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Abstracts by Bruce Shriver
Shared Families Program Amschwand Sarcoma Cancer Foundation has a Shared Families Program which provides free short-term (one week or less) housing to sarcoma patients and/or their family members who are traveling to Houston for medical treatment or appointments. No consideration to financial ability is given when matching guests with host families. Contact Ginger Kyle to learn more about this program and obtain a copy of the guest family application form.
The website, which is both in Japanese and English, is dedicated to “supporting research and development of calponin-targeted gene therapy, a leading-edge medical treatment that could hold the key to a cure for sarcoma patients. Calponin-targeted gene therapy is now reaching the final stage of its development in Japan and requires further funding to begin clinical trials. Please read more on this site to find out about the therapy and how you can contribute to its development.” Please contact Kaja Onishi if you would like to know more about this new sarcoma advocacy group.
The British Sarcoma Group's Second Annual Meeting This meeting will be held on Thursday/Friday December 8th and 9th 2005 in Birmingham. The Meeting is an open conference aimed at clinical, nursing and healthcare staff interested in the treatment and care of patients with sarcoma. The BSG Conference is the main event in the Group’s calendar. The aim is to share news of developments and to discuss key issues together which in this year’s programme include:
Cancer Survivorship: Improving Care and Quality of Life You might consider looking at the following two books from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies that are part of their Cancer Survivorship: Improving Care and Quality of Life project. They might be of interest to you or someone you know. Note the “resources & Links” that appears on the bottom of the webpages that describe each book.
Second Malignancies after Treatment for Ewing Sarcoma According to this article, “The rate of second malignancies is higher after treatment for Ewing sarcoma than after other childhood cancers, according to a report from Italy. Consequently, Dr. Gaetano Bacci told Reuters Health, "Patients treated for Ewing sarcoma (especially those who received radiotherapy for local treatment) should be followed for at least 15-20 years”. See the above article for more details as well as one of Dr. Bacci’s earlier artilces.
Chemo Brain (a.k.a., chemobrain) We have published links to material dealing with chemo brain in earlier issue of ESUN. We also published several links to references dealing with chemo brain in the Drug News column of the October 3004 issue of ESUN. Dr. Keohan addressed the topic of “chemobrain” in the December 2004 Issue of ESUN in her article, “What is Chemobrain?” We would like to add the following to these resources. “Your Mind and Cancer Treatment: Understanding and Addressing Cognitive Decline,” which appears in Avenues, the Quarterly Newsletter of the Pine Street Foundation. You might want to check out the table of contents of other issues of Avenues by clicking here.
Medical Officer of Health talks about dioxins in humans According to the above article, “Dr. Richard Schabas, medical officer of health for the Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit, talked about the impact of human absorption of dioxins and furans such as those reported recently at the mouth of the Trent River. He spoke to the board at the Trenton Health Unit on November 18. He said the six cores of dioxins found in 2004 at the mouth of the Trent River have been studied in terms of their relation to human health. The dioxins are fat soluble and if ingested could cause skin rash or liver inflammation, affecting the immune system, reproductive and endocrine systems. They could also lead to a certain type of cancer called soft tissue sarcoma. The routes dioxins could take into the human body are through ingesting, inhaling or transdermal (through the skin).” See the above article for more details.
Hearing Loss and Platinum-Based Chemotherapy Drugs In a recently published article, "Ototoxicity in Children Receiving Platinum Chemotherapy: Underestimating a Commonly Occurring Toxicity That May Influence Academic and Social Development," (Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2005;23:8588-8596), the authors conclude that, "Traditional reporting of toxicity data (CTCAE) has under-reported ototoxicity and minimized the significance of hearing loss in children. As pediatric patients experience improved survival, the effects and implications of high-frequency hearing loss with regard to academic achievement and speech and language development are important considerations, especially in patients younger than 5 years." Some of the results provided in the "Hearing Loss" article are:
The Use of Chemotherapy in Soft-Tissue Sarcomas According to the abstract of this 2002 article that appeared in “The Oncologist”, “The treatment of advanced soft-tissue sarcomas is often palliative, although a subset of patients may be cured or have a long disease-free interval. This paper reviews the historical data over 30 years of treatment that has led to the use of ifosfamide and doxorubicin as the mainstay in the treatment of metastatic disease. These treatments have a high toxicity, relative to other chemotherapeutic regimens, with median response durations on the order of months. Agents developed in the last few years, whose role in the treatment of sarcomas is still evolving, are discussed as well. Finally, we discuss the role of chemotherapy in combination with surgery and radiation in the adjuvant and Neoadjuvant settings”. The entire article can be downloaded as a PDF document by clicking here.
