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All of the talk about a potential Medicare drug benefit has overshadowed the question of what can be done to lower drug costs for non Medicare patients, who, after all, constitute the majority in this country. With this in mind, Rep. Bernie Sanders

WASHINGTON-“Meeting with members of Congress to push an issue can seem intimidating, but the key is to remember that legislators are people, too, and to treat the encounter as the beginning of a relationship,” Robin Carle said at the 1999 Kidney Cancer Association (KCA) annual convention.

Jane Henney, MD, commissioner of the FDA, says that the agency is going to crack down on Internet sales of unapproved new drugs, health fraud (eg, where a site claims some drug will cure cancer), and drugs sold without a valid prescription.

NEW ORLEANS-A modification of SPECT (single proton emission computed tomography) scintimammog-raphy with the radionuclide technetium sestamibi is a promising adjunct to equivocal mammograms that are difficult to interpret, said David H. Feiglin, MD, professor of radiology, SUNY Health Science Center, Syracuse. He presented the findings of his collaborative study at the American Roentgen Ray Society annual meeting.

WASHINGTON-Call it “Fear of Filing.” A survey by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) indicates that third-party payers, including Medicare, are more willing to cover patient-care costs in cancer clinical trials than is commonly assumed. Yet often physicians won’t discuss enrollment in such trials with patients out of fear that insurers will deny payment.

MILAN, Italy-A small Italian study of gabapentin (Neurontin) in patients with neuropathic cancer pain only partially responsive to opioid therapy suggests that the anticonvulsant may have a role to play in this situation.

NEW ORLEANS-“To paraphrase Madison Avenue, this is not your father’s thermal imaging,” said Yuri R. Parisky, MD, associate professor of radiology, University of Southern California Norris Cancer Center and Hospital. He was referring to a new form of computer-enhanced thermal breast imaging that he and his colleagues at USC are studying, along with investigators at the TRW Center for Medical Image Analysis, Ogden, Utah, and Howard University, Washington, DC.

PHILADELPHIA-SmithKline Beecham announced in a press release that the FDA has approved Kytril (granisetron HCl) Tablets, its 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, for the prevention of nausea and vomiting associated with radiation, including total body irradiation (TBI) and fractionated abdominal radiation. Kytril Tablets (2 mg, once daily) are currently indicated for the prevention of nausea and vomiting associated with emetogenic cancer therapies.

BETHESDA, Md-The National Cancer Institute will provide $16 million over 4 years to the HMO Research Network to expand and strengthen its cancer research efforts and to initiate studies aimed at increasing effective cancer prevention and control among enrollees in health maintenance organizations.

ATLANTA-A prospective study, presented at the 35th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, has found the utility of routine endometrial biopsy among women with breast cancer treated with tamoxifen (Nolvadex) to be “limited at best.” Another study presented at the meeting finds sonography to be inadequate as a substitute for endometrial biopsy in healthy women receiving tamoxifen prophylaxis.

WASHINGTON-Congressional backers of “The Medicare Cancer Clinical Trials Coverage Act” see its chances of passage improving, in part because of the active support of cancer advocacy groups and the direct involvement of oncologists . The legislation, actually two identical bills introduced in the House and Senate, would create a 5-year demonstration program in which Medicare would pay for patient care during cancer clinical trials and determine the true costs of such coverage.

NEW YORK-Barrie R. Cassileth, PhD, is chief of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s new Integrative Medicine Service, which was officially opened April 1 of this year. As a researcher, educator, and planner, she has worked in psychosocial aspects of medicine and alternative and complementary therapies for more than 20 years.

CHICAGO-Although there has been a trend toward organ conservation in the treatment of cancer at many body sites, including the breast, head and neck, and esophagus, bladder sparing has been viewed differently, particularly in the United States.

DENVER-A combination of two investigational HIV vaccines has produced anti-HIV immune responses in more than 90% of volunteers at least 1 year after vaccination, Robert Belshe, MD, of St. Louis University, said at the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research meeting. “These preliminary data indicate both vaccines are safe, and side effects associated with the injections are generally mild,” Dr. Belshe said.

