What You Need To Know News

Women who took calcium and vitamin D supplements developed breast cancer at the same rate as women who didn’t take them, a large clinical trial has found, overturning conclusions from previous studies that hinted at benefits from vitamin D.

The study — part of the massive Women’s Health Initiative — followed more than 36,000 post-menopausal women who were randomly assigned to take calcium and vitamin D supplements to see whether the supplements would make a difference in their incidence of hip fracture. Breast cancer and colorectal cancer were secondary outcomes studied by the researchers.

After about seven years, there were 528 cases of breast cancer in the group of women taking calcium and vitamin D compared with 546 cases in the placebo group — a difference not considered statistically significant. Blood tests for vitamin D levels also showed no correlation with breast cancer rates. Women who were already taking the supplements — about the same number in the supplement group and the placebo group — had been allowed to continue doing so.

“The main findings do not support a causal relationship between calcium and vitamin D supplement use and reduced breast cancer incidence, despite the association observed in some epidemiological studies,” the authors, led by Dr. Rowan T. Chlebowski of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, write in the online version of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “Although further study of relationships among calcium plus vitamin D supplement use and breast cancer can be considered, current evidence does not support their use in any dose to reduce breast cancer risk.”

The study is valuable because it is the first rigorous test of vitamin D that accounts for factors the earlier, observational studies were unable to capture, said Dr. Jennifer A. Ligibel, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Women who take dietary supplements might be healthier than women who don’t, for example. But there are still questions about vitamin D that need to be answered.

“I think this is an important study. It tells us there is absolutely more work that needs to be done on vitamin D,” Ligibel said in an interview. She was not involved in the study. “I do think the study should put a little bit of brakes on people telling people to take huge doses of vitamin D to prevent cancer.”

In an editorial also appearing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Corey Speers and Dr. Powel Brown of Baylor College of Medicine praise the study’s design and execution, but suggest further work to see whether the age of the women, the dose of vitamin D they were taking, the calcium they took with it, and the hormone therapy also being studied might have confounded the results.

“The potential health benefits of vitamin D and calcium may yet still have a bright future,” they write.

Few types of food or their components, from fat to carbohydrates to fruits and vegetables, have turned out to have a proven relationship in the development of breast cancer or its recurrence, with the exception of alcohol, which has been linked to increased risk, said Ligibel of Dana-Farber. She tells her patients about preliminary evidence that a diet high in fat might not be the best.

“I think there is a lot to learn in this area still, but I personally do not counsel my patients that they need to make tremendous dietary changes based on the information available,” she said.
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/11/calcium_plus_vi.html

Some 35,000 men who participated in a major prostate cancer prevention trial are in the process of getting this disheartening—yet not entirely surprising—letter in the mail from the National Cancer Institute. The message: Vitamin E and selenium, long buzzed about for their supposed prostate cancer-fighting properties, have flopped. Flopped hard.

Officials announced this week that they had accumulated enough data to conclude that taking vitamin E or selenium, or even both together, does not prevent prostate cancer. In fact, vitamin E may even slightly increase the risk. Leaders of the trial, called the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial, were also concerned to find that slightly more cases of diabetes arose among men who took selenium. And though officials emphasized to reporters that the increased number of prostate cancer and diabetes cases may have been a coincidence, they aren’t taking any chances. That’s why participants are being told to stop taking the supplements.

I can’t say that I’m shocked. As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, we have been suffering from a certain degree of “vitamania” in the past few decades. Yes, some promising observational studies, which cannot prove cause and effect, done in the late 1980s and 1990s suggested that certain antioxidants, including vitamins A, C, and E, could protect against heart disease, cancer, and other maladies. But it turns out that those original antioxidant studies were misleading, a steady stream of more recent randomized studies that do prove cause and effect have shown. (If you’re interested, New Scientist slogs through some of the disappointing findings on beta carotene, vitamin E, and vitamin C.)