Management of Lung Metastases from Musculoskeletal Sarcomas According to the summary of this article, “Bone and soft tissue sarcomas metastasize to the lung in about one-third of patients. Surgery of lung metastases is possible in at least 35% of patients who have undergone primary surgery. Thoracotomy may be bilateral if necessary. Wedge resection is preferred; lobectomy or pneumonectomy is reserved for metastases in the hilum. The average overall survival following resection at 5-years is 37%. Results are influenced by the specific histotype of the primary tumour, by the interval between pulmonary metastases and treatment of the primary sarcoma, and by the number of metastases.”
Calando Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced that collaborators using its proprietary siRNA delivery technology have published the first clear in vivo demonstration of sequence-specific gene inhibition in tumors from the systemic administration of targeted formulations of siRNA. The research, published in Cancer Research, represents a significant advance in the development of systemic RNAi therapeutics. Systemic delivery through the bloodstream enables RNAi therapeutics to target metastatic cancer located throughout the body, and raises the prospect for broad application of RNAi therapeutics to treat a wide range of cancers and other systemic diseases. RNA interference, or RNAi, is a naturally occurring mechanism within cells for selectively silencing and regulating specific genes that is potentially the basis for a new class of therapeutic products. Since many diseases are caused by the inappropriate activity of specific genes, the ability to silence and regulate such genes selectively through RNAi could provide a means to treat a wide range of human diseases. The discovery of RNAi has been heralded by many as a major breakthrough, and the journal Science named RNAi the top scientific achievement of 2002, as well as one of the top ten scientific advances of 2003. In the published research, Caltech and Children's Hospital Los Angeles investigators created a mouse model of Ewing's sarcoma that mimics the tumor localizations in humans and also provides for simultaneous, real-time bioluminescence imaging of the tumors. Two groups of 10 mice each received sham injections and naked anti-EWS-FLI1 siRNA, respectively, and three additional groups of 10 mice each received various siRNA sequences formulated with Calando's proprietary cyclodextrin-containing polymer siRNA delivery system: (1) siRNA with an unrelated sequence to EWS-FLI1, (2) anti-EWS-FLI1 siRNA, and (3) anti-EWS-FLI1 siRNA that did not contain the tumor targeting ligand. The data show that only the targeted anti-EWS-FLI1 formulation provided any anti-tumor efficacy -- control sequences and removal of the targeting ligand eliminated the anti-tumor effects. "The results from the Caltech-CHLA collaboration conclusively show sequence-specific anti-tumor effects and the molecular targeting to and within tumor cells by the delivered siRNAs," said Dr. Mark Davis, professor of Chemical Engineering at Caltech and founder of Calando. Dr. Davis went on to say, "This study shows that the polymer system can deliver siRNA therapeutics by a route of administration and at a dose amenable to use in humans." For additional information on the researchers’ siRNA delivery system see Bruce Shriver’s article An Overview of Some Recent Cancer-Related Nanotechnology Research in the October 2005 issue of ESUN.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality There are many reasons to have surgery. This AHRQ webpage lists some simple but important questions to ask your surgeon before proceeding.
Caregiver Resource The Comfort of Home website provides information, education, and caregiver marketing materials that help agencies save time and money. The Comfort of Home publisher, CareTrust Publications, is a multi-language caregiver training and support resource publisher serving non-profit organizations, government agencies, senior care facilities and home care agencies. See the Free Resources webpage for various articles that you can downloaded.
V2N6 ESUN Copyright © 2005 Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative.
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