Recently, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama released their respective plans to battle cancer. Click on the links below to see what they have to say.
No official cancer plan has been released by any third party candidate.
C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition is a non-profit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that fights colorectal cancer through research, empowerment and access. C3 does not endorse or oppose any candidate running for elected office.
Updates from 2008 ESMO Congress
Although there was no difference in survival time for all patients when Erbitux® (cetuximab) was added to initial chemotherapy for advanced colorectal cancer, the group patients whose K-Ras genes were normal (wild type) had a trend toward living longer when they were given Erbitux. Median survival time was about four months longer for people with normal KRAS in their tumors.
Reporting on the results of the CRYSTAL trial, Professor Eric Van Cutsem told the ESMO Congress in Stockholm,
Overall survival in all patients included in the trial was identical in both treatment arms. There was however a strong trend towards a longer survival in patients with a K-Ras wild type tumor treated with cetuximab/FOLFIRI. The median survival was 24.9 months for patients who received the cetuximab combination, versus 21.0 months (HR: 0.84). The overall survival results in patients with K-Ras mutant tumors did not differ in the two study arms.
The CRYSTAL trial randomly assigned patients with colorectal cancer who had not been previously treated with chemotherapy to either FOLFIRI alone or FOLFIRI with the addition of Erbitux. FOLFIRI combines irinotecan and leucovorin with continuous infusion 5FU.
Patients who received chemotherapy after surgery to remove colorectal cancer that had spread to their liver or lungs had better long-term outcomes than those who only had surgery, according to an analysis that pooled two similar studies.
Two different clinical trials studied chemotherapy after surgical removal of liver or lung metastases due to colorectal cancer. While neither trial was large enough to draw clear conclusions on its own, researchers combined information from both to decide if chemo made a difference for patients. Read the rest of this entry »
In a recent study, eating more fruits and vegetables protected men to some extent from colorectal cancer, but there wasn’t a similar benefit for women. After adjusting for calories and other known colorectal cancer risks, men in the study who ate the most fruits and vegetables had about a 25 percent reduced risk of getting cancer compared to those who ate the least.
86,000 men and 105,000 women filled out food frequency questionnaires at the beginning of the study. Over an average follow-up period of seven years, 1,100 men and 1,000 women were diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer. Using the questionnaires, a research team divided people into five groups (quintiles) ranging from those who ate the most fruits and vegetables to those who ate the least.
Men in the highest quintile had a 26 percent decreased in colorectal cancers over those in the lowest. Fruit alone boosted chances that men wouldn’t get colorectal cancer 15 percent, while vegetables decreased risk 20 percent. Risks were reduced more for colon than rectal cancer.
However, women showed no benefit from higher intake.
The amount of grains eaten made no difference for either men or women.
Abraham Nomura and his team concluded,
The intake of vegetables and fruit was inversely related to colorectal cancer risk among men but not among women. The association appears stronger for colon than for rectal cancer.
The NIH-AARP Diet and Health study found similar results. In that study, nearly half a million men and women were followed for five years after filling out a food frequency questionnaire.
The amount of fruit reported eaten showed no difference in the development of colorectal cancer for either men or women. The men who ate the smallest total of both fruits and vegetables had a 26 percent decrease in colorectal cancer, and leafy green vegetables seemed to give the most benefit. There was no similar benefit for women.
Yikung Park and the team at the National Cancer Institute concluded,
In this large, prospective cohort study with 2,972 incident colorectal cancer cases and extensive information on diet and other colorectal cancer risk factors, we observed that vegetable intake was associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer for men but not for women. The association was stronger among individuals with very low intakes of fruits and vegetables, suggesting a certain minimum amount of daily fruit and vegetable consumption to avoid increased risk of colorectal cancer. Among subgroups of vegetables, green leafy vegetable intake was inversely associated with risk of colorectal cancer for men.
It’s important to note that studies that try to relate diet to cancer are difficult to conduct and often have conflicting results. Participants may have difficulty recalling what they ate or may overstate their intake of what they perceive to be healthy foods.
Last year a pooled analysis of 14 diet studies that included over 756,000 men and women found no association between reported consumption of fruits and vegetables and colorectal cancer. Reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in September 2007, the study found a weak link between how many fruit and vegetables were eaten and cancer in the lower part of the colon but no association overall for either men or women.
SOURCES
Nomura et al., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 88, Number 3, September, 2008.
Park et. al., American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 166, Number 2, July 15, 2007.
Koushik et al., Journal of the National Cancer Institute, advance access published online September 25, 2007.
Were you diagnosed with colon cancer within the past three months? Have you had your surgery and seen a medical oncologist?
Dr. Neil Love and Research to Practice want to talk to you about your chemotherapy decision-making. Read the rest of this entry »
