Cancer CarePoint Blog

New Cancer Treatment Technology for Prostate Cancer

Wheeling Hospital is among the first homes for a "GPS for the body" used to track and treat cancer.

Link:  Hospital Unveils New Cancer Treatment Technology

Dr. Gregory Merrick, director of the Schiffler Cancer Center at Wheeling Hospital, said the hospital's new $500,000 Calypso System is ideal for the treatment of prostate cancer. This is because it precisely directs radiation to the tumor while sparing normal tissues, thus reducing both short- and long-term side effects, he added.

The prostate glands frequently move during laser treatment, Merrick said, often resulting in a neighboring area receiving unnecessary radiation. Now, Merrick inserts three "beacons," or gold markers, into the prostate that allow for image-guided radiology. These markers cannot be removed and remain in the prostate.

"Don't worry, the tracking only works in the operating room," he said. "It can't track you if you're traveling on Interstate 70."

The Schiffler Cancer Center is one of only a few cancer treatment facilities permitted to offer the Calypso System, manufactured by Calypso Medical Technologies of Seattle. The closest hospitals with the technology are in Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis and Atlanta.

"New York doesn't have this technology, and neither does Washington, D.C.," Merrick said. "There are not a whole lot of hospitals that offer it."

The procedure has been approved for the treatment of prostate cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But the Calypso System also may eventually be used in the treatment of other cancers, especially lung cancer, added Dr. Jondavid Pollock. It has not yet been approved for such applications.

Both doctors said the reason Wheeling Hospital was selected by Calypso Medical Technologies to initiate its technology was its track record in treating cancer, its qualified staff and its history of keeping excellent records detailing the success of treatments. As such, doctors will be trying new procedures with the Calypso System technology and noting its effects.

These detailed records can be printed up, published and used by health professionals worldwide to treat their cancer patients.

"One of the most important things with this is that it will put us on the cutting edge with Calypso," Pollock said. "It could eventually be used to help treat cancer in other sites of the body, especially lung cancer."

"We don't want to just have this knowledge in the Ohio Valley. We want it to be available to the world of cancer," he added.

Source:  The Intelligencer: Wheeling News-Register

Judah Folkman, Cancer Pioneer

The worldwide cancer reasearch community this week mourned the death of Judah Folkman, a medical visionary whose breakthrough ideas were ignored in the 1960s and '70s, but have since become the blueprint for revolutionary 21st-century cancer therapies.

Link:  Judah Folkman, Cancer Pioneer

Mention Dr. Judah Folkman's name to colleagues and patients and only the grandest descriptors come to their lips--words like "giant in his field," "visionary," "genius," and "ahead of his time." Credited with revolutionizing cancer treatment with the theory that preventing new blood-vessel growth, or angiogenesis, would starve the tumors, the director of vascular biology at Children's Hospital and professor of pediatric surgery at Harvard Medical School died on Monday in Denver. He was 74.

Befitting his ever-active mind and lifestyle, Folkman died of an apparent heart attack in the airport en route to a scientific conference. "At 74, he was as vibrant as I remember him 20 years ago when I was in his lab," says Dr. William Li, director and co-founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation and a student of Folkman's in the 1980s. "He was bustling around, meeting colleagues, teaching students, and giving lectures."

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1933, Folkman's passion for medicine began early, in visits to hospitals with his father, a rabbi. Keeping in mind his father's advice to become a "rabbi-like doctor," Folkman honed two often competing abilities, and became both a razor-sharp researcher and a compassionate clinician. "He would take time to lecture students on how to interact with everyone," says Dr. Steven Brem, director of neurosurgery at Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida and a former student of Folkman's at Harvard Medical School. "I remember one of the things he said--'When you talk to a bereaved family who has just lost a loved one, talk to them as if the person is still alive, because the family has not absorbed the impact of his death.' That's the way I feel about him now; that he is still alive, and we will keep his legacy alive."

