Subject: Child's Cancer Therapy Can Lead to Tumors Later On (Raunio).
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 041200 -0600
From: Roy Beavers
To: guru
--------------------------------------------------
--------------F6C94EF138FBBD3C53D13E85
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
..........From EMF-L.........
There are two good articles here...... U.K. readers will want to take note of
what is said about the poor quality of British cancer care.......guru.....
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Child's Cancer Therapy Can Lead to Tumors Later On & CancerToll Set to
Double by 2020
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 20:23:51 -0600
From: Darlene Raunio
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
Reuters News Alert
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010328/hl/cancer_2.html
Wednesday March 28 10:26 AM ET
Child's Cancer Therapy Can Lead to Tumors Later On
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters Health) - Children who survive a bout of cancer are about
six times more likely to develop a second type of cancer later in life,
according to a report presented here at the American Association for Cancer
Research meeting.
The excess cancer risk appears to be due to the effects of cancer treatment,
such as chemotherapy and radiation, although some cases may be due to an
increased genetic susceptibility to cancer. Dr. Joseph Neglia of the University
of Minnesota presented the findings.
The results showed that 282 of 13,581 people studied (3%) who had cancer as
children, developed a secondary cancer later in life that seemed unrelated to
the original cancer. Study participants were followed an average of 15 years
after initial cancer treatment, with some followed up to 20 years.
The average age of those studied was 23, but some were in their mid- to
late-40s, said Neglia.
The most common secondary tumor was breast cancer, found in 60 women.
Forty-three people had thyroid tumors and 36 had brain tumors.
Neglia said it was difficult to separate out if the tumors were partly caused by
some underlying genetic defect, but that he was confident that children treated
with radiation had a high risk of later tumor development.
Children treated for Hodgkin's disease are also at higher risk, partly because
the standard treatment 20 years ago was aggressive radiation. That is not true
any longer.
Women, especially, seem to be at risk. But Neglia said that getting radiation
therapy during puberty was not an additional risk factor for later breast cancer
development.
He urged women who had radiation treatment at any point in childhood to get a
baseline mammogram in their 20s.
Neglia said anyone who received childhood cancer treatment should talk with a
physician about their risk factors and potential monitoring strategies.
Doctors walk a fine line in balancing the benefit of treating a childhood cancer
with the risk that the therapy itself could lead to later cancers in adulthood.
With so much of their lives ahead, the stakes are high, said oncologists, who
also noted there has been a slight rise in pediatric cancer cases over the past
several decades. There are about 8,000 to 10,000 new cases a year in the US,
with leukemias and brain tumors leading in incidence, said Dr. Barton Kamen, a
pediatric oncologist affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in
New Jersey. He addressed reporters at the meeting.
Noting that cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death in children,
and that pediatric cancer usually doesn't respond to multiple therapeutic
attempts, Kamen said oncologists must err on the side of aggressive initial
treatment, despite more data showing that therapies can cause other cancers
later in life.
``You don't get a second chance to treat a child with cancer,'' Kamen stated.
``You have to win the first time out.''
Both Kamen and Neglia cautioned that oncologists should not pull back in their
treatment of childhood tumors, noting that some 70% of children diagnosed with
cancer today will be cured of their initial disease.
``The progress we've made in pediatric oncology has been just astonishing,''
said Neglia. ``We just need to understand the ramifications,'' he added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010326/hl/cancer_1.html
Monday March 26 5:56 PM ET
Cancer Toll Set to Double by 2020
By Richard Woodman
LONDON (Reuters Health) - Cancer deaths will double over the next 20 years, the
former chief of the World Health Organization (news - web sites)'s (WHO) cancer
program warned Monday.
Professor Karol Sikora said the WHO estimated that the number of new cases of
cancer would increase from 10 million to 20 million per year and the number of
deaths from 6 million to 12 million per year.
Three quarters of these patients will live in developing countries where better
sanitation, housing and medical care will boost life expectancy but bring many
more people into the cancer age range, he explained.
