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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sol dude who wrote (20093)	5/5/1998 1:17:00 PM
From: Mudcat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

Why doesn't David Robinson get off his butt and call CNBC and get the news on Lignad out?

To: sol dude who wrote (20093)	5/5/1998 2:37:00 PM
From: Machaon	Respond to of 32384

<< except they botched the pronunciation of ligand so stock didn't react >> Perhaps the market did react. Most of the time that a stock is driven down, and then the higher volume kicks in, it is a bullish sign, IMHO. Where is that Panretin NDA!!! I wonder what the off-label market is for Panretin Gel for other applications, other than KS? Anywho........ I picked some more up at $14. Still hoping that Walt's "$20 by 20,000 posts" comes true! <g> Regards, Bob

To: sol dude who wrote (20093)	5/8/1998 3:11:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Here's more on breast cancer: May 7, 1998 Link Between Hormone, Cancer Found A.P. INDEXES: TOP STORIES \| NEWS \| SPORTS \| BUSINESS \| TECHNOLOGY \| ENTERTAINMENT Filed at 8:21 p.m. EDT By The Associated Press LONDON (AP) -- Young women with elevated levels of a particular growth hormone have a risk of breast cancer seven times higher than those with low levels, according to study published Friday. The research is the first to find a link between this natural substance, called insulin-like growth factor, or IGF-1, and the chance of breast cancer in pre-menopausal women. It raises the possibility that doctors someday might screen for this hormone to help identify those at higher risk of the disease. American and Canadian researchers, led by Dr. Susan Hankinson of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, say further studies with greater numbers of women are needed to better define the risk before a course of action can be recommended. But if confirmed by subsequent research, the results, published in this week's issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal, could help doctors determine which women to monitor most closely to catch the disease early, said Dr. Debu Tripathy, a cancer specialist at the University of California in San Francisco. If doctors can confirm that lowering hormone levels really does have an effect and can figure out how to achieve that result, they may be able to prevent breast cancer altogether, he said. IGF-1, a hormone produced by most tissues in the body, is involved in normal growth but also helps cancer grow once the disease has set in. It was linked to prostate cancer in a similar study published in January. Hankinson used blood samples of women taken in 1989 and 1990 before any of them were diagnosed. Over the next five years, the level of IGF-1 was measured in the original blood samples of the 397 women who later developed breast cancer and compared with the levels in the original samples of those 620 women who did not. The scientists found that among the 76 pre-menopausal women, those with IGF-1 concentrations in the highest category had almost three times the risk of those with levels in the lowest category. And among pre-menopausal women younger than 50, the risk of breast cancer for those with the highest levels of the hormone was about seven times more than for their counterparts with the lowest levels. ''The up to sevenfold increase ... suggests that the relation between IGF-1 and risk of breast cancer may be greater than that of other established breast cancer risk factors, with the exception of a strong family history of breast cancer or a high-density mammographic profile,'' the study said. The scientists found no association between the concentration of IGF-1 and the risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Although the study finds an association between IGF-1 and breast cancer, it does not speak to whether the higher hormone levels cause the disease. Still, the findings could be ''very significant,'' said Jeff Holly, director of research at Bristol Royal Infirmary in England. ''For the last 50 years, the main research into the causes of cancer has focused on damage to genes,'' he said. ''This is powerful evidence that the incidence of cancer is not just due to genetics but also due to the hormonal balance in the body -- and that those hormones could be your defense.'' In previous studies of the link between IGF-1 and breast cancer, scientists tested the blood only after the women were diagnosed, which made it difficult to tell whether the onset of cancer could have increased the concentration of the hormone, the researchers said. Studies have shown that the widely used cancer drug tamoxifen -- which scientists suggested last month can prevent the onset of the disease -- lowers IGF-1 levels in the blood of women with breast cancer. ''All the genetic work is not making headway in finding a cure,'' Holly said. ''This study opens up possibilities for prevention, which is always a much better way to go.''