have a BRCA genetic test so they can decide whether to reduce their cancer risk by removing their ovaries and breasts before any cancer appears. Drug therapy and monitoring with annual MRI tests offer alternatives.

Testing the genes of more women would cost more money, but Weitzel said that won't add significantly to health care costs and will prevent cancer in some of the women.

The study also showed that three commonly used predictive models don't accurately estimate the genetic breast cancer risk for women without a family history of cancer. The American Cancer Society recently based its recommendation for annual MRIs on risk assessments from the predictive models.

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'Fish on a chip' technology may speed cancer diagnosis

A faster, cheaper cancer diagnosis technology called a "fish on a chip" has been developed in Alberta.

The diagnostic chip miniaturizes and automates testing for chromosome mutations from many types of cancer, shortening the wait for diagnosis.

The FISH technology, short for fluorescent in situ hybridization, attaches coloured dyes to detect mutations such as breaks and reattachments in chromosomes.

The test maps the DNA in a blood or bone marrow sample to tell doctors what type of cancer they're dealing with, and provides information on how to treat it.

Patients don't have to suffer therapies that won't do them any good, and they don't have to endure the side-effects, said Linda Pilarski, an oncology professor at the University of Alberta who holds a Canada Research Chair in biomedical nanotechnology.

The new test could cost as little as $10, one-tenth the cost of conventional diagnostic tests, the researchers said.

While conventional tests take several days and highly skilled technologists, the fish on a chip version can be done in less than a day, including in rural areas where people would not have to travel to major centres to access it, Pilarski said.

Researchers have tested the technology on hundreds of cancer patients, including cancer survivor Willie Gruber. When Gruber's doctor suspected cancer during a physical exam, it took two weeks before he got the results.

"When you go in and you are told you may have cancer, you then have this several weeks of waiting," Gruber recalled of the stressful time. "It turns your life upside down, it puts things on hold."

The test needs to undergo more trials and gain approval from Health Canada before it could be rolled out in five years at the earliest.

For now, it is used as part of research and clinical trials, Pilarski said.

The research will be published this month in the journal Nanobiotechnology, and will be presented at the 11th International Myeloma Workshop, a medical conference being held in Greece at the end of June.

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GW says Canada backs cannabis drug for cancer pain

A pioneering cannabis-based drug will be considered by Canadian regulators for approval as a treatment for cancer pain, its British developer GW Pharmaceuticals Plc said on Tuesday.

The drug called Sativex is an under-the-tongue spray which is already on sale in Canada as a treatment for pain in multiple sclerosis, but GW sees another promising market for the drug as a means of controlling pain associated with cancer.

GW said it is required to accept conditions from Health Canada within 30 days, after which the regulator would finalize its marketing authorization within another 30-day period. The drug is being marketed in Canada by Bayer AG.

Investec analyst Ibrahim Mahmood said he did not expect Canadian approval of Sativex for cancer pain to generate significant sales, but it served as a promising signal for approvals in larger markets.

He reiterated his "buy" recommendation on GW stock with a target price of 244 pence, more than 160 percent above current levels. GW shares rose as much as 5 percent to 92-1/2 pence, valuing the firm at 108.7 million pounds ($215.8 million).

"The evidence continues to mount inexorably across the board both clinically and commercially in support of Sativex," Mahmood said in a note.

GW also announced a net loss of 6.7 million pounds ($13.3 million) for the six months to March 31 after a loss of 6.9 million last year. The company said it had a net cash inflow of 2 million pounds during the half year.

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New breast cancer treatment combines radiation, surgery in 1-step

Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) breast cancer specialists are using a new way to treat patients by delivering a one-time dose of radiation during surgery.

The procedure, called intraoperative radiation therapy, takes less than an hour and eliminates the need for further radiation treatments.

It marked the first time the portable intrabeam radiotherapy machine that makes this procedure possible has been used in Canada. The PMH team has since treated two more patients.

"The potential benefits to patients are huge," says lead surgeon Dr. David McCready, who also heads the PMH Breast Cancer Program.

"Treating the specific area of cancer with this kind of precision protects the skin, heart and lungs from unnecessary radiation, minimizes side effects, and saves the patient a lot of time."

Using a probe attached to the portable intrabeam radiotherapy machine, a single, concentrated dose is inserted directly into the affected area inside the breast during surgery.

