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Asia's Cancer Rise Spectacularly by 2020

SINGAPORE - The number of cancer cases in Asia is set to increase spectacularly by 2020 due largely to longer life lengths and changing daily life’s, threatening a health crisis as poorer countries in the region fight to afford care.

A fast-growing populace coupled with public living longer and undergoing extreme transforms to diet and lifestyle will place a main burden on developing countries that cannot afford screening, vaccines and expensive treatment, experts said at the start of a two-day conference in Singapore.

"Many believe that cancer is somehow only a problem of affluent and aging societies. That's not true, of course," said Richard Horton editor and publisher of The Lancet medical journal, which is supporting the conference.

Others believe "cancer is somehow inevitable, that one is predisposed to it genetically. Again, that's not true. Forty percent of cancers can be stopped by simple changes in lifestyle."

Cancer of the lungs, stomach and liver are the greatest troubles in Asia followed by breast and colon cancers. The total number of new cancer cases in the area is projected to balloon from 4.5 million in 2002 to 7.1 million in 2020 if nothing changes.

Worldwide, there are 11 million new cancer cases accounted annually and 7 million citizens die from the disease every year, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

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Cannabis Still Prohibited for Medical Purpose

California - Angel Raich who suffering various disease complication, seems, have to be patient. The struggle to get the cannabis use legalization for her disease medication spragged by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Thereby, Angel Raich threatened to be under arrest when use the cannabis.

According to doctor, Raich suffer assorted of disease, like scoliosis (a kind backbone trouble), brain tumor, and other complication. The doctor even cannot handle it. The only way which can be done to lessen the pain feel is by asking her to consume the cannabis. Whether by eating it directly or smoke it like cigarette.

Because the condition is too bad, woman which live in the Oakland, part of California State, US, have to consume the cannabis every two our. Because wishing to avoid the arrest, Raich raise the cannabis rights legalization to use as drug. , unhappily its step always fail. In 2005, Court of Appeals refuse its request. Raich also appellate and the justice court return to refuse it.

Three judge who lead the justice court have time to different opinion. But, they decide to hold on to the 1970 Federal Regulation which prohibit the cannabis use for the medication. Federal government of US give the statement, cannabis no advantage for the medical purpose. In consequence, those who use or supply the Cannabis have to be punished. But, in 11 US state , include California, deciding that cannabis may be use for the medical purpose with doctor observation.

Because its legal effort have failed, the only one Raich expectation is to lobbying the parliamentarian to alter the 1970 Federal Regulation.

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Keep Main Cell for the Future

Bangkok - The parent in Thailand have new way to mark they baby birth, they keep the main cell which is taken from newborn placenta. The the main cell can be use for all kinds of disease medication .

But the facility its only useful for a rich parent. Because the cost reach THB 130.000 (about $4000). While for the stock holding cost, every year the baby parent have to pay for THB 20.ooo- 30.000 ($500- $900).

According to Kostas Papadopoulus, head operational of Thai Stem Life ( TSL), medical bank that referred as biggest main cell bank in South-East Asia own by Thailand & Malaysia merger company, keep the main cell is equal with invesment of future health. " If the child suffer by leukemia or cancer, the parent unnecessary to wait for main cell donor . Enough to use themselves main cell. with that way, there will be no deduction risk from body," he said.

Latter, the scientist find that main cell could developed to change the part body damage . Research of main cell often trigger the controversy of because the main cell is taken from embryo (foetus). But, the main cell also can be obtained from baby placenta. Its condition, placenta have to be processed as tardy as five minute after exit from mother womb.

To get the mains cell, doctor use the special needle to take the blood from placenta. Afterwards, the blood processed and taken from the mains cell, then freezed and kept in liquid nitrogen tube.

TSL founded di 2005 by about 30 doctor in several Bangkok hospital. They adopt the similar system which applied by Malaysia since five year ago. Up to now there is 12 thousand family are keep the main cell in the bank. One-Third are the family of Europe or America which live in Thailand.

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Radiotherapy Lengthen the Life Hope

Cancer Patient from year to year progressively mount. Various effort also conducted to heal this disease, one of them is with the radiotherapy. Especial action which conducted to Continue Level of patient.

Data from International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC) estimate that at 2030, cancer number will mount from 11 million becoming 27 million patient. 17 million people among them will end in death. While in this time, about seven million people suffer because of cancer.

