Listiana fights cancer

Harry Potter and Listiana Srisanti have something in common: both have a strong fighting spirit.

Harry is determined to fight the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed his parents as part of a plan to take over the wizarding world -- while Listiana has the strong determination to fight the cancer that almost killed her.

In 2004, a series of medical tests at a Central Jakarta hospital revealed Listiani had serious lung cancer.

"The oncologist told my husband I only had two to four months to live," she said.

Instead of crying and whining, Listiana made up her mind to fight the disease. She went to Singapore, where she learned her condition was even worse than she had been told in Jakarta. The cancer cells had spread to other parts of her body, indicating there was little hope for survival.

But Listiana refused to give up and kept her spirits high. After several operations and chemotherapy, her health improved drastically.

"I feel very healthy," said Listiana, whose hair that fell out during treatment has just started to grow back.

"I used to have cracked heels, but now they are smooth. My husband also said I have a better complexion," she said happily.

Listiana tries to always think positive and never lets herself be overpowered by emotions.

She recalls there were many times during her chemotherapy treatment when she forgot to wear her hat to cover her hairless head.

"I once went into a restaurant and many people stared at me. I realized I had left my hat in the car. So, I just turned around, went out to the car to get it and came back into the restaurant," she said with a laugh.

source:www.thejakartapost.com

Can Cancer Patients Living Longer

Forty six out of 100 Korean cancer patients live more than five years after their diagnosis, a study has found. This figure is similar to the 43 percent in Japan who survive for five or more years, and lower than the 65 percent in the U.S.

According to the statistics, the rate of cancer among Korean men is 291.1 per 100,000 people, and 177.1 per 100,000 for women.

The study found that one out of four Korean men will get cancer if they live to 73 years old, which is the average life expectancy. One out of five Korean women will get cancer if they live to 81.

This is according to a joint study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Cancer Center and the Korea Central Cancer Registry. The report used information from the national cancer database on 780,273 cancer patients from 1998 to 2002.

The study found that 46.3 percent of cancer patients lived more than five years after they were diagnosed between 1998 and 2002, up from 41.7 percent diagnosed between 1993 and 1997. This enhanced survival rate is attributed to a higher rate of early checkups and improved cancer diagnosis and treatment technology in Korea.

source:english.chosun.com

Low-fat diet high in vegetables does not improve cancer survival

Among breast cancer survivors, adopting a low-fat diet high in vegetables, fruit and fibre does not prevent the cancer from returning or prolong survival, according to a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr John P Pierce and his associates designed the Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) trial, based on evidence that plant-derived foods contain anti-cancer chemicals.

Pierce, at the University of California, San Diego, and his team describe the intervention as "a telephone counselling program supplemented with cooking classes and newsletters that promoted daily targets of five vegetable servings plus 16 ounces of vegetable juice; three fruit servings; 30 grams of fibre; and 15 to 20 per cent of" calories from fat.

Subjects in the comparison group received care as usual and were given publications from the National Cancer Institute and the US Department of Health and Human Services, describing the "5-A-Day" dietary guidelines.

In addition to five servings of vegetables and fruits, the diet recommends 20 grams of fibre and less than 30 per cent of calories from fat.

Between 1995 and 2000, WHEL investigators enrolled more than 3,000 women who were previously treated for breast cancer.

Follow-up continued until 2006. They report outcomes for 1,537 subjects randomly assigned to the intervention group and 1,561 assigned to the comparison group.

As noted, the special diet did not prevent breast cancer from returning and it did not improve survival.

Roughly 17 per cent of patients in each group had their cancer return and about 10 per cent in each died during follow-up.

In a related editorial, Dr Susan M Gapstur and Dr Seema Khan, from the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, compared the WHEL study findings with those of the Women's Intervention

Nutrition Study (WINS).

According to WINS trial results, a low-fat diet imparted significant increases in cancer-free survival, which was associated with a 3kg weight difference between study groups at year three.