In most instances, the clinical trials have shown that vitamins have no effect and, in some, that they may even cause harm. Still, with the passage of a permissive 1994 law called the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act that allows manufacturers to sell supplements without first proving that they provide health benefits, consumers have been left with a booming supplement industry quick to offer us a slew of supplements for any and every ailment.
Source: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-men/2008/10/28/prostate-cancer-throws-vitamin-e-another-strike.html

Analysis of data from several phase I and II clinical trials of a new cancer vaccine has shown it is capable of eliciting an immune response in most patients with bowel, kidney and prostate cancer, and that it may provide clinical benefit.

In a news briefing at the 20th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Geneva (Thursday 23 October), Dr Richard Harrop, vice-president of clinical immunology at Oxford BioMedica, a UK-based biotechnology company – said: “Our exploratory analyses of data from nine different trials of TroVax® demonstrate significant associations between immune responses and overall survival in patients with colorectal cancer, renal cancer and prostate cancer.

“While it is essential that these observations are confirmed in large, randomised studies, collectively the data suggest that TroVax could provide some clinical benefit to cancer patients. In addition, the data show the vaccine is well tolerated by patients.”

TroVax is made up of a modified virus (Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA)), which acts as a vehicle to transport a second component, a gene that produces an antigen that is present in most solid tumours, called 5T4. TroVax is injected into patients whose solid tumours have the 5T4 tumour antigen present, so that the vaccine can trigger the body’s natural immune responses to mobilise against 5T4.

“The virus acts as both a ‘vehicle’ to deliver the 5T4 antigen and as an ‘adjuvant’, which helps to ensure we stimulate a strong immune response to the 5T4 antigen,” explained Dr Harrop. “Antibody and cellular responses can occur in response to both the viral vector (MVA) and to the 5T4 antigen.”

The analysis, presented at the symposium in Geneva, looked at data from 189 patients who had taken part in nine trials of TroVax in the UK and USA. The patients received an average of five injections (with a range of 1-12), and it was well tolerated by patients when given either on its own or in combination with other anti-cancer treatments. Of 180 patients tested for antibody responses after vaccination, 88% (159) showed positive responses to 5T4 and 98% (176) showed positive responses to MVA.

The highest levels of antibody responses were detected after an average of two vaccinations for the MVA part of the vaccine and after four for 5T4. Dr Harrop said: “This was expected because MVA is a foreign virus which the immune system responds to more quickly than to a ’self antigen’ such as 5T4.”

He continued: “When looking at the results from all the trials (colorectal, renal and prostate cancer patients), the magnitude of the 5T4-specific antibody response was associated with increased patient survival. Indeed, a doubling of the average number of antibodies in the patients between the first and third injections was associated with a reduction in the relative risk of death of 17%. This effect was strongest in colorectal cancer patients.

“Both the magnitude and the frequency of immune responses elicited against our tumour target (5T4) are exceptionally high and could be considered ‘best in class’. Since cancer vaccines rely on the induction of immune responses to be able to work, this is a very important attribute of TroVax.”

Cancer vaccines have been criticised in recent years because they usually fail to live up to their early promise. Apart from the vaccines against cervical cancer and Oncophage™ (vitespen, approved in Russia for the treatment of kidney cancer), there are no other licensed cancer vaccines. Dr Harrop said there were a number of reasons for this, which included the tools used to assess efficacy, the fact that vaccines on their own are more likely to slow disease progression or clear small tumours rather than cause large reductions in tumour burdens, and the fact that they are probably more likely to work in patients with early stage disease but have to be tested in patients with late stage cancer and large tumour burdens.

“To run a trial in patients with early-stage disease is extremely time-consuming and costly and therefore impossible for most small biotech companies. We are fortunate in this matter in that we have backing from a UK consortium (QUASAR) and our partner sanofi-aventis to run a large (over 3000 patients) phase III study in early stage colon cancer patients. Such a large study would normally be out of the question for a company of our size and is a great opportunity to investigate whether there is a survival advantage in patients treated with TroVax,” he said.

