By GINA KOLATA Full story, NYTimes Health (requires free registration), December 27, 2005

Also online at Detnews.com. Excerpt:

In other genetic diseases, gene alterations disable cells. In cancer, genetic changes give cells a sort of superpower.

At first, as scientists grew to appreciate the complexity of cancer genetics, they despaired. “If there are 100 genetic abnormalities, that’s 100 things you need to fix to cure cancer,” said Dr. Todd Golub, the director of the Cancer Program at the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T. in Cambridge, Mass., and an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “That’s a horrifying thought.”

Making matters more complicated, scientists discovered that the genetic changes in one patient’s tumor were different from those in another patient with the same type of cancer. That led to new questioning. Was every patient going to be a unique case? Would researchers need to discover new drugs for every single patient?

“People said, ‘It’s hopelessly intractable and too complicated a problem to ever figure out,’ ” Dr. Golub recalled.

But to their own amazement, scientists are now finding that untangling the genetics of cancer is not impossible. In fact, they say, what looked like an impenetrable shield protecting cancer cells turns out to be flimsy. And those seemingly impervious cancer cells, Dr. Golub said, “are very much poised to die.”

In the end, all those altered genes may end up being the downfall of cancer cells, researchers say.

“Cancer cells have many Achilles’ heels,” Dr. Golub says. “It may take a couple of dozen mutations to cause a cancer, all of which are required for the maintenance and survival of the cancer cell.”

Gleevec, researchers say, was the first test of this idea. The drug knocks out a gene product, abl kinase, that is overly abundant in chronic myelogenous leukemia. The first clinical trial, which began seven years ago, seemed like a long shot.

Fish is protein rich and contains Omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are heart-healthy and may protect against some cancers. But many fish are contaminated, in short supply and endangered through overfishing. Farmed fish is no simple solution. Farmed salmon, for example, contains high levels of PCBs.

Oceans Alive is a non-profit organization offering a list of best and worst seafood choices. Their guide claims to show “which fish are healthy for the oceans” and offers to help consumers “choose fish that are safe to eat.”

Pizza has been accepted as one food which perhaps helps protect men against the risk of prostate cancer in North America.

But according to cancer researchers in Italy, pizza’s home territory, not much information exists about pizza-eating and risk of other sex-hormone related cancers (breast and ovarian).

Nor is much known, these researchers say in an article to be published in February 2006 European Journal of Cancer Prevention, about how pizza eating affects risk of cancer in people beyond the USA.

Using data from 4864 patients and the same number of people without cancer in three hospital-based case-control studies conducted in Italy between 1991 and 2002, they found no strong link.

People who ate one or more slices of pizza a week were counted as “regular eaters.”

“Our results do not show a relevant role of pizza on the risk of sex hormone-related cancers.,” the authors write in their summary. “The difference with selected studies from North America suggests that dietary and lifestyle correlates of pizza eating vary between different populations and social groups.”

An earlier study from this group (European Journal of Cancer Prevention. October 2004.) found that “Regular consumption of pizza, one of the most typical Italian foods, showed a reduced risk of digestive tract cancers. Pizza could however simply be an indicator of a typical Italian diet.”

Blinded by the light: Irofulven chemotherapy trials

By JACQUELINE STRAX December 16, 2005 /PSA Rising/ The chemotherapy drug Irofulven, a drug based on a poison in the jack o’lantern fungi, is in clinical trials in the USA, Canada and Europe for prostate, ovarian, hepatic and other cancers. A surprising side effect is retinal damage.

Higher Vitamin D Daily Dose Could Halve Colon Cancer Risk, UCSD researchers say

December 20, 2005 – Taking 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D 3 daily appears to lower an individual’s risk of developing colorectal cancer by 50 percent, according to cancer prevention specialists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center. Full story

Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.co.uk
Body backs Sanofi’s Taxotere in prostate cancer

LONDON (Reuters) – A cost-effectiveness watchdog said on Friday it was provisionally recommending that Sanofi-Aventis SA’s chemotherapy drug Taxotere should be used to treat prostate cancer on the state health service.

A spokesman for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence said final guidance was likely to be issued around July next year, covering the use of the drug in men with advanced hormone refractory prostate cancer.

Until then, about 800 men in Scotland who could benefit from Taxoterer to releive pain and progression of advanced prostate cancer are on hold. Some of them may die waiting.

“Men with prostate cancer who are initiating ADT have a 5- to 10-fold increased loss of bone density at multiple skeletal sites.” They also lose lean body mass and gain fatty tissue.

Men taking anti-androgen drug therapy to suppress their male hormones are at risk for loss of bone mineral density (BMD) . This puts the men at risk of fractures including of rib, spinal, and/or hip. Until recently, no information was available to patients from the drug manufacturers nor from doctors about how soon after starting after starting on androgen blockade this condition is likely to start.

Forbes has a story this month about a Cox-II inhibitor, Celebrex. While mostly used for arthritis pain, this drug is of high interest to cancer patients as a possible tumor inhibitor (for background on the cancer connection see
Cancer Patients … and Celebrex in Anti-Cancer Trials Nov 2004

Dr. Zvi Fuks, a renowned radiation oncologist, is one of the principal developers of 3-D conformal radiation therapy, a system for delivering radiation that permits precise shaping and targeting of radiotherapy beams. He has worked for many years at MSKCC (memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center).

Last month Dr. Fuks and a friend agreed to pay a total of $2.77 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of insider trading in shares of a pharmaceutical company. The drug involved, ImClone’s Erbitux, was tested in clinical trials at MSKCC. A clinical trial of Erbitux for prostate cancer ran at MSKCC starting in 1996.

By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 – Despite promising discoveries and multibillion-dollar investments, cancer research is quietly undergoing a crisis. Federal drug regulators will soon announce several initiatives that they hope will help salvage the field.

Few drugs are being marketed, and most of those that have been introduced are enormously expensive and provide few of the benefits that patients expect. Officials of the Food and Drug Administration suggest that the failures may result from an obsolete testing system.

There is growing evidence that X-rays, long the standard, may not accurately assess a patient’s disease. The drug agency is creating collaborations to develop imaging, blood and other tests that better signal the progression of cancer.

“We need to develop cancer drugs differently,” the chief operating officer of the agency, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said in an interview. “The tools we have to develop these treatments are not what we need in cancer.”