This number its true enough to concerned about. Growth population of patient in some country caused by the lack of comprehensive handling. Start from prevention till patient handling. Can be guessed, amount of cancer patient that dying because the effect of action delay are still big enough.

" Although we are all agreing about the cancer prevention become the effective solution, comprehensive handling like diagnosed and treatment become the important requirement, especially radiotherapy," said head of IAEA ( International Atomic Energy Agency) Programme Of Action for of Cancer Therapy (PACT), Massaoud Samiei.

A research confirm that radiotherapy use at patient of breast cancer will make the patient living on can be longer. Patient who getting radition treatment will experience the risk degradation until 50% after observation in ten years become.

" Result of this research suggest clinic and patient to chose the adjuvant radiotherapy to overcome the disease," said Samiei.

Radiotherapy use radiation to kill the cancer cell or hurt the cells so its cannot split or self multiply. Radiotherapy applicable to primary cancer or symptom which is resulted from a extended or metafisis cancer.

If curative is not possible, radiotherapy can be given to control the patient of continue level cancer during some times. The Main target is to make the cancer progressively minimize and discontinue from spreading.

If cannot control the growth of cancer cell, radiation target is to lessen the symptom of cancer cell like painfulness. " Than Expected the quality of patient life can mount after experiencing radiotherapy process. The target of radiation named paliatif," he said.

Others, radiotherapy is conducted after especial treatment to discontinue the growth of cancer cell which possible remained.

He enhance , radiation is avalaible in two source, that is nature and generator. Source from nature ordinary weared by Cobalt 60. As for generator awakened by strong electron. Radiotherapy only effected in area network of radiation treatment.

Radiation do not make painfulness, do not generate smell, or feel the radiation. After experiencing the overall of radiotherapy process, patient will take counsel with the doctor and possibly will be asked to do some test or inspection.

Succeeding Mount from radiotherapy use depended from goals which wish to reached. Radiation target will minimize or eliminate the tumor itself.

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Sport Reduce Cancer Risk

CHICAGO - Sport with the high movement intensity like swimming, aerobik, and run in the reality can reduce the risk of woman breast cancer. Even not sure how often or heavy sport must be done, study of health body growth conducted to a number of participle prove that heavy motion activity can degrade that risk.

Team from University of Southern California in Los Angeles say, practice or sport possible lessen the cancer risk through change in metabolism and system of antibody by reduce body fat increase.

The study contained in Archives of Internal Medicine entangle 110.599 woman as participle in California which its health history is traced since 1995.

Woman which join in heavy motion activity during more than five our in one week experience 20% risk reduce for the patient of invasive breast cancer and 31% at first level breast cancer, compared to a woman which only do less than 30 minute in one week
Until 2002, there are 2.649 woman diagnosed by invasive breast cancer, and 593 woman with first level breast cancer.

The study is conducted especially to see the cumulative influence from heavy sport or practice compare to risk incured by a breast cancer. Before diagnosed by a breast cancer, the girls who become participle in this study only do a little practice or sport.

"Result of the study accompanied by evidence addition that supporting prevention through heavy physical activity, but fun on a long term, to invasive cancer risk and also first level breast cancer. Influence profit from standart activity still unclear," conclude that research.

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Millions of US Women Infected with HPV

Infections with human papillomavirus, or HPV, are more common among US women than previously suspected, according to new estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Nearly 25 million women ages 14-59 are likely infected with some form of HPV, the agency reports. Of those, more than 3 million are thought to have one of the 4 strains known to cause most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts. These are the same strains targeted by the recently approved vaccine Gardasil.

Gardasil was approved in June 2006. Federal vaccine officials recommended it be given routinely to girls at age 11 or 12, and said it could be given to girls as young as age 9 under certain circumstances. The American Cancer Society recently issued similar recommendations.

Vaccinating girls at this young age will help make sure they are protected against this very common sexually transmitted virus before they become sexually active, say health officials. The vaccine isn't likely to be as effective in people who have already been infected with one of the strains it targets.

The new estimates of HPV infections give researchers a baseline to measure just how effective the vaccine and the vaccination strategy are, the CDC researchers say. Infections Decline With Age

The numbers were pulled from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2004, a yearly study of US health conducted through interviews and medical exams. More than 2,000 women and girls who were taking part provided a vaginal swab, which was tested for HPV. The researchers used infections in the participants to estimate how many women in the general US population are infected.