Sikora, now head of cancer medicine at London's Hammersmith Hospital and a
consultant to Pharmacia, said smoking and diet were each estimated to cause 3
million cancers a year.
``The problem with diet is that, unlike smoking, we have to eat,'' he noted in a
lecture at the Royal Society in London.
He cast doubt on the view that an organic, vegetarian diet cuts the risk of
cancer. ``There is no mechanistic reason why organic food should be less cancer
causing than normal farm produce. Plants contain far more natural cancer-causing
agents than any traces of pesticides.''
He said infection caused a surprising 1.5 million cases of cervical cancer,
liver cancer and lymphoma. Vaccines could potentially prevent these cancers, he
said, yet ``politicians avoid tackling this issue as they see no gain until well
beyond the end of their careers.''
Sikora reserved his fiercest criticism for the poor state of cancer services in
the UK, saying the nation spends more on medicines for constipation than cancer
drugs.
Britain spent only 1 pound on cancer drugs per person, compared with 2.3 pounds
in France and 2.9 pounds in Germany. An estimated 200 million pounds extra would
be needed each year to get UK cancer drug prescribing up to the European
average.
Sikora asked politicians and public alike to assess how much they are willing to
spend for a month of reasonable quality of life using new drugs like the
taxanes. ``The National Health Service currently limits this to about 1,000
pounds, although nowhere is this figure openly discussed.''
He recalled that well-conducted studies showed that survival in Britain from the
four most common cancers--lung, breast, colorectal and prostate--is
significantly poorer than in many other European countries.
Although delays in diagnosis and treatment are common in the UK, Sikora said, he
doubted these were the main reasons for the poor survival rate. ``More likely it
is a combination of the overall quality of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy
and their coordination.''
C.U.R.E. - Citizens United for Responsible Electricity
P.O. Box 43
Brantwood, WI 54513
715 - 564 - 3362 / 715 - 453 - 5575
www.toxicelectricity.com
or view more articles at:
www.strayvoltage.org
--------------F6C94EF138FBBD3C53D13E85
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
..........From EMF-L.........
There are two good articles here...... U.K. readers will
want to take note of
what is said about the poor quality of British cancer care.......guru.....
-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: |
Child's Cancer Therapy Can Lead to Tumors Later On & CancerToll
Set to Double by 2020 |
| Date: |
Wed, 28 Mar 2001 20:23:51 -0600 |
| From: |
Darlene Raunio <darvr@newnorth.net> |
| To: |
(Recipient list suppressed) |
Reuters News Alert
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010328/hl/cancer_2.html
Wednesday March 28 10:26 AM ET
Child's Cancer Therapy Can Lead to Tumors Later On
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters Health) - Children who survive a bout of cancer
are about six times more likely to develop a second type of cancer later
in life, according to a report presented here at the American Association
for Cancer Research meeting.
The excess cancer risk appears to be due to the effects of cancer treatment,
such as chemotherapy and radiation, although some cases may be due to an
increased genetic susceptibility to cancer. Dr. Joseph Neglia of the University
of Minnesota presented the findings.
The results showed that 282 of 13,581 people studied (3%) who had cancer
as children, developed a secondary cancer later in life that seemed unrelated
to the original cancer. Study participants were followed an average of
15 years after initial cancer treatment, with some followed up to 20 years.
The average age of those studied was 23, but some were in their mid-
to late-40s, said Neglia.
The most common secondary tumor was breast cancer, found in 60 women.
Forty-three people had thyroid tumors and 36 had brain tumors.
Neglia said it was difficult to separate out if the tumors were partly
caused by some underlying genetic defect, but that he was confident that
children treated with radiation had a high risk of later tumor development.
Children treated for Hodgkin's disease are also at higher risk, partly
because the standard treatment 20 years ago was aggressive radiation. That
is not true any longer.
Women, especially, seem to be at risk. But Neglia said that getting
radiation therapy during puberty was not an additional risk factor for
later breast cancer development.
He urged women who had radiation treatment at any point in childhood
to get a baseline mammogram in their 20s.
