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TORONTO, Canada--Oncologists may someday have a powerful new gene delivery tool to help in the war against cancer--a "gene gun" that blasts pure DNA right inside tumor cells. The gun was described at a media conference held in conjunction with the American Association for Cancer Research meeting.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla--Why would members of a managed care group whose coverage includes mammography not take advantage of the benefit? Focus groups, conducted last year by Sanus, the managed care division of the New York Life Insurance Company, found that the answer was lack of access, said Candy J. Rudy, manager of account services at New York Life/Sanus.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla--When the executive director of a retirement community in Salisbury, NC, arranged to have a mobile mammography van come to the facility to screen the residents and employees, she had to be strongly reminded by her colleagues to visit the van herself. The mammogram Meg Veloff had that day proved to be abnormal and led to early detection and successful treatment of a malignancy.

BOSTON--"Our members must stand up as champions of special training in surgical oncology," Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) president Bernard Gardner, MD, said at the Society's Annual Cancer Symposium. "We must continue to nourish this society because we provide something unique."

WASHINGTON--Bernard Fisher, MD, Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, has won a court order requiring that scientific misconduct labels be removed from citations of his papers in federal databases (Cancerlit and Medline).

NEW YORK--Judah Folkman, MD, who first theorized that tumors form and metastasize by means of angiogenesis, is the winner of the 18th annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research.

Complication rates in 1,000 consecutive patients who underwent radical retropubic prostatectomy for clinically localized prostate cancer between November 1989 and January 1992 were assessed and compared to complication rates in a historical group of patients operated on by primarily the same surgeons prior to 1987. In the contemporary series, there were no operative deaths, only 22% of patients required blood transfusion, and only six (0.6%) patients suffered rectal injuries. Early complications, including myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, bacteremia, and wound infection, occurred in less than 1% of patients. Vesical neck contracture, the most common late complication, developed in 87 patients (8.7%). At 1 year post-surgery, 80% of patients were completely continent, and fewer than 1% were totally incontinent. [ONCOLOGY 9(5):379-389, 1995]

SEATTLE--NeoRx Corporation reports that in phase I/II dose escalation studies, Avicidin produced a 10-fold improvement in tumor-to-blood ratios over conventional radioimmunotherapy, approaching the ratios achieved in animal studies.

"If a women has not had a period in a year, it is unlikely that she will resume menstruation," Elyse E. Lower, MD, said at her poster presentation. "These women require closer monitoring for cardiac risks and osteoporosis, both of which are associated with the onset of menopause."

A new drug-releasing device is effective in treating cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, a sight-threatening disease that affects one out of four people with AIDS, according to results of a National

SAN DIEGO--Genta Jago, a joint venture between Genta Incorporated and Jagotec AG (Hergiswil, Switzerland), has filed an Investigational New Drug application with the FDA for a controlled-release formulation of zidovudine (AZT), marketed

SAN DIEGO--Genta Incorporated's antisense oligonucleotide targeted against the BCL-2 gene has proved effective against drug-resistant cancers in certain animal models of follicular lymphoma and colon cancer, the company said.

PARIS, France--Although the role of chemotherapy in the management of osteosarcoma was once controversial, a plethora of clinical studies now leave no doubt that chemotherapy dramatically brightens the outlook for patients with this disease.

Doctors soon may be armed with a new technology that allows them to bombard tumors more accurately--and safely--with larger doses of radiation, thanks to research conducted at the University

NEW YORK--Ten women, some of them in wigs, some without eyebrows or eyelashes, sat around a conference table spread with make-up. They were at a free "Improve Your Appearance" clinic at Cancer Care, Inc., where a cosmetician was demonstrating how make-up can improve the special beauty problems that come with chemotherapy.

WASHINGTON--President Clinton proposed an FY 1996 budget of $1.994 billion for the National Cancer Institute. This marks an increase of $78 million over FY 1995. The proposed 1996 appropriation for the National Institutes of Health is $11.793 billion, a 4% increase over the current year.

ALBUQUERQUE--Oncologists and pharmacists at the University of New Mexico initially turned to reduced-dose ondansetron (Zofran) for their pediatric leukemia patients for sheer expediency--most of the children were receiving their

WASHINGTON--William Paul, MD, director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research, has announced that AIDS funding will begin to shift away from clinical research toward investigator-initiated laboratory research. He said that continuation of past policies will result in only "slow, fitful progress."

NEW YORK--An international foundation headquartered in New York City hopes to trigger a national debate about death and dying in the United States. The Project on Death in America will be funded by the Open Society Institute, one of the Soros Foundations.

WASHINGTON--Since the first case of AIDS appeared in the United States in 1981, 60,000 women have been diagnosed with the disease, 14,000 of them (25% of the total number of women) in 1994 alone. HIV in women is increasing at the rate of 17% a year, and one in four new cases in 1994 occurred in women under the age of 20.

PRINCETON, NJ--Direct intratumor radioimmunotherapy (RAIT), with multiple courses delivered via indwelling or removable catheters, resulted in prolonged survival in patients with malignant glioma. Observations in newly diagnosed

ROCKVILLE, Md--In February, as part of an FDA pilot program, representatives of consumer groups sat at the table during an Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) meeting. The ad hoc representatives from the Treatment Action Group, a New York organization representing people with AIDS, and the National Breast Cancer Coalition participated in the discussions of New Drug Applications but did not have a vote.

CHICAGO--A pair of large-scale clinical investigations reported at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America is renewing the controversy over the need to perform mammography in young women.

WASHINGTON--According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), cancer now rivals or surpasses heart disease as the leading cause of death in several European countries and parts of Asia and Latin America. The new report is the most comprehensive look at international death rates ever undertaken by the NCHS. It compares age-adjusted death rates from 41 industrialized countries from 1955 through 1991.

The first volume of Cancer Therapy in the Twenty-First Century provides background information on some of the molecular and immunologic approaches that are becoming increasingly important in the diagnosis and management of cancer

STANFORD, Calif--A new single-cell biological sensor system may someday allow rapid screening of cancer agents for biofunctional activity (see illustration on page 1). The test could be used, for example, to identify compounds that bind to or block receptors for biomolecules such as growth factors or other cytokines, or to highlight potentially harmful metabolites.

WHIPPANY, NJ--Two new forms of Dilaudid (hydromorphone HCL)-- Dilaudid 8 mg tablets and Dilaudid-5 Oral Liquid--are now available from Knoll Pharmaceutical Company.

MILAN, Italy--Opioids are not usually the cause of organic brain syndromes (most often delirium and hallucinations) in patients with chronic cancer pain, when other common medical conditions that develop in advanced cancer are considered,

WASHINGTON--The National Institutes of Health, University of Utah, and Myriad Genetics, Inc. have resolved issues involving patenting of the BRCA1 breast cancer gene by agreeing that scientists from all three institutions should be named as joint inventors in current patent applications. The agreement also ensures that exclusive, worldwide commercial rights are retained by Myriad and its licensees, Eli Lilly and Company and Hybritech Incorporated.

SEATTLE--Receptagen Ltd. has begun formal clinical development of its first "growth blocker" drug, based on promising laboratory studies. The agent, a monoclonal antibody that blocks the B12 carrier protein trans-cobalamin II, triggered apoptosis in cancer cells by depleting vitamin B12, an essential enzyme co-factor for cell proliferation, said Receptagen president A. Charles Morgan Jr., PhD.