Faculty Bibliography

The question of switching arose in December when researchers reported preliminary findings from a continuing study that aims to compare Arimidex with tamoxifen over five years among more than 9,300 women. The study's authors reported that among the first group of women to complete 33 months of treatment, Arimidex appeared slightly more effective and safer than tamoxifen. Dr. Eric P. Winer, who led the oncology society's panel, said a major reason his team did not recommend a shift to aromatase inhibitor drugs was that tamoxifen took five years to gain full effect. So, Dr. Winer said, ''it is conceivable that five years of anastrozole could be inferior to five years of tamoxifen.'' In the Arimidex study, relapses or death occurred in 317 of 3,125 women in the group that took Arimidex, compared with 379 of 3,116 women who took tamoxifen. Dr. Winer said there was no reported evidence in the large study that Arimidex extended life more than tamoxifen did

The question of switching arose in December when researchers reported preliminary findings from an ongoing study that aims to compare Arimidex with tamoxifen over five years among more than 9,300 women. The study's authors reported that among the first group of women to complete 33 months of treatment, Arimidex appeared to be slightly more effective and safer than tamoxifen. Because the unpublished findings have implications for hundreds of thousand of patients, the oncology society appointed an 18- member panel in January to assess the effectiveness and safety of Arimidex. The panel analyzed the information from the December report and also reviewed all published articles on the aromatase inhibitor drugs. Tamoxifen is the only drug the Food and Drug Administration has approved to lower a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. The agency has approved the marketing of Arimidex and two other aromatase inhibitor drugs -- Femara (letrozole) and Aromasin (exemestane) -- for the treatment of advanced breast cancer

Precisely why stopping smoking during treatment can be beneficial is not known, said Dr. [Gregory M. Videtic], who now works at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Because smoking constricts blood vessels, he theorized in an interview that smoking reduced the amount of oxygen that reached cells in the body and might also reduce the amount of drugs that reached the cancer cells. In the search for ways to prevent lung cancer, Dr. [Jonathan Kurie]'s team studied two vitamin A derivatives: 9-cis retinoic acid and 13-cis retinoic acid combined with alpha-tocopherol (a synthetic form of vitamin E). The 13-cis form has been shown to have an effect on head and neck cancers. The researchers found that after three months, 9-cis retinoic acid had increased the amount of the protein while the 13-cis retinoic acid therapy had not. Side effects like headache, skin rashes and fatigue were more common in the 9-cis retinoic acid group. But neither form of retinoic acid reduced the number of precancerous cells

In reviewing the patients' medical records, [Gregory M. Videtic] and Larry Stitt of the London Regional Cancer Center found information about the smoking history of 186. Of these, 107 had quit before beginning treatment, and 79 continued to smoke during treatment. The records did not say how much the patients smoked

Precisely why stopping smoking during treatment can be beneficial is not known, said [Gregory M. Videtic], who now works at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Because smoking constricts blood vessels, he theorized in an interview that smoking reduced the amount of oxygen that reached cells in the body and might also reduce the amount of drugs that reached the cancer cells. While stopping smoking reduces the chance of developing lung cancer, people who quit still remain at high risk of the disease for many years. About half of all lung cancers occur in people who have stopped smoking for at least a year, said Dr. Jonathan Kurie of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In the search for ways to prevent lung cancer, Kurie's team studied two vitamin A derivatives: 9-cis retinoic acid and 13-cis retinoic acid combined with alpha-tocopherol (a synthetic form of vitamin E). The 13-cis form has been shown to have an effect on head and neck cancers

Precisely why stopping smoking during treatment can be beneficial is not known, said [Gregory Videtic], who now works at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Because smoking constricts blood vessels, he theorized that smoking reduced the amount of oxygen that reached cells in the body and also might reduce the amount of drugs that reached cancer cells. In the search for ways to prevent lung cancer, [Jonathan Kurie]'s team studied two vitamin A derivatives: 9-cis retinoic acid and 13-cis retinoic acid combined with alpha-tocopherol (a synthetic form of vitamin E). The 13-cis form has been shown to have an effect on head and neck cancers. To grow, cells lining the lungs need retinoic acid to produce a protein, retinoic acid receptor-beta. But heavy smoking leads to precancerous changes that lower amounts of the protein

Precisely why stopping smoking during treatment can be beneficial is not known, said [Gregory M. Videtic], who now works at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Because smoking constricts blood vessels, he theorized in an interview that smoking reduced the amount of oxygen that reached cells in the body and might also reduce the amount of drugs that reached the cancer cells

Precisely why stopping smoking during treatment can be beneficial is not known, said [Gregory M. Videtic], who now works at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Because smoking constricts blood vessels, he theorized in an interview that smoking reduced the amount of oxygen that reached cells in the body and might also reduce the amount of drugs that reached the cancer cells. In the search for ways to prevent lung cancer, [Jonathan Kurie]'s team studied two vitamin A derivatives: 9-cis retinoic acid and 13-cis retinoic acid combined with alpha-tocopherol (a synthetic form of vitamin E). The 13-cis form has been shown to have an effect on head and neck cancers. The researchers found that after three months, 9-cis retinoic acid had increased the amount of the protein while the 13-cis retinoic acid therapy had not. Side effects like headache, skin rashes and fatigue were more common in the 9-cis retinoic acid group. But neither form of retinoic acid reduced the number of precancerous cells

Focus groups conducted for a panel of scientists advising the government uncovered a catalog of misinformation about the smallpox vaccine -- the first vaccine to be developed (in 1796) and considered to be the most dangerous. Unlike most other immunizations, smallpox vaccine can harm recipients and their contacts. Resumption of vaccination on a large scale would probably lead to thousands of serious complications and hundreds of deaths, as it did when millions of Americans were routinely vaccinated. Current guidelines, published in June 2001, do not recommend the smallpox vaccine for the public. Vaccination is limited chiefly to laboratory workers directly involved with the virus or its close virological cousins. The limits were based largely on the lack of enough vaccine. At the time, the government had only 15 million doses. D.A. Henderson, who led the worldwide smallpox eradication program in the 1970s and is now an adviser to Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, told the panel that there was no information to suggest that a smallpox attack was likely

Focus groups conducted for a panel of scientists advising the government uncovered a catalog of misinformation about the smallpox vaccine -- the first vaccine to be developed (in 1796) and considered to be the most dangerous. Unlike most other immunizations, smallpox vaccine can harm recipients and their contacts. Resumption of vaccination on a large scale would probably lead to thousands of serious complications and hundreds of deaths, as it did when millions of Americans were routinely vaccinated. Current guidelines, published in June 2001, do not recommend smallpox vaccine for the public. Vaccination is limited chiefly to laboratory workers directly involved with smallpox virus or its close virological cousins. The limits were based largely on the lack of enough vaccine. At the time, the government had only 15 million doses. In the wake of the anthrax attacks last fall, the government has expanded its stockpile of smallpox vaccine. Tests have shown that the 15 million doses can be diluted to 75 million. The drug company Aventis Pasteur has donated about 80 million doses that have been frozen since 1958 and that the government says would be used only in an emergency. The government is also buying 220 million doses made by a new laboratory technique. Delivery is expected by year's end