HPV infection was most common among 20-24-year-olds; nearly 45% had some strain of the virus (the researchers tested for about 43 strains that can be found in the genital region). About 25% of girls 14-19 were infected. Those figures included some who said they were not sexually active. When the researchers looked only at women who said they were sexually active, nearly 50% of 20-24-year olds and 40% of 14-19-year-olds had some type of HPV infection.

Estimates of infection in those 2 age groups were higher than ones from previous surveys and studies, the researchers say. HPV infections became less common as women aged; fewer than 20% of women in their 50s were infected.

Most of the women had types of HPV that are not considered high-risk -- that is, they are not known to cause cervical cancer. Overall, about 2% of women were infected with HPV types 16 or 18 -- the types most strongly linked to cancer.

Not every woman who has one of these HPV types will develop cancer, however. In most cases, the body is able to clear the infection before it ever causes any problems. Screening with Pap tests is the best way to catch dangerous changes in the cervix before they become cancer.

www.cancer.org

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Drug helps fight brain tumors, study finds

WASHINGTON - Avastin, one of a new family of drugs that starves tumors of their blood supply, can slow the growth of the most common and deadly form of brain cancer, researchers reported on Monday.

Avastin combined with standard chemotherapy could temporarily stop the growth of brain tumors known as gliomas, the researchers reported in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

Made by Genentech under the chemical name bevacizumab, Avastin is currently approved to treat lung and colorectal cancers.

“These results are exciting because of the possible implications for a patient population that currently has the poorest possible prognosis going into treatment — those with malignant brain tumors that have recurred after initial treatment,” said Dr. James Vredenburgh of Duke University, who led the study.

Vredenburgh’s team tested Avastin in 32 patients with stage III or stage IV cancer.

When they added Avastin to the more standard chemotherapy drug irinotecan, the combination either shrank the tumors or restricted their growth in nearly all the patients, the researchers found.

They said 63 percent of the patients had their tumors shrink by at least 50 percent and the tumors did not start to grow again for at least six months in 38 percent.

Vredenburgh said chemotherapy usually slows the growth of gliomas for just six weeks to three months.

Life expectancy after diagnosis of a stage IV glioma — the most aggressive type — is eight to 15 months, Vredenburgh said. People with slightly less aggressive stage III glioma live between 16 months and two years on average.

An estimated 18,000 people are diagnosed with gliomas in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

They are difficult to treat because many drugs cannot reach the brain.

“When the tumor recurs after treatment, there are no standard therapies,” Vredenburgh said. “This study may lead to options where there previously were none.”

www.reuters.com

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American Cancer Society gets $10 million gift

ATLANTA - A drug company is pledging $10 million to The American Cancer Society — one of the largest gifts in the organization’s history — to help provide one-on-one support for cancer patients in U.S. hospitals, the organization announced Wednesday.

The unusual gift is from AstraZeneca PLC, an international pharmaceutical company.

It’s earmarked for a program that stations specially-trained Cancer Society employees in 60 hospitals and cancer treatment centers. The “navigators” guide patients to social and emotional support, transportation, medical and financial assistance services.

The gift will allow the program to expand to 50 more locations in medically underserved areas, said Nancy Single, the Cancer Society’s vice president for mission strategy.

The Atlanta-based Cancer Society, founded in 1913, receives just under $1 billion in gifts and grants each year. Less than 2 percent of that comes from drug companies, she said.

The largest single gift to date was a $13 million unrestricted estate bequest in 2005, from an undisclosed donor. AstraZeneca’s is the second largest gift, and is the biggest from a corporation.

AstraZeneca, based in London, had health care sales of more than $26 billion last year. The company developed the popular breast cancer drug tamoxifen, and makes about a half-dozen other breast and prostate cancer medications.

Last year, the company gave $7 million to help the Cancer Society develop a Hope Lodge in Boston. AstraZeneca has been looking for important ways to work with the Cancer Society to help patients, said Lisa Schoenberg, the company’s vice president of specialty care.