Dr. McCready said the one-time dose is "biologically equivalent" to conventional radiation treatments for breast cancer that typically require, on average, a minimum of 16 treatments over three weeks.

"This procedure is helping us understand more about the biology of how breast tissue responds to treatment. That knowledge, in turn, will help us further customize and select the best treatment options for individuals with early breast cancer," Dr. Anthony Fyles, the radiation oncologist who leads the Breast Radiation Oncology Program and treated the first patient in the operating room that day, said.

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Breast cancer risk models flawed, study shows

Tools used to predict whether a woman's breast cancer is inherited do not account for smaller families and may leave some women in the dark about their risk for future cancers, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

"You've got to have family to have a family history of breast cancer," said Dr. Jeffrey Weitzel of the City of Hope cancer center in Duarte, California.

Weitzel said women with breast cancer are often asked if they have a family history of the disease, information that is used to decide whether they should get genetic tests to see if their cancer is inherited.

"Most of the models used to determine who might get genetic testing were based on large families and families where there were multiple cases," he said.

"But what about those women who were younger than expected when they got their cancer but who don't have a family history of cancer," asked Weitzel, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

While only 5 to 10 percent of breast cancer cases are inherited, women with mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene have a much higher risk of developing another breast cancer or ovarian cancer.

And many insurance companies use these risk assessment tools to decide whether to pay for genetic tests, which cost roughly $3,000 for most women, Weitzel said.

GREATER RISK

"If a woman has limited-stage breast cancer, she's got a pretty good chance of long-term disease-free survival," Weitzel said in a telephone interview.

"However, if she carries a BRCA gene mutation, her chance of having another breast cancer is nearly 50 percent in her lifetime. It's at least 30 to 40 percent in the next 10 years after her first diagnosis. That is a big deal," he said.

To see whether risk assessment tools were underestimating the risk of some patients, Weitzel and colleagues, between 1997 and 2007, evaluated 306 women who had breast cancer before age 50.

Women with fewer than two close female relatives on either parent's side who lived past the age of 45 were considered to have a limited family structure. About half of patients fell into this group.

The study found that participants with less family information to draw from actually had a higher risk of having the BRCA gene mutation than those with larger families.

BRCA gene mutations were found in 13.7 percent of participants with limited family structure, compared with 5.2 percent with adequate family structure.

Weitzel said the findings challenge the accuracy of the probability models used to determine the need for genetic tests.

The result is important because many women with the BRCA gene mutations are followed more closely and treated more aggressively, including with drugs to prevent cancer and surgery to remove their breasts or ovaries.

"Finding out if someone is at inherited risk clearly does change how we follow people," said Dr. Noah Kauff of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who wrote a commentary in JAMA encouraging that doctors use these risk models with caution.

"If you have breast cancer prior to age 50 and not a lot of women on your mother's or father's side, it is probably reasonable to test" for inherited cancer, Kauff said.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, with more than a million cases detected worldwide each year.

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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.

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Stress linked to lower endometrial cancer risk

Women who feel chronically stressed may have a lower risk of developing uterine cancer than their less harried peers, researchers have found.

In a study that followed nearly 6,800 Danish women for two decades, researchers found that women with higher self-reported stress levels at the beginning of the study were less likely to develop endometrial cancer.

The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, which mirror the results of some breast cancer risk studies, may seem surprising. The researchers speculate that these lower cancer risks may reflect diminished estrogen production in women under chronic stress.

Endometrial cancer is cancer that originates in the lining of the uterus, and hormones are believed to play an important role in the development of the disease. Factors that limit a woman's lifetime exposure to estrogen -- such as starting menstruation late, pregnancy and early menopause -- have been shown to correlate with a lower risk of endometrial cancer.

This may also explain why women who report greater stress show lower rates of breast and endometrial cancers, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Naja Rod Nielsen of the National Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen.

Because of the effects of stress on the central nervous system, persistent stress may lower the body's synthesis of estrogen, the researchers explain.

They emphasize, however, that chronic stress should not be seen as a good thing, because it may also promote or exacerbate other health conditions, such as heart disease, stroke and impaired immune function.

"Despite these results," Nielsen and her colleagues write, "stress may still be a risk factor for other diseases and should therefore not be considered a healthy response."