“At this stage we can say that the fact we have been able to identify correlations between the anti-tumour (5T4) immune response and clinical benefit (e.g. increased time to disease progression or increased patient survival) in multiple independent trials for several cancers is very encouraging. It gives a strong indication that the immune response we are inducing with TroVax appears to be doing something which is associated with benefit to the patient.”

In addition to the phase III trial in early stage colon cancer patients, the effect of TroVax is being monitored in a current phase III trial of 733 kidney cancer patients. Although a review by the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) in July noted that this study would not meet its pre-defined primary endpoint (overall survival) the DSMB supported continuation of follow-up of the patients.

“We are very hopeful that the ongoing phase III trial in kidney cancer and two planned studies in metastatic colorectal and early stage colon cancer respectively will provide an opportunity to demonstrate that TroVax can provide clinical benefit to patients without the often severe side-effects which are associated with many cancer therapeutics,” concluded Dr Harrop.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023195220.htm

Just three tumour proteins can indicate lung cancer as much as a year before symptoms emerge, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that may lead to a blood test for lung cancer within five years.

They said an analysis of blood samples taken from smokers found three proteins or antigens were present in more than half of the people who later developed lung cancer.

“The fact that we got a signal like this with just three biomarkers is very significant,” Dr. Samir Hanash of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle said in a statement.
“If we can enlarge this panel by adding a few more, we could develop a blood test with sufficient sensitivity and specificity for detecting lung cancer much earlier than current screening methods allow,” said Hanash, whose research appears in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The lung cancer test uses immune-system signals in the same way as blood tests now used to detect human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS. It looks for an immune response.

“What is going on in cancer is the immune system recognizes the presence of tumour antigens as foreign proteins, even though they are made by cancer cells we have in us,” Hanash said in a telephone interview.

“The immune system thinks those are aberrant proteins and it needs to respond against them.”

Hanash wanted to see if three biomarkers linked with early-stage lung cancer could be detected in the blood of people before any symptoms appeared.

The researchers were looking for two previously identified tumour antigens, annexin1 and 14-3-3 theta, as well as a newly discovered lung cancer antigen, LAMR1.

They tested blood samples from

85 current or former smokers collected within a year of lung-cancer diagnosis and samples from 85 current or former smokers who did not develop cancer.

They found three proteins were present in 51 per cent of the people who went on to develop lung cancer.

“This was a critical step to pass to show that, in fact, a set of antigens do show positivity even before a diagnosis of lung cancer, at a time when subjects don’t have any symptoms,” Hanash said.

The next step is to see if the blood test used in conjunction with computed tomography, or CT scans, can boost early diagnosis of lung cancer, perhaps catching cancers the scan missed.

Eventually, the team wants to have a lung cancer blood test approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“That will take maybe five years if every step of the way we are successful,” he said.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men and the second-leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide, according to the American Cancer Society.
Source: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/reallife/story.html?id=3449a6b8-95a7-426f-8bc5-7379ddbe85f5

A National Institute of Cancer study shows the number of melanoma cases among young women is up by 50 percent since 1980.

Local dermatologists think part of the reason is behavioral.

62,000 people develop melanoma every year, while 8,000 die annually. That breaks down to just about one person every hour.

Dr. Ramsay Farah isn’t surprised more young women are getting skin cancer. Women spend more time outside in the sun – and more time inside, under the bulbs - than men.

“No one in their right mind should think sun exposure and tanning booth exposure isn’t linked to an increase in melanoma risks,” Farah says.

Kay Merini owns Body and Sol Tanning Studio in Manlius; she admits that tanning isn’t good, but she insists doing it in a controlled environment is much better than doing it outside.

“We go through a whole question process - about coloring, [whether] they burn, have they been tanning, things like that,” Merini says.

The bulbs are changed based on how many hours they have on them. They warn customers and take that into account when determining how long you can tan.

The goal is to get the best tan possible, with the least amount of exposure. Dermatologists don’t buy it. Dr. Farah says even if it’s controlled, 10 minutes a day outside in indirect sun is all you need.

