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For 27 years, the Children’s Art Project at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has made life better for children with cancer. Each year, the project offers holiday, everyday, and Valentine collections of note cards and gift items.

WASHINGTON-With one third to one half of all Americans now using some kind of dietary supplement, the need is greater than ever for scientifically valid ways of testing and comparing the enormous range of substances now sold with minimal FDA oversight, Vay Liang W. Go, MD, said at the American Institute for Cancer Research conference on nutrition. Dr. Go is associate director, Center for Human Nutrition, UCLA.

The final numbers are not in yet, but there is no doubt that Congress will fund the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at a considerably higher level than the $3.505 billion the Clinton administration asked for. That fiscal 2001 request was already nearly 6% above the actual 2000 budget.

ATLANTA-Pediatric cancer patients often have anxiety before scheduled treatments or procedures, and treatment often requires normally active children to remain nearly motionless for extended periods of time. At the AFLAC Cancer Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, young cancer patients may find their treatment a little easier to bear thanks to an innovative program currently under way to examine the effects of virtual reality as a “distractor” for painful or uncomfortable medical procedures.

Physicians will have to use the “ANSI ASC X12N” electronic transmission format whenever they do computerized billing.

PORTLAND, Oregon-Two large studies of colonoscopy as a primary screening tool for colon cancer show that the procedure detects advanced proximal neoplasias that would not be found with sigmoidoscopy.

AMSTERDAM-A pain monitoring program for nurses implemented at three Dutch hospitals not only raised the nurses’ knowledge of pain and its treatment but also led to improvements in nurses’ attention to patients’ pain complaints.

AMSTERDAM-A Dutch study suggests that physicians can safely skip step 2 of the World Health Organization (WHO) 3-step analgesic ladder and start opioid-naïve patients directly on transdermal fentanyl (Duragesic), a so-called strong opioid.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted marketing clearance for bexarotene (Targretin) gel 1%, a novel therapy for the topical treatment of cutaneous lesions in patients with early-stage (IA and IB) cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) who develop refractory or persistent disease after undergoing other therapies or who have not tolerated other therapies.

BETHESDA, Md-Nine organizations that fund cancer research have agreed to adopt a newly created standardized coding system, which is designed to make it easier to compare research papers and coordinate their scientific efforts. No common coding system existed previously.

For 27 years, the Children’s Art Project at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has produced and sold holiday cards and gifts created by young cancer patients. The sales have funded more than $12.7 million in programs benefiting children treated at the center. The 2000 Holiday Collection offers holiday cards, stationery, ornaments, and gift bags, plus a 2001 calendar and a series of board books for children. A record 48 young artists are part of this year’s collection. Santa, below left, was created by 13-year-old Ozzie from Houston, Texas. Shalom, below right, was designed by Eric, age 15, from Amarillo, Texas. For a free catalog, call 1-800-231-1580 or visit www.childrensart.org.

Many patients misunderstand when their healthcare providers use terms such as “high” or “low” to explain their cancer risks, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in the August 2000 issue of the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology.

The article by Schwartz and colleagues is important and timely, and brings into focus an essential component of the practice of oncology. Posttreatment follow-up is not often emphasized in the training of our residents and fellows, and is often based on

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. The health consequences of smoking impose a substantial economic toll on persons, employers, and society. Smoking accounts for $50 billion to $73 billion in annual medical-care

This phase I study examines the dose escalation of UFT given in combination with fixed doses of oral leucovorin and weekly doses of paclitaxel in patients with metastatic solid tumor malignancies (excluding colorectal cancer). There are two main objectives for this study.

The combination of irinotecan and fluorouracil (5-FU) is synergistic when applied to human colon cancer cell lines in vitro and appears to be schedule-dependent: maximal activity occurs when irinotecan is administered prior to 5-FU. In this phase I study, irinotecan is administered in combination with UFT and leucovorin in patients with advanced solid tumors.

A prospective randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of maintenance chemotherapy after surgical treatment of head and neck carcinoma was performed at 67 institutions. A comparison was made between the following two groups: the treatment group, which received 1-year oral administration of UFT at 300 mg/d following curative surgical treatment (UFT arm), and the nontreatment group, which received curative surgery alone (control arm).