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Soon, a blood protein test to spot colon cancer

Boffins have discovered proteins CCSA-3 and CCSA-4, present in blood that accurately identify colon cancer and precancerous polyps, which might be used to develop a blood test to identify at-risk individuals.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers led by Robert Getzenberg at the Johns Hopkins' Brady Urological Institute.

These proteins were first discovered by Getzenberg and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh through a protein scan.

As part of the study, to find whether the two blood-dwelling proteins are to be remnants of cellular debris castoff from dead cancer cells, researchers drew blood samples from 107 apparently healthy individuals the day before their scheduled colonoscopies, and from 28 colorectal cancer patients.

Alteration of nuclear scaffolding is a hallmark of cancer cells that is easily detectable under the microscope as a misshapen and discoloured nucleus. This led the researchers to the notion that 'there must be something at the molecular level that would form a molecular flag for cancer via a blood test.'

Researchers used a particular concentration of scaffold-proteins as a marker for disease.

Researchers found 100 percent accurate results in identifying the 28 existing cancers, using the same protein markers.

"These proteins seem very good at separating normal samples from cancerous ones and identifying other groups with pre-cancers at high risk for disease as well," Getzenberg said.

The findings of the study were published in the June issue of Cancer Research.

source : news.yahoo.com

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"Chemo brain" unrelated chemotherapy for breast cancer

Drug therapy given before the primary chemotherapy for breast cancer does not appear to worsen mental processes, or "cognitive function," German investigators report in the journal Cancer. Suspicions that it does may have been influenced by cases of mental decline that occurred before treatment began.

"Most evidence of so-called chemo brain (or chemo fog) comes from cross-sectional studies without pre-chemotherapy assessment," Dr. Kerstin Hermelink from Ludwig-Maximillian University, Munich, told Reuters Health. "In these trials, cognitive compromise present already after diagnosis might mistakenly have been attributed to chemotherapy effects."

Hermelink and colleagues assessed the course of cognitive function before and after exposure to cytostatic treatment in just over 100 women with breast cancer.


Before the start of therapy, the average scores for 5 of 12 cognitive tests were below normal, the authors report, and the group's average score for one test was better than the norm.

Twenty-one weeks later, toward the end of chemotherapy, there was an overall improvement in scores that reached statistical significance in six tests. Only one test showed significant deterioration after chemotherapy.

Excluding patients with confounding factors, 22 percent showed predominant deterioration, and 32 percent showed predominant improvement after chemotherapy, the researchers note.

Age and intelligence were not associated with the change in test results, the report indicates. And while anxiety and depression did not correlate with the change in test results, but they did correlate with self-reported cognitive complaints.

"Breast cancer patients who decline chemotherapy for fear of cognitive impairment should be informed that cognitive compromise often occurs already in the wake of diagnosis," Hermelink said. "During chemotherapy, cognitive function is stable in most patients, and decline is as likely as improvement."

Nevertheless, "More research is necessary before patients can be reassured that chemotherapy does not impair cognitive function," Hermelink said, adding that results of the 1-year follow-up should be available soon.
source : news.yahoo.com

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Turning an Anti-Tumor Gene Back On Could Fight Cancer

Cancer drugs may be able to switch on a gene that tumor cells have switched off, potentially offering a new target for treatment, scientists say.

The findings on the gene, called Brahma (BRM), are published online in the journal Oncogene.

Genetic mutations are one cause of cancer. But the disease can also develop when genes that control cell growth are turned off, allowing cells to multiply out of control. Currently, these deactivated genes can be used to identify or monitor cancer, but there are no treatments that actually target these genes, according to background information in the study.

A team at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, found that BRM was switched off -- but not missing -- in about 15 percent of tumor samples they studied, including cells from lung, esophageal, ovarian, bladder, colon and breast cancers.

The team was able to use existing cancer drugs to switch BRM back on, but they said that new drugs would have to be developed to provide more effective reactivation of the gene in cancer cells.

"This is a targetable target. We can detect it, but we need to find a better way to turn it back on," lead author Dr. David Reisman, assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School, said in a prepared statement. "No drugs are designed to deal with a gene that's turned off. But it's a straightforward extension of current therapies that target genes that are turned on," he added.

source : news.yahoo.com

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