The study also found an increasing trend for thicker and later-stage melanomas, which suggests the increase is not the result of better reporting of the disease.
Source: http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=af302ed7-623a-40e1-b945-fa464affc091

WOMEN as young as 18 could have a simple mouth swab to determine how likely they are to develop breast cancer but doctors warn the results could cause serious psychological stress and would not identify all women at risk.

The test, being developed at the University of Cambridge, would tell if a woman was carrying any of seven newly found genes linked to breast cancer. It would also test for the two high-risk genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, discovered a decade ago.

The researchers said women deemed high-risk could be advised to have regular mammograms or choose to have their breasts removed. Those not carrying any of the genes could wait until the age of 60 before having screening.

Their findings were published in the New England Journal Of Medicine yesterday, less than a week after Jane McGrath, the wife of the cricketer Glenn McGrath, lost her 11-year battle with breast cancer on Sunday at the age of 42.

Since her death, the national screening program, BreastScreen Australia, has been inundated with inquiries. It was also flooded with calls from anxious women after the singer Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago and the actress Belinda Emmett died of the disease in 2006.

The executive director of the NSW Breast Cancer Institute, John Boyages, said yesterday that, while advances in diagnosis were welcome, the mouth swab should be treated with caution.

“They have now found seven genes linked to breast cancer but there could be 27 that we don’t know about yet, so it gives women false reassurance,” Professor Boyages said. “And what does a 20-year-old girl do when she tests positive? Takes both her breasts off?”

The director of the Cancer Epidemiology Centre at the Cancer Council Victoria, Professor Graham Giles, said the research was reputable but the test was not foolproof, and it could scare people unnecessarily.

“There are women who will be deemed high-risk and will never develop breast cancer and there will be women deemed low-risk who will get breast cancer because genes are not the only determinants of cancer,” he said.
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/caution-on-breast-cancer-predictor/2008/06/26/1214472673459.html

It appears that breast awareness may be your best way to fight breast cancer. This comes after a new study by the Cochrane Library Review revealed that breast self-examinations do not help reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer.

The study carried out by the Cochrane Library focused on two large population-based studies of around 400,000 women in China and Russia.

It found that the practice of routine breast self-examination did not help in the fight against breast cancer, as the number of deaths were not reduced.

The American Cancer Society has stated that over 180,000 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and the best way to fight it is to have breast awareness, and knowledge.

Knowledge is key, as it is important to know risk factors such as gender, aging, family history, personal history, race, etc.

The report released has shown that having a routine mammogram test may be your best bet, as well as routine check-ups with a medical professional.
Source: http://chattahbox.com/health/2008/07/21/breast-awareness-appears-to-be-most-important-in-cancer-fight/

New research suggests that obesity may raise older adults’ risk of developing pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease.

The study, by researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, found that men and women who were severely obese were 45 percent more likely than normal-weight adults to develop pancreatic cancer over five years.

Abdominal obesity, in particular, was linked to a higher risk of the disease among women, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to catch early, and 95 percent of patients die within five years of being diagnosed. Because of this dismal prognosis, researchers consider it particularly important to pinpoint the modifiable risk factors for the disease.

Smoking is one such risk factor. Some studies have also implicated obesity and physical inactivity in contributing to pancreatic cancer, possibly because of their association with type 2 diabetes.

In type 2 diabetes, the body loses its sensitivity to the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin, which is produced by the pancreas; this leads to persistently high levels of insulin in the body. Insulin has growth-promoting effects, and it’s thought that too much of the hormone may encourage pancreatic tumor cells to grow and spread.

In the current study, the relationship between obesity and pancreatic cancer weakened somewhat when the researchers factored in diabetes.

This suggests that diabetes is one reason obesity is linked to pancreatic cancer, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon.

“Our results, as well as those of others, may have important implications for cancer prevention particularly related to the avoidance of obesity,” the researchers write.
The findings are based on data collected from more than 300,000 U.S. adults who were cancer-free and between the ages of 50 and 71 at the outset. Over roughly five years, 654 developed pancreatic cancer.