As a researcher, Folkman's energy and creativity were practically boundless. "He would work 21 hours a day," say Brem. "He was chairman of pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital, so he would do surgery and see patients during day, then at night he would have dinner from six to eight, then work in the lab from eight to two a.m." That dedication led Folkman to change the way cancer is treated today. His hunch, dating to his early days in the lab in the 1960s, that cancer tumors rely on the formation of new blood vessels for nourishment and growth, has since led to six FDA-approved anticancer drugs that weaken tumors by blocking their blood supply. "The idea was met with skepticism and ridicule back then, but he doggedly persisted in proving his ideas," says Li. "He lived long enough to see his idea transformed into new treatments for colon cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer and multiple myeloma."

The road wasn't always easy, however. Folkman's first compound, which biotech companies rushed to test on people at the beginning of this decade, proved less effective in patients than in mice, giving skeptics yet another reason to doubt the approach. But that agent, dismissed by U.S. researchers, eventually won approval in 2005 for treating lung cancer in China, where it is extending the lives of non small cell lung cancer patients.

"He had an amazing mind," says Brem. Even before his pioneering work in cancer treatments, Folkman and a colleague, while in the Navy, perfected what they called a "leaky plastic," which later became the basis for the implantable, time-release contraceptive Norplant. Not only did Folkman's work on angiogenesis benefit cancer patients, but the same principles are now leading to novel treatments for reviving dying heart tissue, restoring circulation to tissues crippled by diabetes and improving vision in patients with macular degeneration. His theories may yet impact the treatment of other conditions, including obesity: "More recently, he had the idea that fat cells relied on blood vessels just like tumors, so you could control obesity by using blood vessel-growth inhibitors." says Li, who was inspired by Folkman to co-found an organization that promotes research in the field.

"I know he was 74, but it is still a shock," sys Brem. "He changed medicine. He is a true inspiration and icon."

Source:  Alice Parker, www.time.com

Breast Cancer Gene Risk May Be Overstated

The risk posed by certain gene mutations linked to breast cancer may be lower than commonly believed, a new study shows.

Link:  Breast Cancer Gene Risk May Be Overstated

Many women fear that breast cancer is inevitable if they are found to carry mutations in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. Genetic counselors and health organizations like the American Society of Breast Surgeons maintain that a woman has about an 80 percent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer if she carries one of the mutations.

But researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have found that a carrier's risk of developing breast cancer by age 70 ranges from 36 percent to 52 percent, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The scientists studied about 2,000 women who had been diagnosed with cancer at age 55 or younger. Some 181 carried mutations in either BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, the team found. The researchers also gathered information on whether patients' mothers, sisters and daughters also had been diagnosed with cancer, about half of whom would also carry BRCA mutations.

Risk was highest among the relatives of the women who were diagnosed at a young age. If a woman with a BRCA mutation was diagnosed at age 35 or younger, the scientists found, her first-degree relatives had a 52 percent chance of having been diagnosed with breast cancer by age 70 and 95 percent by age 80. But if a woman with a BRCA mutation was diagnosed at age 45 or older, her relatives had a 36 percent likelihood of breast cancer by age 70 and 44 percent by age 80.

And if a woman was diagnosed at any age with cancer in both breasts, her relatives also faced a markedly higher risk for the disease, the study showed.

What to make of all this? To be sure, the risk of developing breast cancer among women with BRCA mutations is far higher than the estimated 12 percent lifetime risk faced by the average woman. Some carriers even undergo prophylactic mastectomies, because they believe breast cancer is a forgone conclusion.

The new study suggests that the odds are surprisingly variable even for carriers of the mutations. The authors said the variation is likely due to as yet unidentified mutations that further influence the odds of breast cancer.

"There is a perception out there that all that matters is if you're a carrier or not, and if you're a carrier that you're virtually certain to get breast cancer," said Dr. Colin Begg, chairman of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and lead author of the paper.  "What I think is important is that when a woman makes decisions, she should make them fully informed of what her risks are really likely to be."

Souce:  The New York Times