Treatment with UFT for spontaneous lung metastasis of murine renal carcinoma (RENCA) after resection of the primary tumor has resulted in significant prolongation of the life span of tumor-bearing animals. UFT inhibited the growth of metastatic nodules in the lung, apparently via decreased density of microvessels in the metastatic foci. Subsequent experiments used dorsal air sac assay to directly trace newly forming microvessels.

In a trial of adjuvant chemotherapy with mitomycin and 5-FU followed by oral UFT for T1 and T2 gastric cancer after curative gastrectomy, there was no significant difference in survival between the treated and control (surgery alone) groups (5-year survival rate, 82.9% control vs 85.8% treated). Although not significantly different, 5-year survival for patients with T2 cancer was slightly higher in the treated group than in the control group (76.9% control vs 83.0% treated).

The mechanism of action of fluorouracil (5-FU) and the oral fluoropyrimidines and the importance of biochemical modulation and inhibition of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase for oral application of the prodrugs of 5-FU are discussed.

In a step toward a clinical trial, the tumor response and survival of a weekday-on/weekend-off schedule of UFT was compared with its conventional daily schedule in a cancer-bearing rat model. The dose-intensive schedule-600 mg of UFT for 5 days followed by 2 drug-free days-amounts to a weekly dose similar to the conventional schedule of 400 mg/day. The weekday-on/weekend-off schedule provided increased survival and significantly greater antitumor activity than the conventional daily schedule, with no difference in adverse reactions.

Over the past decade, increasing data have emphasized both the importance of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD), the initial, rate-limiting enzyme in the catabolism of fluorouracil (5-FU), and its role as a control step in 5-FU metabolism, regulating the availability of 5-FU for anabolism.

MEMPHIS, Tennessee-At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, children as young as 12 months are being treated for brain tumors with 3D conformal radiation therapy, said Thomas E. Merchant, MD, clinical director of the Department of Radiation Oncology.

NEW YORK-Visitors to the Eye Cancer Network (ECN) website (www.eyecancer.com) can access a wealth of information on ocular cancers, including an extensive collection of clinical photographs (see images). The site is well designed, leading visitors logically and quickly to specific information and related links. For example, a visitor seeking information on retinal tumors easily finds the topic in the Eye Conditions index, where it is subdivided into retinoblastoma, retinal pigment epithelial tumors, retinal pigment epithelial hypertrophy, and von Hippel angioma.

BETHESDA, Md-In its first year, the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR) enrolled 6,139 of the 22,000 postmenopausal women it hopes to recruit. “Six thousand in, 16,000 to go,” the National Cancer Institute (NCI) said in a press release.

HOUSTON-Thrombopoietin-like drugs may be a better bet for moderating the effects of chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression than either granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) or granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). Ongoing clinical trials with a recombinant human thrombopoietin (rhTPO) were described by Saroj Vadhan-Raj, MD, of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, at a clinical investigators’ workshop. That workshop was sponsored by M.D. Anderson and Pharmacia Oncology.

ROCKVILLE, Md-Three new research centers will focus on how market forces affect the quality of health care, access to it, and its cost. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) expects to support the centers with grants totaling $12.5 million over the next 5 years. The three centers are located at Harvard Medical School, University of California, San Francisco, and RAND, Santa Monica, California.

CONCORD, Calif-Siemens Oncology Care Systems Group has unveiled the PRIMATOM System, which combines a CT scanner with a linear accelerator for radiation therapy. The machine is currently in use at the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Atlantic Health System’s Morristown Memorial Hospital, New Jersey.

WASHINGTON-Tobacco companies, which were banned from touting their products on billboards last year, have increased their advertising at point-of-sale locations, such as convenience stores, according to a new study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

NEW ORLEANS-The addition of rituximab (Rituxan)-a monoclonal antibody directed against the CD20 antigen-to a fludarabine/cyclophosphamide (FC) regimen for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) led to a surprisingly improved complete remission rate with no increase in toxic effects, Michael J. Keating, MD, said at a poster session at the 36th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.