In the WHEL study, on the other hand, weight loss and amount of daily calories did not differ between the two patient groups, and the actual percentage of calories from fat increased during the trial in both groups.

The editorialists suggest that "these results call into question the validity of some components of the self-reported dietary data," and they attribute the negative findings at least partially to lack of adherence to the diet.

source:www.theage.com.au

Genetically Altered Cold Sore Virus Fights Cancer

A modified version of the virus that causes cold sores is showing early promise in targeting colorectal and liver cancer cells, scientists report.

The herpes simplex virus is specially designed so that it grows in specific cancer cells, killing them in the process. The researchers report that the genetically altered virus is safe for healthy tissue.

The findings were presented July 7 at the annual European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Lugano, Switzerland.

"It doesn't replicate in normal, healthy cells, so our hope is that it will help fight cancers without causing side effects in the rest of the body," Dr. Axel Mescheder, vice president of clinical research and development for MediGene, said in a prepared statement. MediGene is a German biotech company based in Munich.

Mescheder reported safety and efficacy results and described the case of a patient whose liver tumors appeared to be reduced six months after treatment with the virus.

Seven leading cancer centers in the United States are participating in the study.

Almost 40 percent of patients with colorectal cancer die, because cancer spreads to other parts of the body, particularly the liver. The results reported by Mescheder follow testing in the lab and in animals where the virus was shown to be effective at killing colorectal cancer and liver cancer cells.

In 2003, over 73,000 men and almost 71,000 women were diagnosed with colorectal cancer in the United States. That year, close to 28,000 men and 28,000 women died from the disease, which is the second leading cancer killer.

Scientists identify chromosome linked to colorectal cancer

Researchers at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and Cancer Care Ontario hope their identification of a genetic variation on a chromosome associated with colorectal cancer may help them screen people for the disease.

The study was published in Nature Genetics involved researchers from around

the world who analysed more than 100,000 genetic elements from 10,000 people, including 2,400 Ontarians from the Ontario Familial Colorectal Cancer Registry.

Research on this chromosome has previously linked it to other forms of cancer, including prostate cancer, suggesting that individuals with this newly discovered variation may be at risk for a broad spectrum of cancers.

"This discovery will lead to better understanding of colorectal cancer biology and the cause of this disease," Dr. Tom Hudson, co-principal investigator and president and scientific director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research said in a statement.

"This information can be used to identify those at risk of colorectal cancer and direct them to screening at an earlier age."

Colorectal cancer is the second deadliest form of cancer in Canada.

"This breakthrough could lead to new methods of testing for colorectal cancer," said Dr. Brent Zanke, co-principal investigator and scientist at Cancer Care Ontario, adding the screening could be done through blood tests.

source:www.canada.com

Labs Mature Eggs From Girls With Cancer

Doctors have removed eggs from young female cancer patients and for the first time brought the eggs to maturity before freezing them, giving the girls a better chance to one day have children. Previously, scientists had thought viable eggs could only be obtained from girls who had undergone puberty.

"We didn't expect young girls to have eggs that could withstand the process of maturation," which involves adding hormones, said Dr. Ariel Revel, who led the research at the Hadassah Hospital in Israel.

The research will be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lyon.

In related work, Canadian doctors on Monday announced the first birth of a baby from eggs matured in a laboratory, frozen, thawed and then fertilized a key development that holds promise for infertile women.

The year-old baby girl was born to a woman in Canada, doctors told the conference. Three other women are pregnant from eggs that had been matured in a lab, frozen, thawed and then implanted, they said.

The 20 women involved in the study are infertile with an average age of about 30. None have a history of cancer. Until now, doctors did not know whether eggs matured in a lab could withstand the fertilization process, adding that the research is still in early stages.

"It has the potential to become one of the main options for fertility preservation," said Dr. Hananel Holzer, the study's lead author and an assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University in Montreal.