In general, the risk of the cancer climbed in tandem with body mass index, a measure of weight in relation to height. Severely obese study participants were at greatest risk. Among women, the odds of developing pancreatic cancer also increased along with waist size.

There was no relationship, however, between the disease and physical activity levels. Going into the study, the researchers note, they had hypothesized that regular exercise would lower the risk of pancreatic cancer — given that it helps manage weight and type 2 diabetes.

It’s possible, they write, that the study did not precisely measure people’s activity levels, and more research is needed to see whether or not exercise helps reduce pancreatic risk.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTON28275720080312?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Patrick Swayze’s battle against pancreatic cancer will be a difficult one, as survival rates for the disease are low, according to estimated figures from a cancer charity.

Cancer Research estimates that, of the 7,400 people diagnosed with a pancreatic tumour each year, only about 3% of people are still alive five years later.

The pancreas, which lies across the body at the bottom of the breastbone, behind the stomach, produces digestive juices, insulin and other hormones that aid digestion.

Pancreatic cancer is the UK’s 10th most common form of cancer, excluding non-malignant skin cancer.
It mainly affects older people, with 63% of cases diagnosed in those over 70, and tends to strike in men and women equally.

Smoking is known to significantly raise the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, with up to a third of diagnoses related to it. Scientists believe nitrosamines, carcinogenic chemicals found in cigarette smoke, may be the cause.

Diet, alcohol consumption, being overweight and inactive are all thought to increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

Doctors think their may be some genetic link in up to one in 10 cases of the disease, but the vast majority of pancreatic cancer cases do not run in families.

Common symptoms of pancreatic cancer include jaundice, back or abdominal pain, weight loss and loss of appetite. These can vary depending on the form of cancer and where in the pancreas the cancer is located.

Rarer types of cancer - endocrine pancreatic tumours - can lead to hormones being produced.

If the cancer is contained within the pancreas, treatment for the disease may include surgery.

But in many cases, if the cancer has spread, surgery can be used only to relieve symptoms, and remove blockages in the digestive system. Radiotherapy may be used to shrink the tumour, and chemotherapy is often used after surgery or as the first treatment in advanced cases.

Overall, pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis. Often the disease can be quite advanced by the time a patient notices symptoms, goes to a doctor and cancer is diagnosed.

Only about 15-20% of pancreatic cancers diagnosed are suitable for surgery, and only 10 to 15 of every 100 people diagnosed are still alive a year later.

Screening for pancreatic cancer is currently only given to people over 40 with hereditary pancreatitis, and some people with a high incidence of pancreatic cancer in the family.
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3497282.ece

Nearly 10,000 Texans — a population that would fill up two-thirds of the SBC Center — will be diagnosed with colon cancer this year. Those people will be men and women; whites, blacks and Hispanics; rich and poor.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 3,000 of our Texas friends and neighbors will die in 2008 from colon cancer, despite the fact that it is one of the most preventable and curable forms of cancer.

The fact that this highly curable cancer is the second leading cancer killer in the United States indicates that many people are not taking the simple preventive steps that could save their lives. If you are over 50 and have not been screened for colon cancer, you may be taking an unnecessary risk.

Many individuals with a family history of colon cancer will need to start screening at a younger age. Hispanics and African Americans should also consider being tested earlier. And, despite the myth, colon cancer is not simply a man’s disease — it strikes men and women equally.

Unfortunately, less than half the population aged 50 and older has been screened. Early detection and treatment of colon cancer can reduce the number of deaths by up to 90 percent.

When polyps are detected and removed, lives are saved. In the time it takes you to get your car washed this spring, you could receive a painless and potentially life-saving colonoscopy.

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. On behalf of the American College of Gastroenterology, we ask you to take the first step in preventing this deadly disease: Ask your doctor about colorectal cancer screening.
Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA030908.02O.Comment_Bay.201bbdd.html