People with plenty of a B-vitamin in their blood appear to be at a reduced risk of lung cancer, even if they smoke, a European study suggests.

High levels of Vitamin B6 and the amino acid methionine cut the risk by half, a study of 400,000 people suggested.

These occur naturally in nuts, fish and meat or can be taken as supplements.

But experts told the Journal of the American Medical Association that stopping smoking remained the best way of reducing lung cancer risk.

And, as yet, it is too early to say that taking vitamins would provide any extra protection, they say.

Higher vitamin levels could simply reflect healthier lifestyles.

More studies are needed before scientists can be confident that increasing levels of B-vitamins in the diet can reduce the risk of lung cancer, and also to understand why this might be, says the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) which was involved in the research.

Healthy diet

Dr Panagiota Mitrou, of the WCRF, said: “These findings are really exciting as they are important for understanding the process of lung cancer and could have implications for prevention.

“But while this is an important study, it is vital that we get the message across to smokers that increasing intake of B-vitamins is not – and never will be – a substitute for stopping smoking.”

However, it could mean that ex-smokers and people who have never smoked can do something positive to reduce their risk of lung cancer, she said.

The study looked at nearly 400,000 people from 10 European countries over eight years.

They included people who had never smoked, current smokers and ex-smokers.

Regardless of their smoking status, the people with higher circulating levels of both Vitamin B6 and methionine in their blood appeared to be protected against lung cancer.

Far fewer of them developed lung tumours over the course of the study compared with those with the lowest levels of the essential nutrients – 129 people versus 408 respectively, out of a total of 899 cancer cases overall.

Dr Paul Brennan, lead researcher of the study from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said: “If further research does confirm our findings then the next step would be to identify the optimum B-vitamin levels for reducing future cancer risk.”

Dr Joanna Owens, of Cancer Research UK, said: “Although this study suggests a link between vitamin B levels in the blood and reduced risk of lung cancer, this doesn’t prove that vitamin B can directly protect against the disease.

“Vitamin B levels might be higher in people who eat a healthy diet, and this in itself can help reduce the risk of cancer.

“The most important way to prevent lung cancer is to stop smoking. No amount of vitamins can counteract the risks posed by smoking.”

Source: BBC News

Popularity: 3% [?]

Researchers have identified a group of genes that are especially active in lung cancer patients — even in healthy tissue — and said they may be used to predict which smokers will eventually develop lung cancer.

And, they said, a natural supplement derived from food that is being tested to prevent lung cancer appears to halt the precancerous changes.

“Even in normal cells or premalignant cells prior to cancer development we see this pathway being turned on,” said Andrea Bild of the University of Utah, who worked on the study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The main gene is called PI3K and it affects a pathway of other genes, Bild, Avrum Spira of Boston University and colleagues reported. And it can be found in the windpipes of smokers, meaning they do not need more dangerous and uncomfortable lung tests.

“These cells are like a canary in the coal mine,” Spira said in a telephone interview. “Even though lung cancer develops deep down in your lungs when you smoke, these cells can tell you whether you are on the way to developing lung cancer. It is sort of a window into the lung.”

Cigarette smoke causes 90 percent of all cases of lung cancer, which kills 1.2 million people a year globally.

But only about 10 percent of smokers ever develop lung cancer, although they often die of other causes such as heart disease, stroke or emphysema.

Spira and Bild put together results from two ongoing trials of smokers.

“The patients walk in the door and they have something wrong with them — we don’t know what. Maybe they have lung cancer, maybe they have something else,” Bild said in a telephone interview.

Lung cancer is so deadly precisely because it causes vague symptoms. Most patients are not diagnosed until it has spread and can no longer be treated.

ACTIVE GENES

The researchers used a brush to collect cells from the windpipes of the smokers. They put these on a gene chip or microarray to see which genes were active in the cells.

“We found this certain pathway, PI3K, was turned on in patients that had lung cancer as opposed to patients that had other problems,” Bild said.

PI3K had long been suspected in lung cancer. But another experiment got the researchers more excited.

