Annual Report to the Nation Finds Declines in Cancer Incidence and Death Rates; Special Feature Reveals Wide Variations in Lung Cancer Trends across States
December 31, 2008
A new report from the nation’s leading cancer organizations shows that, for the first time since the report was first issued in 1998, both incidence and death rates for all cancers combined are decreasing for both men and women, driven largely by declines in some of the most common types of cancer. The report notes that, although the decreases in overall cancer incidence and death rates are encouraging, large state and regional differences in lung cancer trends among women underscore the need to strengthen many state tobacco control programs. The findings come from the “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2005, Featuring Trends in Lung Cancer, Tobacco Use and Tobacco Control”, online Nov. 25, 2008, and appearing in the Dec. 2, 2008, Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Read more
High Dose Chemotherapy Significantly Prolongs Survival for Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia
December 31, 2008
Preliminary results from a large, randomized clinical trial for patients ages 16 to 60 with previously untreated acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, show that patients who received a high dose of a commercially available chemotherapy drug, daunorubicin, during initial therapy lived longer than patients who received a standard dose of the same drug. Daunorubicin, a drug originally approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1979, inhibits DNA replication and repair and leads to cell death. The clinical trial was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and conducted by a network of researchers led by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG). Read more
Review of Prostate Cancer Prevention Study Shows No Benefit for Use of Selenium and Vitamin E Supplements
December 31, 2008
Initial, independent review of study data from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health shows that selenium and vitamin E supplements, taken either alone or together, did not prevent prostate cancer. The data also showed two concerning trends: a small but not statistically significant increase in the number of prostate cancer cases among the over 35,000 men age 50 and older in the trial taking only vitamin E and a small, but not statistically significant increase in the number of cases of adult onset diabetes in men taking only selenium (10 percent for those taking selenium vs. 9.3 percent taking placebo). Neither of these findings proves an increased risk from the supplements and both may be due to chance. Read more
New Tool Developed to Predict Colorectal Cancer Risk
December 31, 2008
A new online tool for calculating colorectal cancer risk in men and women age 50 or older was launched today, based on a new risk-assessment model developed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. This new tool may assist health care providers and their patients in making informed choices about when and how to screen for colorectal cancer and can be used in designing colorectal cancer screening and prevention trials. An article describing the new risk-assessment model and a second article describing its validation appear online December 29, 2008, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The risk assessment tool is available on the NCI Web site at www.cancer.gov/colorectalcancerrisk, and people using this tool should work with their health care providers to interpret the results. Read more
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- Annual Report to the Nation Finds Declines in Cancer Incidence and Death Rates; Special Feature Reveals Wide Variations in Lung Cancer Trends across States
- High Dose Chemotherapy Significantly Prolongs Survival for Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia
- Review of Prostate Cancer Prevention Study Shows No Benefit for Use of Selenium and Vitamin E Supplements