In the study involving young girls with cancer, Revel surgically extracted the eggs and then artificially matured them in a laboratory, with the idea of re-implanting them one day should the patient wish to have children.

To obtain the eggs, Revel and his colleagues performed surgery on 18 patients ages 5 to 20. Of 167 eggs, 41 were successfully matured, including some from prepubescent donors. They were then indistinguishable from those of older women, Revel said.

"Any advance that enables young women to have children one day after having cancer is positive," said Simon Davies, head of Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity based in Britain. Davies was not linked to the research.

But as the extraction of eggs is an invasive operation, Davies said more information was needed about potential risks to young women fighting cancer. There might also be ethical concerns, as the decision to remove eggs from very young girls would likely be made by the parents, not the patient.

Experts think cancer treatments can affect female fertility. Chemotherapy usually affects all body cells, attacking not only the cancer, but other areas including the ovaries for which it is often deadly.

Unlike men, who produce sperm throughout their lifetime, women only have a set number of eggs from their birth, which decreases as they age. Young girls who undergo aggressive chemotherapy treatments often experience a sharp drop in the number of their eggs, and some become completely infertile.

The cure rate for childhood cancer can be as high as 90 percent, and doctors are investigating options for preserving patients' fertility. Another experimental method involves removing a thin layer of ovarian tissue for re-implantation later, but trials so far have resulted in only a handful of pregnancies worldwide.

Immature eggs from adult women have previously been matured in the laboratory, but until now, no one had ever tried it with eggs from young girls.

The real test will come when the girls on whom the treatment was performed might be ready to have children. "We will only know the final chapter of this story in about 10 years, when we hope to close the circle of this research," Revel said.

None of the eggs has yet been thawed, and experts are unsure if the process of artificial insemination could result in other problems such as chromosomal abnormalities. Additional surveillance, such as amniocentesis screenings to check the baby's development, probably would be necessary.

source:www.abcnews.go.com

Cephalon to file cancer drug sooner than expected

ephalon Inc. said Thursday it plans to file a marketing application for its experimental cancer drug Treanda earlier than expected.

The biotechnology company said that based on data from a late-stage European study, it plans to file a U.S. marketing application for Treanda to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the third quarter.

Previously, the company said it planned to file a marketing application for Treanda based on a trial in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the fourth quarter. The company said the filing for that indication is still on track.

Cephalon said the leukemia filing will be based on a clinical trial conducted in Europe that compared bendamustine, the active ingredient in Treanda, with the chemotherapy chlorambucil in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who have not been previously treated.

The Phase III trial met its main goal and full data will be presented at a medical meeting in December.

Cephalon holds the rights to market and sell Treanda in the United States. Bendamustine is marketed in Germany by MundiPharma International under the name Ribomustin.

Cephalon will elaborate on its pipeline of experimental products at its research and development day for analysts beginning at noon.

source;www.signonsandiego.com

Population Versus Cancer

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says the number of cancers being diagnosed each year is growing faster than the overall population.

Last year there were an estimated 106,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in Australia, a 34 per cent increase over the past decade.

Prostate cancer has become the most common cancer diagnosed in Australia.

A new report from the Institute has found testing for prostate cancer has increased by 42 per cent over the last four years.

The Institute's Dr Mark Short says the increased testing has pushed up the number of cases diagnosed.

"The picture seems to be that GPs are perhaps referring men more often for these tests or men are going to GPs in particular asking for these tests, we're not sure, but if you test more you will find more cancers," he said.

"As our population of 70-year-olds and older gets bigger and bigger we're going to find more and more prostate cancer."

Rural areas

The report also found people living in regional Australia had higher rates of cancer from excessive sun exposure and smoking than their city counterparts.

Between 2001 and 2003 there was higher incidence of melanoma and lung, head and neck cancers amongst people living in rural areas.

Men also had significantly higher rates of cancer diagnosed in advanced stages.