“There’s probably few ways we could have as big of an impact across the nation with these important institutions and these important patients and their families,” she said.

www.ap.org

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Mentally ill more likely to die from heart disease, not cancer: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The severely mentally ill are more likely to die from heart and circulatory problems than is the general population, said a British study.


However, chances of developing cancer are not higher for the severely mentally ill than in the population at large, according to the study, conducted in Britain and published in the February issue of the US publication Archives of General Psychiatry.

The side effects of anti-psychotic drugs, smoking, lifestyles and poverty all take their tolls on the health of the mentally ill.

The study shows that the severely mentally ill age 18-49 are 3.22 as likely to die from heart problems and 2.53 times as likely to die from a stroke than those enjoying mental heath.

The study followed 46,136 persons suffering from mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, bi-polar and delusional disorders, as well as 300,426 mentally healthy persons.

The research compared the death rates of the two groups from circulatory illnesses and from the seven most frequent cancers in Britain: respiratory, colorectal, breast, prostate, stomach, esophageal and pancreatic.

"We chose to study death rates rather than incidence rates, because mortality is the most robust outcome since it includes diagnoses made postmortem," wrote the study's lead author David Osborn of the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London.

For the 50-75 age group, the chance for the severely mentally ill of dying from circulatory problems is 1.86 times greater for heart problems and 1.89 times greater for stroke.

Even when researchers adjusted for the effects of smoking and poverty, increased cardiovascular threat remained.

Researchers found that use of anti-psychotic medicines was a notable factor, and risk rose with the dosages prescribed.

"People with severe mental illness who were not prescribed any anti-psychotics were at increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke than controls, whereas those prescribed such agents were at even greater risk," the authors write.

"Those receiving the higher doses were at greatest risk for death from both coronary heart disease and stroke," the study said.

Researchers said caring for the mentally ill frequently overlooks other, non-mental illnesses.

"Clinically, a holistic approach to the care of people with severe mental illness is still frequently overlooked," they wrote.

www.afp.com

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Revlimid May Help Against Chronic Leukemia

Summary: The drug Revlimid (lenalidomide) may be effective for some people with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) that has not responded to other treatments or comes back after treatment, according to a small Phase 2 study. If the results hold true in larger clinical trials, Revlimid may prove to be another option for patients who otherwise have few treatments left to try.

Why it's important: CLL is considered an incurable form of cancer. Although many people live for many years with this disease, it does eventually come back after treatment. There are not many treatments that work in this situation, especially if people have already been treated with the chemotherapy drug fludarabine. Patients need more effective ways to tackle CLL after their initial treatments.

What's already known: Revlimid was approved in 2005 to treat a type of bone marrow disorder called myelodysplastic syndrome. It has also shown promise against multiple myeloma, another type of bone marrow cancer. In lab studies, the drug appears to decrease the production of substances that help CLL cells survive, and to encourage the leukemia cells to die through a natural process called apoptosis. Those studies prompted the researchers, from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, to try Revlimid in patients with CLL. They published their findings in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

How this study was done: The study included 45 people who had not responded to their CLL treatment or who had had a relapse after successful treatment. Most had been diagnosed with stage III or IV leukemia and were therefore considered high-risk patients. Participants took a Revlimid pill once a day. Treatment continued until the patients showed a response or had unacceptable side effects. Patients whose cancer progressed during treatment were given the drug Rituxan (rituximab) in addition to Revlimid.

What was found: Of the patients in whom a response could be measured, four (9%) had a complete response (no evidence of remaining disease) and 17 (38%) had a partial response to the Revlimid treatment. One patient died, and 3 saw their disease progress.

The Revlimid caused some side effects, including fatigue, low platelet counts, and low white cell counts. Two patients developed serious blood clots in the lungs. More than half of the participants in the study also experienced a flare reaction, which is a sudden swelling of the lymph nodes or spleen accompanied by fever and rash. This side effect was treated with ibuprofen. Patients who enrolled in the study later were given prednisone to make the flare reaction less severe if it did develop.

The bottom line: Although the researchers are concerned by the high percentage of side effects with the dose used in this study, they say Revlimid warrants further study in people with CLL. Future studies should explore different doses of Revlimid, and try combining Revlimid with other drugs that are effective against CLL (like Rituxan and the chemotherapy drug fludarabine), they say.

