Study: Pfizer lung cancer pill may double survival - WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina |

Study: Pfizer lung cancer pill may double survival - WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina |

By LINDA A. JOHNSON
AP Business Writer

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A much-anticipated drug for advanced lung cancer from Pfizer Inc. appears to double survival over standard drugs against tumors with a certain genetic mutation, according to research presented Sunday.

The drug, called crizotinib, would be the first targeted treatment for the roughly 50,000 people who get this cancer each year worldwide. It might eventually produce annual revenue for Pfizer exceeding $2 billion.

The first overall survival data for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with the drug, called crizotinib, showed 74 percent were still alive after a year and 54 percent after two years, researchers announced at a huge cancer specialists conference.

Median overall survival, a key measure, hasn't been determined because more than half the 82 patients are still alive.

Read more.

Treatment Shows Promise in Quelling a Type of Lung Cancer

Personalized Medicine Leads One Patient to Ask, "Can I go Scuba Diving?"
By Lisa Marshall of CU Medicine Today
University of Colorado School of Medicine

(May 2, 2011) The words "adenocarcinoma of the lung" required no further explanation. As a physician herself, Gene Burges knew what they meant.

"I told my husband, ‘I’ve had a really wonderful life,’" says Burges, 64, who received her grim diagnosis in April 2009. "I knew it was the end."

But nearly two years later, the dermatologist and associate professor at Medical University of South Carolina has kicked the chronic cough and night sweats, and—according to her grateful sons—has returned to her "energetic self." After watching the glowing orange beacons of cancer disappear from her scans, she went so far as to buy a new house this year.

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Upstate Hospital First In SC To Offer New Lung Cancer Surgery

Surgeon, Robot Team Up For Procedure
Mike McCormick, WYFF News 4 Reporter

ASCO: The August Bulletin from Cancer.Net

Check out the August Bulletine from Cancer.Net - trusted cancer information from the American Society of Clinical Oncology

THIS MONTH ON CANCER.NET: Olympic swimmer Eric Shanteau and ASCO leaders visit Wall Street, going back to school and work after cancer, where to turn for questions on clinical trials, and much more!

Jacksonville.com reports: Times-Union reporter free to fly again after cancer fight

After 8 weeks of chemotheropy, tests come back cancer free.
By Jessie-Lynne Kerr

The news from the doctors last week was very positive - the latest PET/CAT scan showed no return of the cancer that was discovered in my lungs March 10.

They even said I could attempt to return to a somewhat normal, at least for me, way of life and try the things that got put on hold while I fought the cancer.

The combination of aggressive chemotherapy and twice-a-day radiation killed the tumors after just eight weeks. Another week of chemo followed, depleting my white blood cell count and necessitating shots of Neupogen to stimulate the bone marrow to make more.

Most of June was spent getting daily low-dose radiation to the brain, since small-cell lung cancer, the type I have, has a tendency to return with a vengeance and go to the brain.

It was painless, but it took its toll in other ways.

My eyebrows now must be deftly drawn and brushed on each morning with the latest from Maybelline.

And the radiation killed parts of the stubble that had begun to reforest my bald scalp. At first it looked as if it continued to grow in that pattern, I would be sporting a Mohawk.
But soon, some of that melted away, too. Now it is just a circular patch of very dark stubble on the very crown of my head, and a rather ugly misshapen patch below. And I can't blame it on being a rookie at football camp.

Didn't someone famous once say that a woman's crowning glory was her hair?

It is hard to imagine that now in my case.

I faced reality and took care of some necessary stuff we don't like to talk about because it means we are confronting our own mortality. I have paid for my cremation and for the interment of my ashes at the memorial garden at church. A lawyer prepared my will, designation of health surrogate, living will and all that legal stuff to spare my son the tasks.
Cleared to go on my own way for three months without any further treatment, except for a monthly irrigation of the port in my chest to facilitate getting chemo, I am to call the radiologist if I experience any bone pain, seizures or cough up bloody mucous.

He told me it could be up to three months before the overwhelming fatigue I am experiencing eases up. My esophagus, which was burned by the radiation, is healing nicely and I am not too worried about the 20 pounds or so that I've lost due to a poor appetite because I was (and still am) overweight. But for those of you trying to lose some weight, find another way.

My lung doctor told me I was doing great but when I told him of my anxiety waiting to get the results of the latest scan, he told me that is called "scanxiety." I had a tendency to think the worst whenever a felt a twinge that seemed somehow different.

