cancer
oracknows | May 27, 2007Over the last couple of months, I've written periodically about cancer research and the complaints that the present system of funding grants and of peer review stifles innovation, as well as whether ideas for which there is some evidence but which fall out of the mainstream are given a fair shake. My overall take has been that, while the complaints have some merit, those making them tend to overstate their case dramatically. Either that, or their obvious agendas, such as making it easier to get funding for pseudoscience or rehabilitating the reputation of a crank, make it obvious that their…
oracknows | May 24, 2007A number of readers have mailed me links to this story, and, yes, it is right up my alley. In reading it, I fear that it's a vision of the future for two young cancer patients who are very unlikely to survive their cancers because their parents eschewed evidence-based medicine in favor of woo, Starchild Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke, both of whom had relapsed when last I discussed them. The case is one with which I had not been familiar, namely that of Noah Maxin, of Canton, OH:
CANTON No one in the courtroom nearly five years ago wanted this day to come. Not Noah Maxin's parents. Not…
terrasig | May 23, 2007The 2 May issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute has an interesting news article on the advancing use of arsenic trioxide against a variety of human malignanices, mostly cancers of the blood.
The medical uses of arsenic reach back more than 2,000 years, but only recently has Western medicine embraced its surprising rise from folk cure-all to proven cancer treatment.
The January announcement of positive results in a 6-year NCI-sponsored phase III clinical trial to treat a rare form of leukemia is merely the latest in a series of kudos for arsenic's medicinal prowess. The latest…
oracknows | May 21, 2007I hadn't planned on revisiting this topic again quite so soon, but sometimes a piece of information comes up that's so disturbing that I can't ignore it and can't justify delaying blogging about it by very long. So it is yet again with the strange and disturbing saga of dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecular chemotherapeutic drug with a novel and scientifically interesting mechanism of action that could lead to a whole new class of chemotherapeutic agents and that has shown considerable promise in rat tumor models but has not yet been tested in humans. Not to belabor the story, which has…
terrasig | May 19, 2007It's nearing the beginning of June, the traditional time for increased stock trading based on results presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting (1-5 June in Chicago). The meeting is often the first time that the general public learns of the progress of cancer drugs in development, often in companies for which many people hold stock. ASCO press releases dominate newspaper business sections during that week because the preliminary release of results influences stock prices.
ASCO released its abstract proceedings book early this week and, the Wall Street…
oracknows | May 14, 2007Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it.
I say this in light of a commenter, who decided to show up in one of my old posts to claim "positive results" from dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecule experimental cancer drug that has shown promising activity in rat models of cancer but has not yet been subjected to testing in human trials, and invite me to check out new testimonials. Because DCA is a small molecule that is inexpensive to produce and can't itself be patented (although a patent for its use in treating cancer, a weaker form of patent, is possible), pharmaceutical…
terrasig | May 12, 2007Via my colleague, PharmCanuck, comes news of an in-depth radio program on dichloroacetate (DCA) that aired this past Tuesday on CBC's, "The Current." As a reminder to readers who aren't already bored senseless of my discussion of this chemical, DCA is a small molecule freely-available in the public domain that was shown to slow the growth of human lung tumors implanted in rats by researchers at the University of Alberta. I've posted on this issue a number of times and have been well outposted by my surgical oncology blogging colleague, Orac at Respectful Insolence.
(Real Audio segment: 21:…
retrospectacle | May 10, 2007Human papilloma virus (HPV) just became a bit more disconcerting, especially if you happen to be in a particular *cough* industry. A group at Johns Hopkins just reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that risk of a rare throat cancer (oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinoma)was 9 times higher for people who reported oral sex with more than six partners.
HPV is becoming well known as the virus which causes the majority of cervical cancer cases, and is also the center of a controversial vaccine which conveys immunity to several of the most dangerous HPV strains. The strain of HPV…
oracknows | May 8, 2007In rapid succession after the last pontificating and bloviating article claiming that there will never be a cure for cancer because it would be too financially disastrous to the medical economy, I've been made aware of another pontificating and bloviating article decrying the state of cancer research today, entitled Curing Cancer: Running on Vapor, Remedy: More Brainpower, Less Hype, by George L. Gabor Miklos, Ph.D. and Phillip J. Baird, M.D., Ph.D. On first glance, it looks like a bold proposal for a necessary change of direction in our cancer research effort. Sadly, it doesn't deliver on…
oracknows | May 7, 2007Readers who don't like me might think that the title of this post refers to what I am about to write. I know, the title perfectly encapsulates the verbose style that is my stock and trade. In reality, though, it's referring to a couple of articles floating around the blogosphere of which I've become aware and about which I've been meaning discuss because of their similarities. One is a pretty worthless piece of conspiracy-mongering; the other, although it makes some appropriate criticisms of how we go about cancer research, comes to a wildly incorrect conclusion about what we should be doing…
oracknows | May 4, 2007One day at a time...Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus harrisii
Tasmanian devils are suddenly on the verge of total extinction, due to a mysterious facial cancer that is spreading rapidly through their population. Since the first sick animal's discovery, eleven years ago, the cancer has swept through Tasmania like a plague, sometimes killing every single Tasmanian devil in an area within 18 months of its arrival. "Once they've got a lump, it's a one way trip," says Menna Jones, an expert on Tasmanian Devils at the University of Tasmania.
