Subject:  Radiotherapy hazards......
Date:     Fri, 24 Jul 1998 061106 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru@hotmail.com
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......Note (below) "a radiation 'induced' effect"....exactly what
do they mean, I wonder......guru......
     _________________________________________________________________

01:07 PM ET 07/23/98

Radiotherapy for lung cancer poses hazard - study


        (Release at 2301 GMT July 23)
            By Patricia Reaney
            LONDON, July 24 (Reuters) - An international team of
researchers cautioned on Friday that radiotherapy, a standard
treatment for many types of cancer, represented a substantial
hazard for lung cancer patients.
            Far from saving lives, the treatment, intended to eliminate
any malignant cells left after surgery to improve chances of
survival, was killing some patients in the early stages of the
disease.
            After examining the results of nine trials of post-operative
radiotherapy (PORT) involving 2,128 patients, the researchers
found a 21 percent increase in deaths among sufferers treated
with both radiotherapy and surgery, compared to patients who had
surgery alone.
            ``I think post-operative radiotherapy should not be given
routinely. There is clear evidence of a detrimental effect,'' Dr
Lesley Stewart, who led the research team, said in a telephone
interview.
            ``The 21 percent relative increase in the risk of death
associated with radiotherapy, equivalent to an overall reduction
in survival from 55 percent to 48 percent at two years,
represents a substantial hazard to these patients,'' she said in
a report in The Lancet medical journal.
            Stewart, of Britain's Medical Research Council, said the
risk of radiotherapy seemed to be worst for patients with
non-small-cell tumours, the most common type of lung cancer
which accounts for 80 percent of cases.
            Radiotherapy did not seem to harm people with more serious
lung cancers but it also didn't appear to do them any good.
            ``No group of patients appeared to derive a clear survival
benefit from post-operative radiotherapy,'' she added.
            Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among from cancers
worldwide. It killed 1.1 million people in 1997 and more than 90
         percent of the deaths were related to smoking. The disease has
increased fourfold in women in the past 30 years and has
overtaken breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in
U.S. women.
            Surgery to remove the tumour is usually the best option but
the cancer often returns. Only about 40 percent of patients
survive five years after the surgery.
            Dr Alastair Munro, a radiologist at Ninewells Hospital in
Dundee, Scotland, said the clear message from the PORT analysis
is that the doses of the radiotherapy after the surgery were too
high. Any advantage in terms of reducing recurrence of the
disease had been offset by the increased death rate.
            In a commentary in The Lancet, he noted that most of the
deaths occurred between three months and one year which is
exactly the time course of radiation pneumonitis -- a serious
inflammation of the lung.
            ``There is a radiation-induced process that can be fatal and
that manifests itself between three months and a year after
treatment,'' he said.
            Munro added that radiotherapy would decrease local
recurrence of the disease but it would not improve survival. He
called for further studies incorporating the lessons learned
from the PORT overview.
 ^REUTERS@





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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html