These were patients with precancerous lesions in their lungs called dysplasia. PI3K was also active in their lesions.

And the second group was taking the natural supplement, myo-inositol, to try to prevent lung cancer. In the patients whose lesions shrank after taking the supplement, PI3K also became less active, the researchers found.

“Together it gives us the story of the importance of this pathway,” Bild added. “Whether it is going to save millions of people, who knows?”

Spira said he is working with Boston-based Allegro Diagnostics, which is halfway through a 60-patient clinical trial of the test.

The researchers have patented their findings through the universities but Bild said myo-inositol supplements are cheap and freely available.

Myo-inositol is also found in fruits, beans, grains and nuts, although Bild said the finding does not necessarily explain why people who eat more of these foods have a lower risk of cancer in general.

Source: Reuters

Popularity: 3% [?]

The more scientists look, the more complex cancer seems to become.

British scientists said on Wednesday they had found a batch of new gene mutations linked to kidney cancer, suggesting even this apparently “straightforward” cancer type can be divided into subtypes requiring tailored treatment.

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), the most common type of kidney cancer, stands out from other cancers because it is remarkably consistent and the majority of cases are known to be driven by mutations in a single gene, called VHL.

[ad]

Yet when researchers conducted a large DNA sequencing study of more than 3,500 genes from around 100 tumor samples, they found evidence that additional mutations in other genes were also driving cells to become cancerous.

Three of the genes were involved in modifying proteins called histones, which help package DNA into chromosomes and are critical to the functioning of cells, they reported in the journal Nature.

“Even in this clearest of cases, we see evidence for substantial genetic heterogeneity,” said Andy Futreal, co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge.

While none of the new mutations accounted for more than 5 percent of cancer cases, the discovery should ultimately help in diagnosis and better selection of treatments for patients.

The latest findings underline the case for personalized medicine, or tailoring drugs to the genetic make-up of individual patients.

Scientists at the Sanger Institute last month also produced genetic “maps” identifying thousands of genetic mutations behind melanoma skin cancer and lung cancer.

Several personalized drugs are already used in cancer, including Roche’s Herceptin for breast cancer and AstraZeneca’s Iressa for lung cancer.

For drugmakers, tailored medicine is both an opportunity and a challenge as sub-dividing tumors by their molecular type shrinks the market for individual therapies.

Kidney cancer kills more than 100,000 people worldwide each year. Recent new drugs against the disease include Pfizer’s Sutent and Bayer’s Nexavar, which block cell proliferation and starve tumors of blood supply.

Source: Reuters

Popularity: 5% [?]

A European Medicines Agency committee did the unexpected late yesterday, recommending that the cancer drug Erbitux be rejected as a treatment for non-small-cell lung cancer.

That caught the investment community by surprise, according to DJ Newswires and Bloomberg. A Q&A about the refusal was posted on the European Union regulator’s Web site today.

[ad]

Shares of Merck KGaA, which markets Erbitux in Europe, were down over 14% in today’s trading in Frankfurt. Investors also weren’t pleased with second quarter earnings posted by the German company, which isn’t related to U.S.-based Merck. Bristol-Myers and Eli Lilly, which co-market Erbitux in the U.S., were relatively unaffected in early New York Stock Exchange Trading.

Merck thought the committee might impose some restrictions on the product’s use, as both the EU and U.S. regulators have required for Erbitux treatments in other patient populations.

“We never detected that a no-approval could be an option,” Elmar Schnee, chief of Merck’s drugs unit, said on a conference call with analysts. Merck will appeal the decision but expects a year’s delay in the drug launch even if Erbitux is approved for this use, notes DJ Newswires.

The committee felt that the benefits of Erbitux, when added to chemotherapy, were “modest in terms of survival times” and didn’t appear to slow down the cancer. And, side effects for patients could be severe, according to the document released today.

“The benefits of Erbitux in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer did not outweigh its risks,” wrote the committee.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Popularity: 5% [?]

AstraZeneca announced Wednesday that the European Commission approved its oral drug Iressa (gefitinib) for the treatment of adults with locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer with activating mutations of EGFR-TK, across all lines of therapy.

