Colon cancer test offers long-lasting protection
NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2001 (Reuters Health) - A person's chances of developing or dying from colorectal cancer may be reduced by up to 60% for more than 10 years after just one colonoscopy exam, according to a report from German researchers.
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Milk may lower colon cancer risk
WESTPORT, CT - Nov. 10, 2001 (Reuters Health) - Drinking milk may lower the risk of developing colon cancer, the results of a study from Finland suggest.
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Novartis cancer drug Glivec gets EU approval
BASEL, Switzerland - Nov. 9, 2001 (Reuters) - Novartis AG's Glivec drug has been approved by the European Union to treat adult patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia, the Swiss healthcare group said on Thursday.
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Call for colon cancer screening
BBC News Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001 -- Deaths from colon cancer could be cut by a fifth if men were offered screening for the disease, says a UK expert. Professor John Northover, who works at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Colorectal Cancer Unit at St Mark's Hospital in London said that screening could pick out those affected much earlier - when surgery is more likely to halt the spread of the cancer.
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Using genetics to attack cancer
HealthandAge Oct. 30, 2001 -- A trial of a new anti-cancer drug shows that it interacts with specific genes, which may help refine future treatments. Ceflatonin, a natural product, is being tested as an anti-cancer treatment. Meanwhile, the US company ChemGenex is looking at the effect of the drug on the genes that are activated in cancer. They find that specific genes and cellular pathways are affected by ceflatonin. These experiments have been done in human colon cancer cells and on tumour growth and gene expression in cancer cells grown in mice.
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Chicago Tribune | Study backs chemo for older colon-cancer patients
Chicago Tribune, Nov. 4, 2001 -- Older people receiving surgical treatment for colon cancer can benefit from follow-up chemotherapy as much as younger patients, a Mayo Clinic study concludes.
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Role of aspirin in colon cancer prevention unclear
HealthandAge Nov. 6, 2001 -- A computer simulation study suggests preventive aspirin does not match screening as a way of reducing the risk of colon cancer. Previous research has hinted that taking aspirin and other anti-inflammatories can protect against colon cancer. Meanwhile, screening has been shown to cut the risk - although many of those eligible still do not take up the opportunity.
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Biomedical Science -- Medicine for the Economy
Nov. 15, 2001 SINGAPORE -- As global recession tightens its grip, governments in Asia are seeking new areas of economic growth. In Singapore, billions of dollars are being poured into reinventing the city state as the region's biomedical hub. Can science cure the economy's ills?
Finding a cure for cancer has become the Holy Grail of medicine. Singapore start-up Lynk Biotechnologies thinks it's got a road map to find it. The privately held company has developed a new class of compounds that have been shown to eliminate colon cancer in mice within weeks of a single dose of treatment.
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Colon cancer screening more effective for prevention than aspirin
New York (MedscapeWire) Nov 7 -- Colon cancer screening is far more effective than aspirin in preventing development of the disease, according to researchers who used a computer simulation to come up with their findings.
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Cancer patients look to lawsuit
Phillyburbs.com, SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Richards Holmes, who says he has terminal colon cancer, ponders a question in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2001, about how much time he has left to live. Holmes is upset with Attorney General John Ashcroft after Ashcroft issued a new drug-enforcement policy Tuesday that blocks Oregon's assisted suicide law.
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Body scans offer sometimes false reassurances
Full-body scans promise to identify disease before symptoms occur. But does such screening create more problems than it uncovers?
Washingtonpost.com - Nov. 13, 2001-- From Beverly Hills to Baltimore, free-standing scanning centers, some located in shopping malls and many owned by radiologists, have sprung up in affluent metropolitan areas. These centers offer a comprehensive, painless, noninvasive, head-to-pelvis examination of the body's internal organs -- including the brain, heart, liver, lungs, prostate, ovaries -- for a $700 to $1,300 fee that is rarely covered by insurance.
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Cancer treatment raises early hopes
Combined therapy uses X-rays to stir tumor-killing gene
Chicago Tribune, Nov. 7, 2001 -- Cancer researchers on Tuesday reported promising, but very preliminary, results from clinical trials of a novel high-tech therapy invented at the University of Chicago that provides powerful, precisely targeted treatments for tumors generally considered hopeless.
....The synergistic technique so far has been shown to cause tumor regression in laryngeal, prostate, glioma, esophageal and colorectal cancers. The new data include cancers of the breast, pancreas and lung. But in principle, it could work for any solid tumor, Weichselbaum said, and those constitute 85 percent of all cancers.

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Hoffman-La Roche's Xeloda gets black box warning
WASHINGTON - Nov. 11, 2001, (Reuters Health) -A black box warning has been added to the label of Hoffman-La Roche's cancer treatment Xeloda (capecitabine) to strengthen a warning regarding a possible interaction with Dupont Pharmaceuticals' anticoagulant Coumadin (warfarin), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Thursday.
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Court Reverses U.S. Approval of a Generic
Nov. 7, 2001 -- A federal appeals court in Washington yesterday overturned the government's approval of a generic version of Taxol, a widely used cancer drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
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Angiostatin safe when combined with radiation for advanced cancers
WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Nov. 1, 2001 - The highly publicized angiogenesis inhibitor angiostatin is safe when combined with radiation therapy for advanced cancers, especially cancers of the head, neck, prostate, breast and lung, according to researchers from Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia.
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CancerSource.com Feature Stories
MRI: The new breast cancer screening test?
For many women, regular mammograms and monthly self-breast exams are good ways to find suspicious lumps that may be breast cancer. For certain women at high risk, however, a more detailed and comprehensive test may be needed. Doctors are studying magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to see if it can detect breast cancer earlier in high-risk women.
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Angiostatin safe when combined with radiation for advanced cancers
WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) 11/01/01 - The highly publicized angiogenesis inhibitor angiostatin is safe when combined with radiation therapy for advanced cancers, especially cancers of the head, neck, prostate, breast and lung, according to researchers from Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia.
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Novel antitumor drugs inhibit colon cancer cells
WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health)10/30/2001 - Antitumor agents derived from 2-acetylpyridine inhibit colon cancer cells in vitro and in nude mice through a novel mechanism of action, according to a report in the Oct. 1 International Journal of Cancer.
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