The Cancer Council's Professor Ian Olver says it highlights the need for improvements to patient travel assistance and health facilities in regional Australia.

"Some radiotherapy equipment is being put out in rural areas and if those centres were developed into multi-disciplinary cancer centres it would bring the cancer expertise closer to the rural and remote patients," he said.

Professor Olver says the figures present a challenge for Government.

"More resources will have to be put into cancer as it becomes the predominant cause of death in Australia," he said.

source:abc.net.au

New course into cancer research

A degree on cancer and the drugs used to treat the disease will be offered to students in a new course at the University of Bangor.

The cancer biology degree starting in September offers students the opportunity to work with the North West Cancer Research Institute.

The university says it is one of four degrees of its type in the UK.

It aims to allow undergraduates to pursue careers in the pharmaceutical industry and academic cancer research.

"Every week in the UK over 5,000 people are diagnosed with cancer," said Professor Nick Stuart, consultant medical oncologist at North West Wales NHS Trust.

"Added to this, the incidence of cancer in Wales tends to be higher than European average.

"We need to understand the fundamental mechanisms underlying this group of diseases in order to improve the treatments available for cancer sufferers and their survival," he added.

The students will learn skills to help their future careers, said course director Thomas Caspari.

"In addition to careers within the health service and cancer charities, cancer biologists are sought by a wide range of employers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and in the fields of intellectual property management, business development, project management, public relations, fundraising and marketing," he said.

"The pharmaceutical industry spend around £9m a day on cancer research and development, and there are a cluster of such companies in this region, so it's vital that we produce graduates with the skills necessary for this industry."

source:news.bbc.co.uk

Cervical cancer drug war

THE foreign-made cervical cancer vaccine that will compete against Australian-developed Gardasil may prevent more cancers than the home-grown product, with new evidence showing it may protect women against other strains of the virus that causes the disease.

Gardasil, which was based on work by former Australian of the Year Ian Frazer, has proved to be 100 per cent effective in protecting women against types 16 and 18 of the human papilloma virus, which together are thought to cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers worldwide - and up to 80 per cent in Australia.

Gardasil is expected to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties for CSL, which sells the vaccine in Australia and licensed it for worldwide sale through drug giant Merck.

However, interim findings from a large international study involving more than 18,000 women aged 15 to 25 - including about 500 women in Australia - has found that a rival vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, not only protects against types 16 and 18, but also provides lesser protection against types 45 and 31.

Rachel Skinner, of the Vaccine Trials Group of Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, headed the Australian arm of the study. She said the other two types were responsible for a further 10 per cent of cervical cancers worldwide, although the equivalent figure in Australia was not known.

If the preliminary results are borne out, it may mean Cervarix could prevent more deaths than Gardasil. There are 750 new cases of cervical cancer each year in Australia, and 250 deaths.

Earlier this year, Gardasil began being provided to Australian schoolgirls under the National Immunisation Program. From Sunday, Gardasil will be made available free of charge to all women aged 18 to 26. GlaxoSmithKline has applied to have Cervarix also subsidised on the national scheme.

"The evidence of this broader protection (from Cervarix) is very exciting," Dr Skinner said.

"It more strongly suggests that this vaccine might ultimately be shown to provide broader protection against pre-cancerous lesions and cervical cancer, more than can be accounted for by (protection against) HPV 16 and 18 alone."

The latest findings, published online yesterday by The Lancet, were stronger confirmation of results published last year.

About half the 18,000 women in that study were randomly assigned to receive Cervarix, while the others received a hepatitis A vaccine. After 15 months, Cervarix was found to cut pre-cancerous lesions caused by HPV 16 and 18 by 90.4 per cent. Six-month persistent infections by HPV 45 were cut by 60per cent and for HPV 31 by 36 per cent.