[ad]

The company’s executive vice-president for development, Anders Ekblom, remarked that the approval will give patients with EGFR mutation positive tumours “a more effective and better tolerated alternative to chemotherapy as a first-line treatment.” AstraZeneca also noted that it will conduct a follow-up study to generate more data on the drug’s effectiveness in a Caucasian population, and added that it was in discussions with the EMEA to finalise the study design. Iressa is currently sold in the Asia-Pacific region for patients with NSCLC who have received prior therapy.

Source: FirstWord

Popularity: 4% [?]

Amid much discussion around comparative effectiveness of medical treatments and whether cost should be a factor in treatment decisions, a new article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute estimates it would cost $440 billion to extend life by one year for the 550,000 Americans who die annually of cancer, reports the WSJ.

[ad]

The authors, from the National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health, say that 90% of cancer drugs approved in the past four years cost more than $20,000 for 12 weeks worth of treatment.

Some drugs have limited upsides, and these shouldn’t be developed unless they will cost patients less than $20,000 for a standard course, they say. Two more recommendations from the authors: doctors shouldn’t prescribe cancer medicines for non-approved purposes, and new medicines with marginal benefits shouldn’t be used for those with advanced cancer.

Treating lung-cancer with Erbitux, a Bristol-Myers and Eli Lilly drug, costs $80,000 for an 18-week regimen but extends life by only 1.2 months, the authors estimate. Bristol-Myers says the real-world cost number of Erbitux is closer to $10,000 a month. Drug makers say the cost estimates are often exaggerated because most patients are only on them for limited amounts of time and many received financial assistance, according to the WSJ.

[ad]

So the challenge is this: How to develop new medicines — especially those that might help certain individuals a lot even if the benefit to patients as a group isn’t impressive — while trying to keep costs in check.

“We can’t add on Mercedes-like drugs one after another and have every single patient cost the system phenomenal amounts of money,” Eric Winer, chief scientific adviser to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast-cancer advocacy group, told the WSJ. “But we have to be careful not to slow down the process of drug development. Ultimately it is medical therapy that will make a huge difference in people’s lives.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Popularity: 4% [?]

A retrospective analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative study, which was presented at ASCO, showed that women with non-small-cell lung cancer who used hormone replacement therapy were more than twice as likely to die from their cancer as those who did not take HRT. Richard Schilsky, president of ASCO, stated that the findings are “another piece of evidence to suggest that hormone replacement therapy should be used with great caution.”

[ad]

Researchers examined data from more than 16 600 women who were divided approximately equally into groups who took HRT or placebo. After more than five years taking HRT, data showed 96 cases of NSCLC and 67 deaths from the disease. In comparison, there were 72 cases of NSCLC and 39 related deaths among women in the study who took placebo. Researchers noted that the difference in the number of cases was not significant, but that the difference in the number of deaths was.

Further analysis indicated that among smokers in the study, 3.4 percent of women treated with HRT died of lung cancer, compared with 2.3 percent of those who received placebo. For non-smokers, 0.2 percent of women in the HRT group died from the disease, compared with 0.1 percent of those in the placebo arm. In response to the data, lead author Rowan Chlebowski warned that “women almost certainly shouldn’t be using combined hormone therapy and tobacco at the same time.”

Commenting on the findings, Wyeth, which markets Prempro (oestrogen and progestin), stated that the same risks observed in the analysis might no longer apply, given the current manner in which the drug is prescribed. The company’s head of medical affairs Joseph Camardo remarked that women in the WHI trial used high doses of HRT over a long period of time and started treatment at an average age of 63 years. “Practice has already changed significantly. Guidance and the label have changed…use has shifted toward much shorter duration and lower doses,” he explained.

In addition, Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society noted that the number of deaths so far in the study is too small for researchers to be able to make broad conclusions about risk in the general population.

Source: FirstWord

Popularity: 4% [?]

Promising early results for a drug for pancreatic cancer have been reported by a team of UK and US scientists.