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News confirms suspicions of breast cancer survivor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Diane Balma felt vindicated when she heard the news -- Canadian researchers had discovered that women with dense breasts, making their mammograms difficult to read, had a far higher risk of cancer.

They found that women with the densest breasts had four to six times the risk of breast cancer compared with women with the fattiest, and easiest-to-image, breasts.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Norman Boyd of the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto and colleagues said breast density itself could be a risk factor for breast cancer.

The other risk factors include having a close relative with breast cancer, carrying one of the known BRCA breast cancer genes and never having borne a child.

Balma had none of the other risk factors, but was worried when she felt a lump in her breast 11 years ago at age 30.

"I wasn't doing self-exams at the time," said Balma, who is now director of public policy at the non-profit Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. "I just happened to come upon it. It was quite large and pretty deep."

She went immediately for a mammogram -- not a routine recommendation for women under 40, but Balma was worried.

"It did not show on the mammogram," said Balma in a telephone interview. She had dense breasts, which show up on an X-ray like a white mass of tissue. Tumors in fatty breasts usually show up more clearly.

Her radiologist, a doctor who specializes in reading X-rays such as mammograms and other scans, was not especially worried but ordered an ultrasound.

"I was relatively small-breasted. Even so, he was barely able to find it on the ultrasound," Balma said. "When he did see it, his words to me were, 'You know, you are too young. I wouldn't worry about this. I am sure it is not cancer."'

But it was.

LIFE-SAVING DECISION

"I decided to have it removed and it was a decision that saved my life," Balma said. Her surgeon discovered a very large tumor that turned out to be an aggressive type of cancer.

Balma eventually had both breasts removed and endured six rounds of chemotherapy. She has been cancer-free for 11 years.

"I have always known that dense breast tissue makes breast cancer harder to detect. But I also wondered if it brought a greater risk of breast cancer," Balma said.

The Canadian study, published on Thursday, appeared to confirm that.

Breast cancer will be found in 180,510 men and women in 2007 in the United States alone and will kill 40,900, according to the
American Cancer Society. Globally, it affects 1.2 million people a year.

The deaths are almost exclusively in people whose cancer is found too late, and young women under 40 make up about 5 percent of that number. Most cases are in women past menopause.

Mammograms are only recommended for women who know they are at high risk, and for women over the age of 40. How would a younger women such as Balma even know she had dense breasts and thus perhaps have a higher risk?

"That is a question that has not been answered yet," said Dr. Cheryl Perkins, senior clinical adviser at the Foundation.

"We need more study of breast cancer in young women. We comprise far fewer breast cancers but our tumors tend to be more aggressive and more deadly," said Balma.

Perkins agreed. Younger women have fewer treatment options, she said. "Those types of breast cancer tend to metastasize (spread) early. They tend to metastasize to the brain," Perkins said.

Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

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Good News ... And Lots of Questions

It was big news this week when researchers from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston reported that breast-cancer rates dropped after millions of women stopped taking hormone therapy to relieve menopausal symptoms. But does that mean that these hormones (basically estrogen and sometimes a progestin) actually cause breast cancer? That’s the provocative question raised by the study. The researchers found an overall 7 percent decline in breast-cancer incidence in 2003, a year after a major study of hormonescalled the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) was halted early because of increased breast cancer and heart disease among participants. The steepest decline, 12 percent, occurred in the number of women diagnosed with a kind of breast cancer that is especially sensitive to hormones.

Another recent study, by researchers in California, echoes these findings. Christina Clarke, an epidemiologist at the Northern California Cancer Center, and her colleagues found that breast-cancer rates in California dropped even more steeply after the WHI—12 percent fewer in 2003 and 2004. Clarke attributes the difference to the fact that California women were more likely to use hormones than women in other states. “We rarely see changes this dramatic over such a short time period,” Clarke says.

But while the connection may seem clear, researchers caution that they really won’t understand the meaning of the drop until they see national numbers for 2004, which are expected next spring, and analyze these and other statistics more carefully. Scientists need to know whether there’s a difference in breast-cancer rates between women who’ve been on hormone therapy and those who haven’t and what happens to former hormone users years after they quit. It’s possible that stopping hormone therapy merely slowed the growth of tumors that will eventually emerge—which means breast-cancer rates could rise again. Without all that data, the current numbers show only an association, not causation, says Marcia Stefanick, chair of the WHI steering committee and a professor of medicine at Stanford University.