After all this, you would think I'd be due a vacation, right?

Well I have one planned. In February I bought a round-trip airline ticket to New York to attend a Hall of Fame induction ceremony at my high school on Staten Island. I had to cancel because of the lung cancer.

But now I have been cleared to fly again and I plan to go to New York the first week of October and visit a cousin. We plan to drive up to her cabin in the Adirondacks for a few days and take in Mother Nature's repainting of the landscape.

Life - now - is good. And with only a 20 percent chance I'll be here in five years, every moment is too precious to waste.

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Science Daily reports: Brain Irradiation In Lung Cancer

A national Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) study led by a Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center physician at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee has found that a course of radiation therapy to the brain after treatment for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer reduced the risk of metastases to the brain within the first year after treatment.

"With improved treatments for non-small cell lung cancer, patients are living longer and we are seeing more brain metastases," says study author Elizabeth Gore, M.D. "This study compared the efficacy of prophylactic (preventive) cranial irradiation (PCI) vs. observation in these patients, and found that those not receiving cranial irradiation were two and one-half times more likely to develop brain metastasis than those who did."

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Transgene sees cancer deal this summer

Transgene expects to strike a worldwide partnership agreement this summer for lung cancer vaccine TG4010, a possible blockbuster, that could speed up the French biotech's plans to become a pharmaceutical group.

Next to advanced non-small cell lung cancer, TG4010 could work on several other cancer types like prostate and breast cancer, possibly making it a rival to Roche's Avastin.

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Lung Cancer Alliance Calls American Cancer Society's Claim of Progress Selective

Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) said that the American Cancer Society's claim of "progress in cancer fight" earlier this week was based on "selective culling of statistics and ignores the dismal truth that we have made very little progress on the most lethal cancers, including lung cancer, which causes one in every two cancer deaths, or in metastatic cancer of any kind."

LCA President & CEO Laurie Fenton Ambrose agreed that progress has been made with certain cancers such as breast, prostate and colon which have widely accepted screening tests for early detection and ACS deserves credit for promulgating information to the public on the importance of these tests.

"But this is not time to be celebrating when half of all cancers still have survival rates of less than 50% and when we are facing a 45% increase in the overall number of new cancer cases by the year 2030," she said, citing a recent report on the upcoming tidal wave in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"There could be no stronger wake-up call," she said. "We can't continue to tout selected changes in incidence and mortality rates over a limited number of cancers over a limited period of time. We have to step back and look at the big picture and try to figure out why we have not done better and where we have to go from here."

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The State reports: A taste of help to keep cancer patients' pounds up

The statistic is shocking: Severe malnutrition and weight loss play a role in at least one in five cancer deaths. Yet nutrition too often is an afterthought until someone's already in trouble.
A move is on to change that, from hospitals that hire fancy gourmet chefs to the American Cancer Society's dietitians-on-call phone service.

With cancer, you've got to "bring a lot more nutrients to each spoonful of food," Certified Master Chef Jack Shoop is learning. A former restaurateur, he's newly in charge of the kitchen at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia.

Don't underestimate the added temptation should the result resemble Bon Appetit: "The visual heartiness, and the actual heartiness, of these foods has to be understood for them to embrace it," Shoop insists.

Tempting the palate is a huge hurdle: At diagnosis, up to a quarter of patients already have their appetite sapped, and most treatments can bring side effects that worsen the problem. Aside from the well-known nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, some cancers inhibit absorption of the nutrients patients force down. Not to mention strangely altered taste, mouth sores, dry mouth, difficulty swallowing and constipation.

About half of all cancer patients eventually suffer serious weight loss and malnutrition, a wasting syndrome called cachexia where they don't just lose excess fat but vital muscle. A healthy person's body adjusts when it doesn't get enough calories, slowing metabolism to conserve nutrients. A cancer patient's body doesn't make that adjustment; metabolism even may speed up.

The National Cancer Institute estimates cachexia is the immediate cause of death for at least 20 percent of cancer patients, although advanced cancer might have eventually claimed many of them.

How much weight loss is too much? The institute defines patients as at-risk when they've lost more than 10 percent of their usual weight. Other research suggests that patients who lose more than 5 percent of their pre-cancer weight have a worse prognosis than people who can hang onto the pounds.

