CancerCare is sponsoring a telephone education workshop on December 1, 2006 to help people who are Caring for Someone with Colon Cancer.

• Date:  December 1, 2006
• Time:  1:30 to 2:30 p.m (Eastern)

CancerCare telephone education workshops are free, but registration is required.  Sign up on the CancerCare website.   Information about how to dial into the call will be emailed to you about one week prior to the session.

Workshop leaders are:

• John S. MacDonald ,MD, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, St. Vincent’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, New York.
• Guadalupe R. Palos, RN, DrPH,  Department of Symptom Research, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston
• Dominick Bonanno, MSW, Oncology Social Worker, Program Coordinator, CancerCare.
• Keith Lyons, MSW, Program Coordinator for Gastrointestinal Cancer, CancerCare

Increased taxes on tobacco products are the basis for a $3 million grant to the Colorado Colorectal Screening Program to expand screening to all community health clinics in Colorado.  The program screens uninsured individuals with incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level for polyps and colorectal cancer.

Screening is offered by either flexible sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy with the goals of preventing colon or rectal cancer by finding and removing pre-cancerous polyps (adenomas) during the procedures or discovering colorectal cancers in early stages when they are most curable.

The program began in January 2006 in clinics in northeastern Colorado, in Denver, and in Pueblo.  It has already screened 600 people, found five cancers, and potentially prevented 12 additional cancers by removing large polyps.  It will expand statewide on November 1 with the additional grant funds.

Tim Byers, MD, MPH, director of the Colorado Colorectal Screening program, said,

We are thrilled to be making such a significant impact with this program.  This new grant will allow us to reach out to more patients, and substantially reduce the suffering from colorectal cancer across Colorado,

The program seeks to screen 12,500 Coloradans by 2010 with a goal of reaching 75% of uninsured people. 

The Colorado Colorectal Cancer Screening Program is part of the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Denver.

Metastatic colon or rectal cancer patients with low standardized uptake values (SUV) on a FDG-PET scan have a longer survival despite treatment choice.

Researchers in the Netherlands followed 151 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, 67 who were treated with surgery and 85 with chemotherapy.  They measured the SUV of metastases prior to treatment, dividing the results into two groups — low uptake values less than 4.26 and a high group with values greater than 4.26.

Despite treatment, survival was significantly higher for the low-uptake group with median survival time of 32 months.  At 2 years, 59% of patients from the low-uptake group were alive, and 45% were alive at 3 years.  For the high-uptake group, median survival was 19 months with 37% alive at 2 years and 28% alive at 3 years.

Dr. LF de Geus-Oei and colleagues wrote in the November 2006 issue of the Annals of Oncology:

A significant survival benefit was observed in patients with low FDG uptake in metastases of colorectal cancer.

A letter urging the Senate leadership to provide an additional $7 billion to the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill was sent today. The letter, which originated with Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), was signed by 57 Senators.

The letter said:

“We, the undersigned, are committed to securing a final Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007 that includes the additional $2 billion over the fiscal year 2007 Senate Committee bill as intended under the Specter-Harkin amendment to the fiscal year 2007 Senate Budget Resolution. Each of us will work to ensure that this priority funding is contained in the final legislation.”

In March of this year, 73 Senators voted for the Specter-Harkin amendment to the budget resolution to provide an additional $7 billion to programs and services administered by the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. This includes agencies of interest to the colon and rectal cancer community such as the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Things changed when the fiscal year 2006 Emergency Supplemental bill containing a “deeming resolution” was enacted which forced the Senate to make significant spending cuts in domestic programs. The Senate Appropriations Committee effectively ignored the intent of the Senate when, on July 20th, it reported out a bill $2 billion short of the $7 billion called for in the Specter-Harkin amendment.

I noticed some interesting things from the information provided by Allen Segal of the American Cancer Society. The first action alert about this letter was sent by C3 September 19 which was also the week ACS held its Celebration on the Hill. During or after this week 43% of the letter’s signatures were collected. This demonstrates the impact of constituents who take informed action and you are to be thanked.