Doctors who treat menopausal women say the new numbers shouldn’t be the only basis for a decision on whether or not to use hormones. “This isn’t a cause for alarm,” says Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of the Division of Preventative Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It has been known for a while that estrogen plus progestin increases the risk of breast cancer.” But, she adds, that shouldn’t necessarily stop women with severe symptoms from using low-dose hormones for two or three years. “I think it underscores the importance of looking at your personal risk factors for breast cancer and cardiovascular disease,” says Manson, author of “Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health,” “and whether the benefits are likely to outweigh the risks.”

That emphasis on balancing risks and benefits is an important legacy of the WHI, says Clarke. “I think we’re really moving into an era in science where medicine is going to become personalized. It really depends on you and how bad your symptoms are and what your personal risk is for breast cancer. Do you have a history? Have you been diagnosed with a benign breast tumor before? I think you have to put all those things together with your doctor to come up with a decision.”

Since the WHI, pharmaceutical companies have begun offering many more different forms and dosages of hormone therapy—not just pills, but also lotions, patches and local therapy for symptoms like vaginal dryness. All these give women many more choices. But researchers say that if you do take hormones, it’s important to reconsider that decision regularly with your doctor—at least once a year if not more. “We don’t know how long you can go before your risk exceeds some benefits,” says Brenda K. Edwards, associate director of the surveillance research program at the National Cancer Institute. “Women and their physicians need to keep that in mind.” When it comes to hormone therapy, about the only thing that’s certain is that we need more information.

Barbara Kantrowitz
newsweek

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Cancer Survivors: Watch Weight, Eat Right, Exercise

Getting to a healthy weight, exercising, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables are just as important for cancer survivors as for people who've never had the disease, according to a new guide released by the American Cancer Society.
"Nutrition and Physical Activity During and After Cancer Treatment" is designed to help survivors make smart food and activity choices so they can feel better during treatment and perhaps reduce their risk of the cancer coming back.

"Living a healthy lifestyle is especially important for cancer survivors because they may be at increased risk for other cancers, heart disease, and diabetes," said Colleen Doyle, MS, RD, director of nutrition and physical activity at ACS and first author of the new guide. "These recommendations provide survivors with the most up-to-date information on how eating well, being active, and maintaining a healthy weight can not only improve their health, but their quality of life as well."

Healthy Weight and Diet Important

Weight is one of the most important factors for cancer survivors -- and being too thin is sometimes as much of a concern as being too heavy.

Many cancers and cancer treatments can cause changes in eating patterns (because of side effects like nausea or vomiting, changes to taste and smell, or mouth irritation that makes eating painful) that can lead to drastic weight loss and even malnutrition. Overweight patients may have more complications from certain treatments and may also have a higher risk of cancer recurrence.

For these reasons, the guide recommends getting survivors to a healthy weight and helping them stay there. Nutritionists who specialize in cancer nutrition can help those who are too thin find ways to eat enough and get the nutrients they need. Likewise, they can help survivors who need to lose weight do so safely, even during treatment.

Eating lots of fruits and vegetables is key to getting to a healthy weight, the guide says. There hasn't been much research looking at whether these foods can keep cancer from coming back; still, eating at least 5 servings of vegetables and fruits each day has other health benefits that can help cancer survivors. Whole grains also have important nutritional benefits.

Cancer survivors should cut back on sugar and fat, the guide says, and stick with low-fat protein choices like fish, poultry, lean meat, and beans. A vegetarian diet can be healthy but isn't necessary.

Cancer survivors may also benefit from taking a multivitamin that provides about 100% of the daily requirement of essential vitamins and minerals, the guide says. However, the authors caution against taking high doses of any vitamin, especially antioxidants. That's because it's possible that high doses may interfere with treatment or have other unforeseen consequences. The guide says survivors should talk with their doctor about any supplements they want to take.

Focus on Food Safety

Whatever they eat, cancer survivors need to pay special attention to food safety, especially during treatment, when their immune system may not be in top form. Germs that may not harm a healthy person could make someone with a compromised immune system very sick.

It's important to wash hands thoroughly before cooking or eating. Raw fruits and vegetables also need to be washed carefully, as do knives, cutting boards, or other tools that come in contact with raw meat. For some people, it may be best not to eat raw foods at all.