For their best shot at doing that, the American Cancer Society urges patients to ask to be assessed by a registered dietitian up front, right at diagnosis. While that's common at designated cancer centers where dietitians work on-staff, it's not routine elsewhere and surveys suggest just a third of patients have access to cancer nutritionists where they're being treated.

"Patients who are well-nourished as they're going through treatment have shorter hospital stays, are better able to tolerate treatment," not to mention have better quality of life, says Colleen Doyle, nutrition chief at the society, which offers nutrition advice through its hot line at 1-800-ACS-2345.

Desperate patients often hunt their own nutrition advice on the Internet but can't tell the good from the bad. The No. 1 Web-perpetuated myth: that sugar feeds tumor cells. Not true, says Maureen Huhmann, who chairs the American Dietetic Association's oncology nutrition group. In fact, protein-packed milkshakes and smoothies can literally be lifesaving for some patients.

"I don't want people to start losing weight because they cut foods out of their diet when they don't really need to," says Huhmann.

Then there are people overweight when diagnosed who delight at shedding pounds - until they learn they're not just losing fat but muscle, too.

"You can be overweight and even obese and still be malnourished. It's a dilemma," says Carolyn Lammersfeld, the Cancer Treatment Centers' nutrition director who works with Shoop, the chef, to help patients find palatable options.

Typically, a cancer patient needs as much as twice the protein of a healthy person and about 10 percent more calories. Some tumors bring bigger nutritional threats than others: Gastrointestinal and lung cancers tend to cause more weight loss than breast cancer.

Anti-nausea medications developed in the past decade bring relief to many patients, although they're not always covered by insurance. Among options are a synthetic version of an ingredient from marijuana; cancer experts don't promote smoking marijuana although some advocates claim it helps. Doctors also can prescribe appetite stimulants and, for worst cases, feeding tubes.

But eating by mouth is best, and dietitians can offer tips to help: Snacking throughout the day instead of trying to force down large meals can help, and high-fat or high-fiber foods make nausea last longer.

In his Philadelphia hospital cafeteria, Shoop gives taste tests to introduce patients to healthful foods they may never have tried: Quinoa, a grain with the same amino acids of meat, or Arctic char, a salmon-like fish but less fatty.

Doing his own butchering allows Shoop to make stocks and sauces with the bones to add even more protein to meat dishes. Garnish with mushrooms, he advises, for a bit more.

And he teaches caregivers how to add 400 extra calories and 20 grams of protein to a simple smoothie, milkshake or oatmeal - using whole milk or yogurt, some protein powder, and grinding up fruits, nuts and flax seed.

"If you're not getting answers, keep searching," says Lammersfeld. "People need to know that weight loss and not being able to eat is not a good thing during cancer treatment."

Science Daily reports: Young Women Warned Of Lung Cancer Risks

Seventeen people are still dying from lung cancer each week in Northern Ireland despite a small improvement in survival rates for the disease.

The figures are revealed by a report launched April 3 by the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) at Queen's University Belfast.

The NICR is holding a joint launch April 3 with Macmillan Cancer Support which has released its own report on the experience of patients living with lung cancer and their carers in Northern Ireland, highlighting that services are not meeting their needs.

The Queen's report, entitled Monitoring care of patients with lung cancer in Northern Ireland diagnosed 2006, details the facts of the disease from the numbers of people diagnosed, to trends, treatment and survival.

It looked at the experiences of more than 2,200 lung cancer patients over a decade and points to a fall in cases for men under 65 but not for women in this age group. Lung cancer now kills more women than breast cancer in Northern Ireland.

While highlighting the need for continued work to prevent the condition in all sections of the population by addressing smoking, it also acknowledges the commitment of staff who treat patients with the disease.

Read more.

Reuters reports: Novartis-Antisoma lung cancer drug tested in Japan

Clinical trials of an experimental lung cancer drug being developed by Novartis AG (NOVN.VX) in partnership with Britain's Antisoma Plc (ASM.L) have been extended to Japan.

Antisoma said on Wednesday that the Phase III programme evaluating ASA404 as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer was now enrolling patients in Japan -- an important step towards a potential application to sell the drug in the country.

Read more.

Science Daily reports: Lung Cancer: Molecular Scissors Determine Therapy Effectiveness

In the past few years, a number of anti-cancer drugs have been developed which are directed selectively against specific key molecules of tumor cells. Among these is an antibody called cetuximab, which attaches to a protein molecule that is found in large amounts on the surface of many types of cancer cells.