However, Dr Skinner cautioned that it would be wrong to conclude that one vaccine was better than the other, saying Gardasil was also effective against two other strains of HPV, types 6 and 11, offering 90 per cent protection against genital warts. Cervarix has not been designed to protect women against those strains.

A spokeswoman for Gardasil's maker, Melbourne-based CSL, said several of the study's specific findings appeared to suggest a wide degree of uncertainty about the protection offered by Cervarix, and even opened the possibility that it might be less effective than Gardasil against some types.

"I'm not sure that this is such good news" for Cervarix, the CSL spokeswoman said.

source:www.theaustralian.news.com.au

S'pore to produce cancer drugs for Genentech, eyes growth in biologics

US-based biotechnology firm Genentech said it will use Singapore as a base to produce drugs for cancer and a disease that causes blindness in older people for its US market by 2010.

At the groundbreaking of its new facility on Thursday, policymakers said they are confident of attracting more major biologics players to Singapore, especially to do higher value work.

Genetech is building a US$140 million microbial plant in Singapore.

"Beyond production, our hope is to attract development - for commercial development. Right now, the development is public research. Our hope is to attract companies to do cancer research. Singapore is becoming a centre for cancer research, cancer development and cancer drugs," said Philip Yeo, Special Advisor for Economic Development, Prime Minister's Office.

Singapore is now home to four biologics plants, and Genentech's latest facility will be the first biologics plant here to make medicine based on bacteria technology.

Officials believe that building a strong industry cluster in the emerging field of biologics will help attract related supporting industries.

"We do have a very strong pipeline of biologics project interests from companies. And we really see this to be the next wave of growth for the biomedical sciences manufacturing sector," said Yeoh Keat Chuan, Executive Director (Biomedical Sciences), Economic Development Board (EDB).

With half a billion US dollars of investments in Singapore already, Genentech said it's looking at pursuing further work here.

"With the great experience that we've had in Singapore, you can reasonably assume that we'll be talking in the future about other things. The right place to start will probably be in clinical development, where Genentech is looking at globalising our clinical development facilities and operations," said Patrick Yang, Executive VP of Genetech.

The new plant is slated to be operational by the end of 2009.

Soon after that, Genentech is planning to buy the Lonza plant next door once it's tested and qualified.

The plan is to have both plants contribute up to 40% of the company's total sales revenue over time. - CNA /ls

source:www.channelnewsasia.com

Breast Cancer Genes Traced Back To Father's Family

A new study of American women suffering from breast cancer has traced the roots of the disease to that of the father. The study authors say that many women with breast cancer are deprived of testing to identify faulty genes and clarify their medical decisions.

The study, appearing in tomorrow's Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at the genetic test results from 306 women diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50. It was concluded that the deadly gene's path can hide in a family tree when a woman has few aunts and older sisters, thus indicating the fact that it originates from the father's side of the family.

AP quotes study co-author Dr. Jeffrey Weitzel of City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California as saying, "Interestingly, it's about Dad." Nearly half of genetic breast cancers are inherited from a woman's father, not her mother.

Weitzel also added that unless the father has female relatives with breast cancer, there is a possibility that the faulty gene may have been passed down silently, without causing cancer

The study also urges the insurance companies to change the rules for health claims and should include coverage for genetic testing to include the new findings. Genetic testing can cost more than $3,000.

Experts also recommend any woman who gets breast cancer before age 50, to get a genetic test that would help her decide whether to have the unaffected breast or her ovaries removed to prevent more cancer.

Dr. Noah Kauff, a cancer geneticist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Told AP, "The study allows physicians and patients to make an argument to insurance carriers that, although there's not a family history of breast cancer, it's still reasonable to test and it should be a covered benefit."

source:www.allheadlinenews.com

Again about Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is known as a "silent killer" because it is usually discovered too late to save a woman's life. But three cancer groups in the United States have now agreed on a list of possible early signs of the disease.