Below are the letter’s signers sorted by state then by Senator’s last name. The italicized date is when the Senator signed the letter.

If your Senator’s name is not on the list one of two things happened:

1. Your Senator is one of the four Senators to whom the letter was sent. These four members of the Senate leadership are William H. Frist (D-Tennessee), Senate Majority Leader; Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi), Chairman Senate Appropriations Committee; Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Senate Minority Leader; and Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia), Ranking Member Senate Appropriations Committee.
2. Your Senator is one of 39 who did not sign the letter.

If your Senator signed the letter thank him or her for so doing and to remind him or her of the need to follow through on this commitment. If your Senator is one of the leaders to whom the letter was sent urge him to work towards fulfilling the letter’s request. If your Senator is one of those who did not sign tell him or her you are disappointed about this.

Senators who signed the Specter-Harkin letter:

• Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) 9/28
• Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Arkansas) 9/27
• Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) 9/15
• Barbara Boxer (D-California) 9/18
• Dianne Feinstein (D-California) 9/27
• Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) 9/14
• Christopher J. Dodd (D-Connecticut) 9/15
• Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Connecticut) 9/18
• Joseph R. Biden (D-Delaware) 9/14
• Thomas R. Carper (D-Delaware) 9/27
• Bill Nelson (D-Florida) 9/21
• Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) 9/15
• Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) 9/14
• Richard J. Durbin (D-Illinois) 9/15
• Barack Obama (D-Illinois) 9/15
• Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) 9/28
• Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana) 9/18
• Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) 9/13
• Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) 9/25
• Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) 9/27
• Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) 9/18
• Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) 9/15
• Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Maryland) 9/15
• Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Maryland) 9/15
• Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) 9/15
• John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) 9/15
• Carl Levin (D-Michigan) 9/14
• Debbie A. Stabenow (D-Michigan) 9/15
• Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) 9/22
• Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota) 9/14
• Jim Talent (R-Missouri) no date
• Max Baucus (D-Montana) 9/18
• Conrad Burns (R-Montana) 9/26
• Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) 9/27
• Frank R. Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) 9/15
• Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) 9/25
• Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) 9/15
• Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) 9/20
• Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) 9/19
• Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) 10/4
• Byron L. Dorgan (D-North Dakota) 9/16
• Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) 9/15
• Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) 9/20
• Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) 9/27
• Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) no date
• Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) 9/13
• Lincoln D. Chaffee (R-Rhode Island) 9/19
• Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) 9/19
• Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) 9/19
• Orin G. Hatch (R-Utah) 9/25
• James M. Jeffords (I-Vermont) 9/14
• Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) 9/15
• Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) 9/14
• Patty Murray (D-Washington) 9/15
• John D. Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) 9/14
• Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) 9/26
• Herbert H. Kohl (D-Wisconsin) 9/14
• Technorati tags: Arlen Specter, Tom Harkin, Senate, Appropriations Committee, Labor-HHS-Education, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Researchers reviewed information from the State of Ohio Tumor Registry for all patients diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer from 1996 through 2001.  About half of the 27,000 patients in the registry were women.

Women with colorectal cancer in the Ohio data were significantly older than men and had more right-sided cancer.  They were diagnosed at a later stage and at stages with poorer prognosis.

The research team divided diagnoses into

• cancer in situ (stage I)
• local disease (stage II)
• regional disease (stage III)
• distant disease (stage IV)

They also combined stages I and II to form a more favorable prognosis category and stages III and IV to form a poor prognosis category.

Women were less likely than men to have cancer in situ or local disease and more likely to have regional disease.  They were about 10% more likely to have a poor prognosis (stages III and IV).

Scott W. Woods MD, MPH, MEd and colleagues from the Bethesda Family Medicine Residency Program in Cincinnati published their findings in the September 2006 Journal of Women’s Health.

Woods and his team concluded:

In the State of Ohio from 1996 to 2001, women had more advanced colon cancer at diagnosis than men.

Technorati tags: women’s health, women and colorectal cancer