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MONDAY, Nov. 23 (HealthDay News) — Body weight and co-existing health problems don’t explain why black colon cancer patients have lower survival rates than whites, U.S. researchers say.
In an effort to determine why blacks have lower survival rates than whites for nearly all cancers, including colon cancers, investigators have explored a variety factors, such as differences in health care access, exposure to risk factors and tumor characteristics. However, the role these factors play in survival rate disparities remains unclear.
In the new study, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham looked at how weight and comorbidity (the presence of other diseases in addition to colon cancer) affected colon cancer survival in 496 patients who had surgery for colon cancer between 1981 and 2002.
Black patients were 34 percent more likely than white patients to have died by 2008, according to the study published online Nov. 23 and in the Dec. 15 print issue of the journal Cancer.
Among patients with early-stage cancer, the risk of death from any cause was 2.2 times higher in those with a high level of comorbidity. Among patients with advanced cancer, being underweight was associated with an 87 percent increased risk of death. However, being overweight or obese reduced the risk of death by 42 percent among patients with stage IV colon cancer, the study authors noted.
These findings were the same regardless of race, which suggests that differences in weight or comorbidity don’t explain why black patients are more likely to die than white patients, the researchers concluded.
“Further efforts are needed to identify the basis for the survival difference by race for patients with colon cancer. A greater understanding of this complex issue may help eliminate the disparity,” research leader Upender Manne said in a news release from the journal’s publisher.
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A drug for people with a form of leukemia holds promise as a possible treatment for ovarian cancer, new research suggests.
The drug dasatinib (Sprycel) is used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles report that the drug limited the growth and invasive powers of ovarian cancer cells.
It also proved to have even more cancer-fighting powers when it was combined with chemotherapy and used to fight certain kinds of ovarian cancer cells known as Src dependent, according to the report published in the Nov. 10 issue of the BMJ.
Ovarian cancer is the most deadly cancer that strikes the female reproductive system and is expected to kill 15,500 women in the United States this year. The cancer is very difficult to treat.
“It is important to remember that this work is only on cancer cell lines, but it is significant enough that it should be used to justify clinical trials to confirm that women with this type of ovarian cancer could benefit,” Gottfried Konecny, an assistant professor of hematology/oncology and first author of the study, said in a UCLA news release.
An estimated one-third of women with ovarian cancer have the type known as Src dependent.
“We were able to identify markers in the pre-clinical setting that would allow us to predict response to Sprycel,” Konecny said. “These may help us in future clinical trials in selecting patients for studies of the drug.”
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THURSDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) — The potent opioid medication Onsolis (fentanyl buccal soluble film) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat breakthrough cancer pain, the agency said Thursday.
Onsolis delivers the medication fentanyl through an absorbable film that adheres to the inside of the user’s cheek, according to an FDA news release. It’s been sanctioned for people 18 and older who already use round-the-clock opioid medication to manage pain. Breakthrough pain occurs when severe flares of pain prove inadequate for daily pain medication.
Onsolis is subject to abuse, and was approved under the agency’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy program, which requires the drug’s maker to submit a plan for managing its risks. Under a companion program, only registered prescribers and pharmacies will be able to dispense the drug, and only registered users will be able to receive Onsolis, the FDA said.
The drug was approved with the agency’s most serious “black-box” label warning, stating that the medication is not meant to remedy pain from migraines, dental problems or procedures, or post-operative pain. The labeling also warns that the drug should be kept out of the reach of children.
Onsolis is manufactured by Aveva Drug Delivery Systems of Miramar, Fla.
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WASHINGTON – It may be riskier on the lungs to smoke cigarettes today than it was a few decades ago — at least in the U.S., says new research that blames changes in cigarette design for fueling a certain type of lung cancer.
Up to half of the nation’s lung cancer cases may be due to those changes, Dr. David Burns of the University of California, San Diego, told a recent meeting of tobacco researchers.
It’s not the first time that scientists have concluded the 1960s movement for lower-tar cigarettes brought some unexpected consequences. But this study, while preliminary, is among the most in-depth looks. And intriguingly it found the increase in a kind of lung tumor called adenocarcinoma was higher in the U.S. than in Australia even though both countries switched to so-called milder cigarettes at the same time.
“The most likely explanation for it is a change in the cigarette,” Burns said in an interview — and he cited a difference: Cigarettes sold in Australia contain lower levels of nitrosamines, a known carcinogen, than those sold in the U.S.
That’s circumstantial evidence that requires more research, he acknowledged.
But anti-smoking advocates are citing the study as Congress considers whether the Food and Drug Administration should regulate tobacco, legislation that would give the agency power to decide such things as whether to set caps on certain chemicals in tobacco smoke.
Smokers once tended to get lung cancer in larger air tubes, particularly a type named “squamous cell carcinoma.” Then doctors noticed a jump in adenocarcinoma, which grows in small air sacs far deeper in the lung. Initial studies blamed introduction of filtered, lower-tar cigarettes. When smokers switched, they began inhaling more deeply to get their nicotine jolt, pushing cancer-causing smoke deeper than before.
Burns’ study, presented at a meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, took a closer look. He compared smoking behaviors of different age groups over four decades — how much they smoked, when they started, when they quit — and how cancer-risk changed.
The risk of squamous cell carcinoma stayed about the same over those years, Burns found. But adenocarcinoma rose. It makes up 65 percent to 70 percent of newly occurring U.S. lung cancer cases, but no more than 40 percent of Australia’s lung cancer, he said.
While the nation’s total lung cancer cases have inched down as the number of smokers has dropped in recent years, the study suggests an individual smoker’s risk of getting cancer is higher.
It’s well known that cigarettes differ from country to country, because of different tobacco crops grown locally and smokers’ varying tastes. Nitrosamines are a byproduct of tobacco processing and levels vary for several reasons, including differences in curing practices.
Australian cigarettes contain about 20 percent of the nitrosamine content of U.S. cigarettes, making the chemical a prime suspect, concluded Burns, who has been scientific editor of several surgeon general reports on tobacco.
That doesn’t rule out a role for deeper inhaling, cautioned Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society: “There’s several strong suspects in the lineup. They may have acted in combination.”
Philip Morris USA spokesman David Sutton called the study speculative and hard to evaluate until it’s published in a medical journal, something Burns plans to do.
Still, Philip Morris, which supports FDA tobacco regulation, began taking steps with its growers in 2000 that have yielded “significantly lower” nitrosamine levels in recent years’ supplies, Sutton said.
Be careful in assuming lower-nitrosamine cigarettes are less lethal, said Dr. Neal Benowitz of the University of California, San Francisco, a well-known tobacco expert. Lung cancer is only one of tobacco’s many risks — it causes heart disease and other killer diseases, too.
“If you reduce someone’s (lung cancer) risk by 10 percent, that’s not really meaningful for an individual,” he said. “The goal still is to get them to stop.”
AmericanHealthOptions reminds that Zero Nicotine is one of top smoking cessation aids.
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