The drug, which targets a molecule called PKD involved in tumour growth, also seemed effective in animal tests on lung cancer, the researchers said.

The findings are especially encouraging because there are few treatments available and survival is poor.

Human trials should start within 18 months, the American Association for Cancer Research conference was told.

[ad]

PKD is a family of molecules called kinases which provide a signalling function between the outside and inside of the cell.

Also involved in cell survival and the formation of new blood vessels, PKD was discovered to be potentially key target in tumours by UK researchers some years ago.

A team at Cancer Research Technology Ltd – a company owned by Cancer Research UK – then developed molecules which would inhibit the effects of PKD.

The latest results on the resulting drug, known as CRT0066101, show it inhibits the growth of pancreatic tumours in mice and works in lung cancer models.

It is thought that future studies may show the drug to be effective on a wider range of cancers.

Human trials should be starting after safety studies have been completed, they researchers said.

‘Unmet need’

CRT’s discovery laboratories director Dr Hamish Ryder said the team focused on pancreatic and lung cancer tumours because they are cancers with a “significant unmet medical need”.

Dr Sushovan Guha, who leads the laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center and collaborated in the project, added he was optimistic about the drug’s potential.

In addition to killing cancer cells, it is hoped the drug will stop tumours growing and spreading by blocking blood vessel growth.

“This would mean it offers a double action treatment but this needs to be proved through further work.”

Sue Ballard, the founder of Pancreatic Cancer UK, said the disease caused 5% of cancer deaths but only received 1% of disease funding.

“There is a great lack of really effective treatments, surgery gives the best chance if done early but even in that situation it can recur or spread.

“This research is in the very early stages but anything that’s starting to show promising results is vitally needed.”

Source: BBC NEWS

Popularity: 3% [?]

Roche announced that Health Canada approved the use of Avastin (bevacizumab), combined with chemotherapy, in patients with unresectable advanced, metastatic or recurrent non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer.

[ad]

The drugmaker said the approval was based on results from the late-stage E4599 trial involving 878 patients, which showed that those who took Avastin plus chemotherapy achieved median survival of 12.3 months, compared to 10.3 months for those who took chemotherapy alone.

Avastin is already approved in Canada to treat metastatic colorectal cancer and advanced breast cancer.

Source: FirstWord

Popularity: 3% [?]

US pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have a record 861 new cancer medicines and vaccines currently in human clinical trials or awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to a new industry report.

[ad]

They include: – 122 new treatments for lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in the US; – 106 for breast cancer, which is forecast to strike more than 180,000 American women every year; – 103 for prostate cancer, which is estimated to kill over 28,000 men in the US annually; and – 70 for colorectal cancer, the third most common cancer in both men and women in the nation.

In addition, drugs are now in development to target brain and kidney cancers, leukemia, and cancers of the skin, ovaries and pancreas, says the report, which is published by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). Drugmakers are also working on medicines aimed at improving the quality of life for cancer patients, it adds, pointing out that as many as 50% of cancer patients may currently be undertreated for the pain associated with their condition.

The many new “cutting-edge” approaches to fighting cancer which US drugmakers are currently working on include: – a medicine which delivers a synthetic version of a substance derived from scorpions directly to brain tumour cells; – a drug that inhibits production of a protein that may interfere with the effectiveness of chemotherapy; – a product designed to induce a powerful immune response to melanoma; – a potential first-line and first-in-class therapy designed to target specific cancer cells and kill then, and then activate the patient’s general immune system to destroy any remaining cancer cells; and – a product using nanotechnology that enhances the delivery of medicine to the patient, overcoming obstacles in existing treatment.

These new advances are “our best hope for stemming the toll of cancer-related deaths,” said PhRMA chief executive Billy Tauzin, himself a survivor of abdominal cancer. Cancer remains the USA’s second leading cause of death by disease, second only to heart disease, and in 2008 it is estimated that around 565,650 Americans died of cancer, or more than 1,500 a day, he adds.

Source: PharmaTimes

Popularity: 3% [?]