Not only does the cancer cause the host to die, but it also…
zooillogix | May 4, 2007One day at a time...Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus harrisii
Tasmanian devils are suddenly on the verge of total extinction, due to a mysterious facial cancer that is spreading rapidly through their population. Since the first sick animal's discovery, eleven years ago, the cancer has swept through Tasmania like a plague, sometimes killing every single Tasmanian devil in an area within 18 months of its arrival. "Once they've got a lump, it's a one way trip," says Menna Jones, an expert on Tasmanian Devils at the University of Tasmania.
Not only does the cancer cause the host to die, but it also…
terrasig | May 1, 2007Today's edition of the NCI Cancer Bulletin features another natural product clinical trial, this time for depsipeptide in T-cell lymphoma.
Depsipeptide (Romidepsin or FR901228) is an early histone deacetylase inhibitor isolated from fermentation of Chromobacterium violaceum. Several histone deacetylase inhibitors are in clinical trials for various cancers and many are derived from natural products. However, the first HDAC inhibitor approved by FDA is a synthetic compound, SAHA or vorinostat (Zolinza), also for T-cell lymphoma.
What is it about T-cell lymphoma that attracts the development…
oracknows | April 25, 2007Ever wonder what happened to Roger Ebert, who has been absent from the balcony in his Ebert & Roeper Show for quite some time battling cancer?
So did I. I always liked his style and mostly agreed with his movie reviews, but since moving away from Chicago I haven't heard much or watched the show as much, given that it never seems to be on when I'm around to watch TV. Well, wonder no more:
My Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance.
This year I won't be speaking, however, as I await another…
oracknows | April 25, 2007A lot of readers (well, a couple, anyway) have been asking me about the recent article by Peter Duesberg in the most recent issue of Scientific American entitled Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer. I suppose it's because I'm not only a cancer surgeon (which in and of itself is not enough to qualify me to comment on this topic) but rather because I'm also a cancer researcher and a molecular biologist (which, I submit, does make me qualified to comment on this topic). Peter Duesberg, as you may know, is the controversial scientist who is perhaps the foremost advocate of the discredited hypothesis…
oracknows | April 24, 2007Given all the verbiage (see the link list below) about dichloroacetate (DCA) that I've spewed into the blogosphere decrying the hijacking of a promising cancer therapy by conspiracy-mongers (it's the cancer cure "big pharma" is keeping from you because they can't make money on it) and opportunistic entrepreneurs like Jim Tassanno preying on the desperation of terminally ill cancer patients, I had thought that I would be taking a break on the topic for a while. But wouldn't you know it? My blogging colleague Abel at Terra Sigillata unearthed another fascinating article on the effects of this…
oracknows | April 24, 2007As I mentioned before, I was at the American Association for Cancer Research Meeting in Los Angeles last week. During the meeting, I happened to attend a plenary session talk by the Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Dr. John Niederhuber, whose topic was the rather dire NCI funding situation. I've written about this topic before, both in general, in terms of my personal experience "sweating to the NIH paylines," to lamenting at how we as biomedical researchers are in essence treated as freelance money sources for medical schools. Coupling Dr. Niederhuber's talk at the meeting…
terrasig | April 23, 2007More Canadian press leads me to put up another post on dichloroacetate (DCA), the inhibitor of mitochondrial aerobic glycolysis that is being promoted as a freely-available cancer "cure." Like many compounds tested in animal models of human cancer, DCA treatment reduces the size of human lung tumors grown in rats, but is far from a cure. Any other similar drug would be just one of hundreds jockeying for investment by drug companies large and small and might not even be competitive enough for entry into clinical trials. However, DCA is a bulk chemical that is largely available freely and is…
oracknows | April 15, 2007Granted, it is the print media, rather than the bubble-headed TV doctors that I railed against a couple of days ago, but even so I had a hard time believing this article in the Washington Post when it was forwarded to me.
Compare:
Washington Post article
Part 1 and Part 2 of Early Detection of Cancer, by me.
It's like a distilled version of what I wrote and excellent--dare I say it around here these days?--framing of a complex medical/scientific issue for a lay audience. Remember, as you read this, the term "overdiagnosis," which I should have discussed. Also remember that I (and the authors…
terrasig | April 11, 2007The weekly NCI Cancer Bulletin recently featured a clinical trial being led by MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston where the supplement, alpha-lipoic acid, is being investigated to minimize the peripheral neuropathy associated with platinum-based chemotherapy such as cisplatin or oxaliplatin.
Peripheral neuropathy is an unpleasant side effect of platinum-based chemotherapy that is characterized by a burning, numbness, and or tingling in the extremities. The acute form of the syndrome resolves a few days after the platinum treatment but sometimes persists. A similar syndrome occurs in…