Store foods at cold temperatures to keep bacteria from growing, and cook meat, poultry, and seafood thoroughly to kill any bacteria they may harbor. The guide also recommends staying away from restaurant foods that could be sources of harmful bacteria: salad bars, sushi, and raw or undercooked meat, fish, shellfish, poultry, and eggs.
Most Survivors Should Exercise

Exercise is another essential part of keeping cancer survivors healthy. Physical activity can improve anxiety, mood, and depression, boost self esteem, and relieve fatigue in survivors.

Those who can should strive to get 30-60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity on 5 or more days a week -- the same amount of exercise recommended for the general public for cancer prevention. Survivors who weren't active before diagnosis may want to consult with an exercise specialist for personalized recommendations on how much to do and how often to do it.

However, there are some situations that survivors need to watch out for, the guide notes. For instance, people with anemia (low red blood cell counts) may need to wait to exercise until it is under control. People treated with radiation should avoid swimming pools to prevent irritation from the chlorine; those with permanent catheters should keep out of pools to avoid bacterial infection in the catheter. These survivors also need to be careful not to dislodge the catheter by strenuous lifting.

The guide lists specific recommendations for some of the most common types of cancer including breast, colorectal, lung, prostate, and head and neck cancer, as well as blood cancers and those treated with stem cell or bone marrow transplants. It also answers questions about specific foods and nutrients.

The full guide is published in the ACS journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians

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Weight gain linked to prostate cancer death

NEW YORK - Excess weight may not raise a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer, but it may make him more likely to die of the disease, researchers reported Monday.

In a study of nearly 288,000 U.S. men, researchers found that obese men were actually less likely than their thinner counterparts to develop prostate cancer during the five-year study period.

However, the heavier a man was, the greater his risk of dying from the disease.

Dr. Margaret Wright and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute report the findings in the journal Cancer.

Past studies have come to conflicting conclusions about the role of excess weight in prostate cancer. While some have suggested that increased weight is a risk factor for the disease, most have found no relationship.

The new study followed 287,760 men 50 to 71 starting in 1995. At the outset, the men completed a questionnaire about their overall health, diet and lifestyle habits, height and weight.

Over the next five years, 9,986 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Severely obese men had the lowest risk of developing the disease.

When it came to prostate cancer deaths, however, the risk climbed in tandem with a man’s weight. Overweight men were 25 percent more likely than thin men to die, while obese men were 46 percent more likely.

Similarly, the amount of weight a man gained through adulthood was unrelated to his prostate cancer risk. But greater weight gain was linked to a higher risk of death from the disease.

According to the researchers, hormones might help explain why excess fat would be linked to prostate cancer death, but not development. Obesity lowers levels of testosterone, which helps fuel prostate cancer, so excess weight may help prevent the disease in the first place.

On the other hand, Wright and her colleagues explain, heavy men have higher levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 and leptin — two hormones that may aid the progression of tumors. So once an overweight man develops prostate cancer, it may be more likely to prove fatal.

The findings, they conclude, suggest that prostate cancer progression could be added to list of health consequences of obesity.

www.reuters.com

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Two new drugs slow growth of kidney cancer

BOSTON - Two new drugs developed by Bayer AG , Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Pfizer Inc. help slow the growth of the most common form of kidney cancer, two studies published by the companies said Wednesday.

The biotech drugs, called Sutent and Nexavar, “are a major step forward in our struggle against kidney cancer,” said Dr. James Brugarolas of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

“Both (drugs) delay the growth of kidney cancer by three to six months,” Brugarolas wrote in a commentary on the results, to be published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

About 30,000 cases of renal cell carcinoma, involving the outer cells of the kidney, are diagnosed in the United States each year. It is responsible for up to 90 percent of all kidney cancers, and accounts for 1.5 percent of cancer deaths.

Patients typically survive for just a year.

Interleukin-2 and interferon alfa are often given to treat it. But they work only in about 5 percent of patients whose tumors have spread. Only interleukin is approved for that use in the United States.

In the test of sunitinib, a drug marketed under the brand name Sutent, the response rate was 31 percent versus a rate of 6 percent for treatment with interferon alfa, said the team led by Robert Motzer of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The 375 who received the Pfizer drug as part of the test involving researchers from the United States, France and Poland typically went for 11 months without having their tumor progress, compared with five months for an equal number of volunteers receiving interferon.