When this surface molecule, called epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGF-R for short, is blocked by cetuximab, the cancer cell receives less signals stimulating cell division.

Clinical studies of non-small cell lung cancer, which is the most frequent type of lung cancer, have shown so far that only part of the patients treated with cetuximab benefit from the treatment. Therefore, doctors are urgently searching for biomarkers which reliably predict responsiveness to the antibody therapy.

Fear of routine tests often triggers 'scanxiety' in cancer patients

Judi Rothman found out a year ago that she had colon cancer that had spread to her liver.

Every day since then, she has lived with worry.

She can push it beneath the surface of her life most of the time. But the minute her doctor tells her it's time for another CAT scan, the fear springs like a cobra, suddenly too big and menacing to ignore.

"In the back of your mind, it's always there that the other shoe is going to drop, and that becomes more active in the days before that CAT scan until I hear what happened," said Rothman, who is 61 and lives in the Northeast. She gets CAT scans every other month to monitor her cancer.

"I always think the worst," she said.

Rothman suffers from what cancer patients call "scanxiety," the fear that punctuates their lives as "routine" tests approach.

The New York Times: No Single Path for Cancer Care in Elderly

Don’t Forget the Patient

Still another consideration, Dr. Yates said, and not a small one, is what the patient wants. He described a former patient, a 78-year-old woman with diabetes who had lost a leg to osteogenic sarcoma. The cancer had spread to her lungs, and she faced possible treatment with chemotherapy that would cause nausea and hair loss and carried the risk of a fatal lung infection. Her four college-educated children agreed with the doctor’s suggestion to skip chemotherapy and administer comfort care, since treating her cancer was likely to kill her.

“But she said she wanted to be treated — she was adamant,” recalled Dr. Yates, who will be leaving the cancer society for the National Institute on Aging. “To my surprise, she had a dramatic response to the treatment. Her lung tumors all but disappeared, and she lived another two years.”

Science Daily reports: Surviving Lung Cancer

Countless people have heard the phrase, “You have lung cancer,” but only 50 can say they’ve completed a new treatment at Temple University that doubles their chances of surviving the deadly disease — and without the conventional radiation regimen or surgery.

Doctors in the Radiation Oncology Department say the technique, stereotactic body radiotherapy, or SBRT, not only improves a person’s odds of surviving early stage lung cancer, but may reduce the need for future surgeries.

“This is a big trend in radiation oncology for early stage lung cancer patients who either can’t undergo surgery or refuse it,” says Curtis Miyamoto, M.D., chair and professor of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the School of Medicine. “With the success of this technique, we’re now questioning whether we’ll even be doing surgeries on these patients in the future.”

The New York Times: Genetic Tests May Reveal Source of Mystery Tumors

When Jo Symons was found to have cancer, there was an extra complication: doctors could not tell what type of cancer she had.

Tumors were found in her neck, chest and lymph nodes. But those tumors had spread there from someplace else, and her doctors could not determine whether the original site was the breast, the colon, the ovary or some other organ. Without that knowledge, they could not offer optimal treatment.

Such mystery tumors are estimated to account for 2 percent to 5 percent of all cancer, or at least 30,000 new cases a year in the United States, making them more common than brain, liver or stomach cancers. For patients, such a diagnosis can amount to a double agony — not only do they have cancer, but doctors cannot treat it properly.

“You don’t believe that in the 21st century it is possible for the medical profession not to know where the cancer is coming from,” said Ms. Symons’s husband, John.

But now 21st-century medicine may help. New genetic tests may pinpoint the origin of the mystery tumors. The tests, which cost more than $3,000 each, still need to prove their worth better, experts say, though some of them are hopeful.

New Edward Hospital clinic aids lung cancer treatment

Chicago, Illinois --

Doctors at Edward Hospital in Naperville say they will be able to expedite lung cancer treatments with a just-opened clinic.

Dr. Maria Quejada said the hospital's new multidisciplinary thoracic oncology clinic allows patients to determine a course of treatment in one day rather than the weeks- to months-long process traditional treatment plans take to develop.

"The advantage to this type of program is a patient will come into the cancer center and see different specialists all in one visit," she said. "The case is then discussed by a team and they come up with a plan of care that day."

For the area, it is a one-of-a-kind approach to patient care, Edward officials said. Patients will see oncologists, thoracic surgeons, pulmonologists, social workers, coordinating nurses as well as take any necessary tests the day they visit.