Chemoradiation is effective in controlling anal and rectal cancers but causes significant side effects and complications, according to three independent teams of colorectal surgeons in Australia and the United States.

Anyone who remembers the bruising political battle in 1997-1998over how Medicare would develop “resource-based” practice expenses can breathe a sign of relief over what is likely to be the painless shift to resource-based malpractice

PHILADELPHIA-Temozolomide (Temodar) appears to be an effective, well-tolerated oral agent in the setting of recurrent malignant glioma. “Further testing is clearly warranted in this patient population, and it is an attractive candidate to be evaluated in the adjuvant setting for newly diagnosed patients,” said Michael D. Prados, MD, of the Brain Tumor Research Center, University of California, San Francisco.

ATLANTA-What do 30 doctors, 20 nurses, 100 patients, and one magician have in common? A desire to make VHL stand for “Very Happy Life” as well as von Hippel-Lindau disease. These 150 people, including illusionist The Amazin’ Grayson (Grayson Smith of Memphis), attended the Sixth International Patient/Provider Conference on VHL, a 3-day meeting to build teamwork for management of VHL.

PORTLAND, Oregon-The US Department of Veterans Affairs has opened its new $30 million Northwest Veterans Affairs Cancer Research Center. The Center will house joint research projects of both the Portland VA Medical Center and the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). Its primary focus will be the genetic basis and the biologic pathways of cancer.

ATLANTA-As with postmenopausal hormone replacement, tamoxifen (Nolvadex) administration may be associated with reduced lipid levels. In addition, tamoxifen may also have beneficial effects on markers of inflammation considered to be novel cardiac risk factors, according to a poster presentation at the 35th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

NEW ORLEANS-High-resolution ultrasound provides additional information about mammographically identified malignant calcifications and may find malignancies unseen on mammography, Beverly E. Hashimoto, MD, said at the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society.

NEW ORLEANS-Virtual endoscopy of the gastrointestinal tract is a rapidly advancing technology, Bradford J. Wood, MD, said in an interview with Oncology News International. “Radiologists should become familiar with the virtual endoscopic appearance of a variety of GI pathologies so that they can speak a common language with surgical and gastrointestinal endoscopists,” he said.

NEW ORLEANS-In selected patients with radiographically identified nonpalpable breast abnormalities, ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) with follow-up mammograms is effective and offers a cost savings over stereotactic mammotomy (directional vacuum-assisted breast biopsy). S.S. Buchbinder, MD, of the Department of Radiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, reported the results at the American Roentgen Ray Society annual meeting.

LUGANO, Switzerland-Younger patients with histologically aggressive, stage IV non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) might benefit from a dose-intense etoposide-containing regimen, according to late follow-up results from the British National Lymphoma Investigation (BNLI) reported at the VII International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma.

WASHINGTON-What’s good for regulating cigarettes is equally good for cigars, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argued in a new report to Congress. It recommended that Congress require health warning labels for cigars, ban all cigar advertising on radio and television, and enact measures to restrict the access of underage smokers to cigars.

Nutritional Oncology provides acomprehensive review of the current scientific literature on nutritional factors affecting the prevention and treatment of cancer. The book’s primary objective is to detail findings in the new field of nutritional oncology,

Scientists fear that existing genetic techniques will be misused before the consequences of altering the human blueprint on personal, generational, and societal levels are fully realized. At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee,

Drs. Pirl and Roth describe various problems that complicate efforts to accurately diagnose and appropriately treat depression in cancer patients. These include the subjective nature of symptoms, multiple possible diagnoses within the spectrum of mood

Pirl and Roth synthesize well the rich literature that now exists on the prevalence, causes, and treatment of depression in patients with cancer. Their review focuses attention on: (1) those factors-patient- as well as disease- and treatment-related

Depression is a common complication of cancer, occurring in about 25% of all patients. If left untreated, depression can contribute to poor treatment compliance, increased hospital stays, and mortality. Medical issues,