The statement is the first of its kind to recognize what ovarian cancer survivors have long believed: that there are common symptoms. Researchers have found that these symptoms are more likely to happen in women with ovarian cancer than women in general.

One symptom is bloating, or expansion of the abdomen area. Pain in the abdomen or the pelvis can be another symptom. Also, researchers say women with early-stage ovarian cancer may urinate more often or with greater urgency. And the statement says another common symptom is difficulty eating or feeling full quickly.

Women who have these symptoms almost daily for more than a few weeks are advised to see a gynecologist or other doctor.

The cancer can affect one or both ovaries, the organs that produce eggs. Doctors say the main ways to find the disease early are recognizing the symptoms and getting a combination pelvic and rectal examination.

Ovarian cancer kills more than one hundred thousand women around the world each year. In the United States, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Cancer experts predict that at least fifteen thousand women will die of it this year. And more than twenty-two thousand new cases will be found.

The Gynecologic Cancer Foundation led the effort for the agreement on common symptoms. The American Cancer Society and the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists also were involved. And a number of other cancer groups have expressed support for the statement.

Doctor Barbara Goff at the University of Washington in Seattle was a lead investigator of several studies that gave support to the new list. She says most of the time a woman with these symptoms will not have ovarian cancer. But the disease can spread quickly to nearby organs.

A few months can mean life or death. Doctor Goff notes that the disease is ninety percent curable when found in its earliest form.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. For a link to the full statement, and for more news about health and science, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Barbara Klein.

source:www.voanews.com

Study Questions Accuracy of Genetic Risk Models Used to Determine Testing

Many breast cancer patients who have a genetic predisposition for the disease, but who do not have an obvious family link to breast cancer, are not considered candidates for genetic testing, new research shows.

The study challenges the accuracy of models used to determine who should be offered testing for the breast cancer gene mutation BRCA, finding the models to be poor predictors of risk for women with few female relatives over the age of 45.

The models assess risk based on known family history of breast cancer.

"You have to have a family to have a family history," researcher Jeffrey Weitzel, MD, of the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif., tells WebMD.

He added that women with few older female relatives on either their mother's or father's sides were not well served by the available models.
Mutation Uncommon

Inherited gene mutations play a role in about 5% of all breast cancers. But women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations have about a 50% to 85% lifetime risk of developing the disease, compared with a roughly 10% lifetime risk among the general population of women.

BRCAcarriers are also much more likely to develop breast cancers before the age of 50, and their risk for ovarian cancer is also greatly increased.

Identifying women with BRCA mutations is a proven strategy for reducing the risk of death from breast or ovarian cancer. But since the mutations are rare, testing all women or even testing all breast cancer patients may not be practical.

Most women who develop breast cancer before the age of 40 are considered for genetic testing, but clinicians often rely on the prediction models to determine whether women diagnosed in their 40s should be screened if they have no known family link to the disease.

Weitzel and colleagues assessed the accuracy of the prediction models in their study appearing in the June 20 issue of TheJournal of the American Medical Association.

A total of 1,543 breast cancer patients enrolled in a cancer registry between 1997 and 2007 were included in the study. Of these patients, 306 were diagnosed before age 50 and reported no known first- or second-degree relatives with breast or ovarian cancers.

When these women were questioned further about their family history, half of them (153) were determined by researchers to have too few close female relatives to accurately assess risk, defined as fewer than two females relatives age 45 or older on both their mother's and father's sides of the family.

Genetic testing revealed that these women had a 14% risk of having a mutation, compared with a 5% risk among women with a larger number of female relatives who survived to their mid-40s without developing breast cancer.

"The likelihood of finding a mutation was almost three times greater [among the women with fewer older female relatives]," Weitzel says. "We are clearly missing women who could benefit from knowing their genetic risk."
Understanding the Limitations

Cancer geneticist and gynecologist Noah D. Kauff, MD, of Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, agrees.

