ECCO/ESMO UPDATE — BERLIN 2009

A new blood test finds colon, rectal, and stomach cancers early and may be able to predict which cancers are most likely to spread (metastasize).

Higher levels of messenger RNA for the S100A4  gene were found in blood from patients with gastrointestinal cancers than in blood from healthy volunteers.  Blood levels increased as cancer stage increased.  Patients with cancer that had already spread had the highest levels.

Patients whose cancer eventually spread, had higher blood levels of S100A4 mRNA when their blood was first tested, leading to a possible test to predict possible  metastasis. Read the rest of this entry »

Patients with very early stage colon cancer benefit as much from regular followup testing after surgery as later stage patients do.

While overall patients with stage I or IIA colon cancer (early stage) have a lower risk of cancer returning than patients with stage IIB or III (later stage), careful surveillance after surgery is as effective in finding and treating cancer in both groups.

About one in three patients in both the early and late stage who had a recurrence detected during surveillance were able to have surgery with the goal of curing their cancer.   Read the rest of this entry »

C3:Colorectal Cancer Coalition welcomes Catherine Knowles as its new Director of Policy.  She joins the C3 staff on September 21.

Before coming to C3, Catherine was Legislative Counsel to Congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas where she had responsibility for health care issues in addition to matters involving social security, education, labor, and small business. Read the rest of this entry »

In hospitals, clostridum difficile spores are found on bedrails and other objects in patient rooms.  Immune response, shown by lymphocytes in and near tumors predicts better outcomes for patients with colorectal cancer.

In other news, the NIH Medline Plus helps long-distance relatives for aging family, and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute studies of the effects of space radiation on the bones of astronauts during long voyages to the moon or Mars may benefit cancer patients on Earth who are getting radiotherapy. Read the rest of this entry »

The Food and Drug Administration has warned health care professionals that intravenous administration of promethazine can lead to serious tissue damage including gangrene that requires amputation.  Deep intramuscular injections are the preferred method of giving the drug, and injections just under the skin or injections into an artery are contraindicated.

The FDA is requiring that manufacturers of promethazine place a boxed warning on its label and revise the label content and organization to stress the importance of avoiding IV administration.  If IV administration is required, the drug should not exceed a maximum concentration or speed of IV drip. Read the rest of this entry »