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Biotech / Medical : CYTO -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nelson958 who wrote (7931)	9/15/2000 2:14:35 AM
From: Bruce Cullen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8116

<font color=MediumSeaGreen>Story on Possible Cancer Cures, Including Stem Cell Therapy.:</font> Report: Transplant May Kill Cancer Web posted SEPTEMBER 13, 2000 By JANET McCONNAUGHEY — An experimental approach to treat kidney cancer that uses blood cells from a patient's sibling drastically reduced or eliminated tumors in some patients, researchers say. The newly harnessed cancer killers may also reverse the spread of kidney cancer, according to the study appearing in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. "This is the biggest advance in kidney cancer in my research career ‹ in my almost 22 years of doing kidney cancer research," said Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang of University of Chicago, a medical adviser for the Kidney Cancer Association. The cancer killers are T-cells, the roving attack dogs of the immune system. When they work, they usually go after the body but do even worse damage to tumors, according to the study. While transfusions have been used for decades to treat leukemia and other blood cancers, this is their first use against solid cancers. But the authors at the National Institutes of Health cautioned that the approach is still being studied and is itself dangerous. About 30,000 new cases of kidney cancer are found each year in the United States. If it is caught before it spreads, removing the kidney may cure the patient. But in about 11,000, it is out of the kidney before it is found. Then it moves swiftly, often killing within a year. Vogelzang said Chicago is among at least 10 institutions testing the new approach described in the study by Dr. Richard Childs of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Childs and researchers at the National Cancer Institute are preparing tests against 15 other cancers, including those of the lung, breast, prostate and esophagus. "The only way we're going to know if it works is trials. Animal trials have not been particularly helpful," Childs said. The study describes the first 19 people to get transfusions to treat cancer which had spread from the kidney. Tumors disappeared completely in three, and shrank to half their former size in seven others. Two died. Only two of the seven had a later relapse, and one of them improved again after additional treatment with a different immune therapy. The patients got transfusions of both stem cells, the immature cells which develop into various kinds of blood cells, and T-cells, which destroyed tumors, Childs said. But the T-cells took months to work. Four months after John Sirmans' transplant, his tumors were still growing. A CAT scan of his lungs "looked like golf balls in a sock," said Sirmans, of Dayton, Ohio. That was in December. He thought that Christmas would be his last. "Then 30 days later, I came back and these things were shrinking like crazy." Childs' article lists Sirmans as a patient whose tumors had shrunk at least by half. He has been cancer-free since summer. The approach should stay experimental for now and will be nowhere near a cure-all even if more studies and longer follow-up show that it should be an accepted treatment, Childs said. One problem surrounding the treatment is finding a donor. There's only a one in four chance that a sibling's blood will be a good enough match for the patient's. The donor also must be healthy. Side effects are major. All but two patients whose tumors improved had rashes or diarrhea and gut pain. No patient has been followed for more than about 2 1/2 years. Once cancer has been in remission for five years, doctors feel there is a reasonable chance of remaining cancer-free. ------ ------ I like the green. Found this story at www.popularscience.com. Great Site! Bruce Cullen sherwoodcoastsgroup.com