Neglia said anyone who received childhood cancer treatment should talk
with a physician about their risk factors and potential monitoring strategies.
Doctors walk a fine line in balancing the benefit of treating a childhood
cancer with the risk that the therapy itself could lead to later cancers
in adulthood.
With so much of their lives ahead, the stakes are high, said oncologists,
who also noted there has been a slight rise in pediatric cancer cases over
the past several decades. There are about 8,000 to 10,000 new cases a year
in the US, with leukemias and brain tumors leading in incidence, said Dr.
Barton Kamen, a pediatric oncologist affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson
Medical School in New Jersey. He addressed reporters at the meeting.
Noting that cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death in
children, and that pediatric cancer usually doesn't respond to multiple
therapeutic attempts, Kamen said oncologists must err on the side of aggressive
initial treatment, despite more data showing that therapies can cause other
cancers later in life.
``You don't get a second chance to treat a child with cancer,'' Kamen
stated. ``You have to win the first time out.''
Both Kamen and Neglia cautioned that oncologists should not pull back
in their treatment of childhood tumors, noting that some 70% of children
diagnosed with cancer today will be cured of their initial disease.
``The progress we've made in pediatric oncology has been just astonishing,''
said Neglia. ``We just need to understand the ramifications,'' he added.
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010326/hl/cancer_1.html
Monday March 26 5:56 PM ET
Cancer Toll Set to Double by 2020
By Richard Woodman
LONDON (Reuters Health) - Cancer deaths will double over the next 20
years, the former chief of the World Health Organization (news
- web sites)'s (WHO) cancer program
warned Monday.
Professor Karol Sikora said the WHO estimated that the number of new
cases of cancer would increase from 10 million to 20 million per year and
the number of deaths from 6 million to 12 million per year.
Three quarters of these patients will live in developing countries
where better sanitation, housing and medical care will boost life expectancy
but bring many more people into the cancer age range, he explained.
Sikora, now head of cancer medicine at London's Hammersmith Hospital
and a consultant to Pharmacia, said smoking and diet were each estimated
to cause 3 million cancers a year.
``The problem with diet is that, unlike smoking, we have to eat,''
he noted in a lecture at the Royal Society in London.
He cast doubt on the view that an organic, vegetarian diet cuts the
risk of cancer. ``There is no mechanistic reason why organic food should
be less cancer causing than normal farm produce. Plants contain far more
natural cancer-causing agents than any traces of pesticides.''
He said infection caused a surprising 1.5 million cases of cervical
cancer, liver cancer and lymphoma. Vaccines could potentially prevent these
cancers, he said, yet ``politicians avoid tackling this issue as they see
no gain until well beyond the end of their careers.''
Sikora reserved his fiercest criticism for the poor state of cancer
services in the UK, saying the nation spends more on medicines for constipation
than cancer drugs.
Britain spent only 1 pound on cancer drugs per person, compared with
2.3 pounds in France and 2.9 pounds in Germany. An estimated 200 million
pounds extra would be needed each year to get UK cancer drug prescribing
up to the European average.
Sikora asked politicians and public alike to assess how much they are
willing to spend for a month of reasonable quality of life using new drugs
like the taxanes. ``The National Health Service currently limits this to
about 1,000 pounds, although nowhere is this figure openly discussed.''
He recalled that well-conducted studies showed that survival in Britain
from the four most common cancers--lung, breast, colorectal and prostate--is
significantly poorer than in many other European countries.
Although delays in diagnosis and treatment are common in the UK, Sikora
said, he doubted these were the main reasons for the poor survival rate.
``More likely it is a combination of the overall quality of surgery, radiotherapy,
chemotherapy and their coordination.''
C.U.R.E. - Citizens United for
Responsible
Electricity
P.O. Box 43
Brantwood, WI 54513
715 - 564 - 3362 / 715 - 453 - 5575
<darvr@newnorth.net>
www.toxicelectricity.com
or view more articles at:
www.strayvoltage.org
--------------F6C94EF138FBBD3C53D13E85--
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com