Women who were actively smoking at the beginning of the Women’s Health Initiative study were twice as likely to have rectal cancer during follow-up than women who had never smoked.  However, there was not a similar increased risk for colon cancer.

Exposure to second-hand smoke had no effect on either rectal or colon cancer risk in this study.

Nearly 147,000 women filled out smoking histories when they enrolled in the study.  During an average follow-up of about 8 years, 1,242 women were diagnosed with colorectal cancer.  The hazard ratio of active smokers to never smokers was 1.98 for rectal cancer – or about double the risk of getting rectal cancer in women who smoked.

SOURCE: Electra D. Paskett et al. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 99, Number 22, November 13, 2007.

Food borne illness can be severe or even life-threatening for people who have cancer or who are on chemotherapy.  And those of us whose GI tracts have been affected by colorectal cancer treatment have special reasons to avoid the vomiting and diarrhea that can result from contaminated food.

The Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Tips for Healthy Holidays is a good reminder of how to avoid getting sick. 

Typical symptoms of food borne illness are stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea which develop within a few days of eating contaminated food.  While these usually get better without treatment in healthy adults, children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those whose immune systems are weakened by cancer, HIV/AIDS, or other conditions are at risk for serious problems.

The FDA promotes four basic safety measures to prevent food borne illness:

Clean

• Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 minutes before and after handling food.  Teach your children to sing Happy Birthday twice to make sure they wash long enough.
• Wash cutting boards and other surfaces after preparing each item.
• Rinse fruits and vegetables under running water and use a brush to scrub off surface dirt.
• Don’t rinse raw meat or poultry before cooking.  This makes it easier to spread bacteria.

Separate

• Keep raw meat and poultry separated from foods that won’t be cooked while shopping, storing at home, and preparing.
• Have two cutting boards:  one for meat and poultry, one for veggies and other foods that are served without cooking.
• Never put cooked meat back on the plate that held the raw meat.

Cook

• Cook food until it reaches an internal temperature high enough to kill bacteria, and use a thermometer to test.  Don’t rely on color.
• Don’t nibble cookie dough which might contain raw eggs.
• Cook eggs until yolk and whites are firm, and never use raw eggs in eggnog or similar recipes.
• Reheat gravy, sauces, and soups to a rolling boil.

Chill

• Refrigerator leftovers within two hours.
• Keep your refrigerator temperature at 40 degrees or less, your freezer below zero.
• Never defrost foods at room temperature.  Food can be safely defrosted in the refrigerator, under running cold water, or in the microwave.  But if you use running water or a microwave, cook immediately!
• Take enough time to defrost completely before cooking.  If a turkey is still frozen on the inside, the outside will be cooked before the inside is hot enough to destroy dangerous bacteria.
• Never taste food that is old or smells funny.  When in doubt, throw it out.
Technorati tags: food safety, food borne illness

The Group Room cancer talk radio program will focus on colon cancer, as well as other gastrointestinal cancers on Sunday, November 18.

• The Group Room
• Featuring Heinz-Josef Lenz MD and Andrew Giusti PhD
• Sunday, November 18, 2007
• 4 to 6 PM (Eastern)  1 to 3 PM (Pacific)
• Call in: 1-800-GRP-ROOM (1-800-477-7666)

Selma Schimmel will lead a discussion of advances in colorectal cancer screening and treatment, new therapeutic options, and risk reduction.  Guests will also update listeners on current research and clinical trials.

Featured speakers:

• Heinz=Josef Lenz MD is Director of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Program at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine and Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles.  He is also the Scientific Director of the Cancer Genetics Program.
• Andrew Giusti PhD is the Research Program Manager for C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition.

The Group Room is available on many local radio stations, XM Satellite Radio, and streamed via the Internet.  To find a radio station in your area or connect to the Internet broadcast go to Vital Options International.

Listeners can ask questions or join the conversation by calling toll-free 1-800-GRP-ROOM.

After surgery to remove rectal cancer, there is a danger that the cancer will return locally within the rectum at the surgical site or have local recurrence. 

The TME trial randomized rectal cancer patients to receive or not receive radiation treatment before surgery.  During surgery, total mesorectal excision (TME) surgery removed the tumor, section of rectum, and fatty tissue outside of the rectum in a single piece.

After a median follow-up of six years, patients with rectal cancer who had radiotherapy before their surgery had a significantly decreased risk of local recurrence but there was no difference in overall survival.

Almost 1,900 patients were treated during the trial.  5.6 percent of those who received pre-surgical radiotherapy had cancer return locally compared to 10.9 percent of patients who didn’t have radiation.

However, there was no difference in overall survival.  After five years, 64.2 percent of the radiotherapy group and 63.5 percent of the surgery-only group were alive.

Koen Peeters and the team from the Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group concluded,

With increasing follow-up, there is a persisting overall effect of preoperative short-term radiotherapy on local control in patients with clinically resectable rectal cancer. However, there is no effect on overall survival. Since survival is mainly determined by distant metastases, efforts should be directed towards preventing systemic disease.

SOURCE: Peeters et al, Annals of Surgery, Volume 245, Number 5, November 2007.

Adventrx Pharmaceuticals will no longer be enrolling patients for a Phase III clinical trial of CoFactor® for the first-line treatment of colorectal cancer that has spread.

The trial’s Data Safety Monitoring Committee recommended ending the trial based on slow enrollment of participants.  The DSMC did not find safety problems in the trial, but were concerned that patient accrual was too slow to justify continuing the study. 

The clinical trial was comparing CoFactor as a modifier for 5-fluorouracil plus Avastin® to a standard 5FU modified by leucovorin with Avastin treatment.  The study, which began in May 2006, was seeking 1,200 patients.

In addition, analysis of an earlier phase II trial that also compared CoFactor to leucovorin as a modifier of 5FU showed no significant difference in either safety or effectiveness.  Survival results from that trial should be available sometime in 2009.

CoFactor is also known as ANX-510.