However, the drug also produced more side effects such as diarrhea and vomiting, and initial results showed no clear increase in survival.

Motzer called treatment with Sutent a new standard of care for advanced kidney cancer.

The test of sorafenib, sold as Nexavar, did not compare the drug to any established treatment. Half of the 903 volunteers in 19 countries received a placebo instead.

Response to the drug was so strong that the research team, headed by Bernard Escudier of the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif, France, allowed placebo recipients to begin taking Nexavar.

While patients who received the placebo went an average of 2.8 months without their tumor progressing, the delay was 5.5 months for those getting Nexavar.

The drug affected the tumors of 10 percent of the volunteers, compared with just 2 percent among placebo recipients.

But, once again, the initial results did not yet show that patients given the drug lived any longer, and Nexavar produced side effects such as skin problems and diarrhea.

Brugarolas said the side effects of both drugs can be severe in 10 percent of patients. He said until the two drugs are compared in a head-to-head test, nobody will know which is better.

Both drugs work by inhibiting tumor growth and limiting the amount of blood going to a tumor.

www.reuters.com

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Experts meet on cervical cancer vaccine

LONDON - Experts met in London Tuesday to discuss how to make a cervical cancer vaccine available to women in poor countries who need it most. The two-day meeting was being attended by some 60 representatives from public health agencies, pharmaceutical companies, non-governmental organizations and philanthropic foundations to try to accelerate the developing world's access to the vaccine.
Merck & Co.'s Gardasil is the first licensed vaccine, and among the places it is available are the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. GlaxoSmithKline PLC is expected to file for approval of its vaccine, Cervarix, next year. Both vaccines protect against two types of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which cause 70 percent of cervical cancers.

While the HPV vaccine has been hailed as a breakthrough in cancer prevention, its price — $360 for a three-shot dose — puts it out of reach for the developing countries where more than 90 percent of cervical cancer occurs.

Last year, more than 500,000 women worldwide were diagnosed with cervical cancer, which is usually fatal if untreated. It is the second-most common type of cancer in women.

"With a technology like this vaccine, the world has a moral obligation to make sure it reaches the women who need it," said Dr. Nothemba Simelela, a senior official at International
Planned Parenthood Federation.

Public health officials are working with pharmaceutical companies to strategize how women in developing countries might get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

"We would be prepared to subsidize the price in the short term, if in the long term it became affordable," said Dr. Julian Lob-Levyt, executive secretary of the GAVI alliance, a global partnership that buys vaccines for poor countries.

He said the alliance must first examine whether the HPV vaccine would become a priority purchase — and whether GAVI might have the funds to then buy it in large amounts.

That decision, Lob-Levyt said, will only come once more data is available from vaccine trials in poorer countries. To date, the HPV vaccine has only been tested in the West, and it is not known exactly what kind of impact it might have in developing countries, as well as what kind of social barriers might exist.

Screening and treatment programs in the West have saved the lives of millions of women from cervical cancer, but the diagnosis remains essentially a death sentence in poor countries, which don't have the resources for such programs.

"They have nothing at the moment," said Dr. Lutz Gissmann, a virologist at Germany's DFKZ Heidelberg who is working on a cheaper, bacteria-based HPV vaccine, which would be one-tenth the cost of commercial vaccines.

While there are a few second-generation HPV vaccines in development, none have been tested in humans. One vaccine under consideration at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine may offer wider coverage against more strains of the human papillomavirus. And another being researched in Switzerland will hopefully protect not only against cervical cancer, but typhoid as well.

It will be years before any of these candidate vaccines proves successful enough to be adopted widely. The lag time between the discovery of a new vaccine in the West and its implementation worldwide, which often coincides with development of a cheaper version of the original, has typically been at least 10 to 15 years.

In the case of the hepatitis B vaccine, which fights liver cancer, it took two decades before the vaccine was widely available. First produced in the U.S. at a cost of $18, it is now churned out in Indian factories for as little as 30 cents a dose.

Some experts believe poorer countries should be developing their own vaccine manufacturing capabilities.

"By flooding the market with cheap vaccine, countries can cut the price of a vaccine substantially," said Dr. John Schiller of the U.S.
National Cancer Institute

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer

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