"We have to understand the models and their limitations if we are going to use them," he says. "They likely still have a role in helping us identify patients who would benefit from genetic testing, but it is important that they are not used in isolation."

Breast cancer patients with BRCA mutations are generally treated more aggressively; they are at increased risk for another breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

The American Cancer Society now recommends annual breast screening with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) along with mammography for high-risk women, as determined by existing family-risk models.

Kauff tells WebMD that the recommendation illustrates the importance of finding better ways to identify women at increased risk.

"If these models are incomplete for testing, they are obviously incomplete for making decisions about who should be screened and treated," he says.

source:www.webmd.com

Stroger has surgery to fight prostate cancer

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is fighting prostate cancer and has had surgery to have his prostate removed, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

"He did undergo successful surgery to have his prostate removed," said spokeswoman Ibis Antongiorgi.

The Chicago Sun-Times first reported the 44-year-old's diagnosis in its Tuesday editions, saying Stroger underwent surgery Monday after cancer was found on a small portion of his prostate.

Stroger won the board presidency in November after his father, John Stroger, retired following a massive stroke.

The elder Stroger was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent years of treatment before beating the disease in 1994.

Stroger chief of staff Lance Tyson told the Sun-Times that the surgery went well and there's hope that the cancer did not spread.

"He's doing OK," Tyson said.

Tyson said Stroger is expected to spend the next two to three weeks recovering at home.

Antongiorgi said officials will provide an update on Stroger's condition later Tuesday morning.

The board president plans to start a public campaign to raise awareness about prostate cancer and the importance of early detection, Tyson said.

The newspaper reported that Stroger doesn't plan to transfer power during his recovery.

source:www.chicagobusiness.com

GSK to launch five new drugs to tackle cancer

GlaxoSmithKline, Europe's biggest drug-maker, is to launch five cancer drugs in the next three years as it increases its exposure to a lucrative £20bn market.

The company, which has taken a hit in recent weeks after its diabetes drug Avandia was linked to an increased risk of heart attacks, has also unveiled plans to enrol the first patients in its lung-cancer vaccine trial, which will begin in September. Glaxo is competing with Germany's Merck to produce the first lung-cancer vaccine and will commence the largest late-stage study of a treatment for the disease, which kills around 1.3 million people worldwide each year.

The five new oncology products set for launch by 2010 are the cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix; the renal cancer drug Pazopanib; Promacta, an oral compound to help cancer patients build up their platelet count and reduce bleeding; Rezonic, which helps to control symptoms associated with chemotherapy such as nausea; and Ofatumumab, an antibody to treat leukaemia which has blockbuster potential.

Glaxo's head of research and development, Moncef Slaoui, called the target "an unprecedented objective for a pharmaceutical company". He said Glaxo was developing late-stage medicines in more than 12 types of cancer and had a significant number of compounds in early-stage discovery.

Glaxo aims to establish itself as a major player in the oncology market, which is growing by 20 per cent annually.

Recent developments at Glaxo have been overshadowed by the furore surrounding Avandia. Shares have lost 10 per cent of their value since a study in the New England Journal of Medicine in May linked the drug, the firm's second best seller, to an increased risk of heart attack. Although Glaxo disputes the findings, sales and prescriptions of the drug have been hit. Analysts have remained positive on the stock owing to the potential of the pipeline and said the share price fall due to the Avandia scare will prove to be excessive.

Julien Dormois, health and life science analyst at Bryan Garnier, said Avandia remains a blockbuster and the impact of falling sales has already been priced in. He added: "It is becoming clearer and clearer that Glaxo may become the second major force for oncology worldwide behind Roche."

For Glaxo's lung cancer trial, 2,200 patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease, will be treated with the vaccine. It is hoped the vaccine may prevent the cancer from returning following surgery and will enable patients to live longer by helping their immune systems to recognise and destroy cancer cells. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates, with 85 per cent of patients dying within five years.

source:www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk