Cancer researchers confer on disease-fighting strategies

Promising findings for combating certain cancers included the benefits of sunshine, multiple glasses of milk and many cups of tea.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. May 1, 2006.

Washington -- Cancer research buzzwords reflect the areas that offer the best hopes for reducing cancer mortality and fending off this dread disease -- molecular-based diagnostics, DNA markers, gene expression, and even flavonoids and antioxidants.

That's why these topics were among the studies in the spotlight at last month's annual meeting of the American Assn. for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.

The future will bring changes in the diagnosis of cancer, said Angelo M. DeMarzo, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology, oncology and urology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. And many presenters indicated that molecular messages will provide important clues.

Avrum Spira, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, is exploring an approach for detecting lung cancer that combines results from a traditional bronchoscopy with gene expression profiles.

"We are not instituting a new test," Dr. Spira said. The high-risk patients in his study were suspected of having cancer and were already undergoing a bronchoscopy. The researchers took the additional step of gathering samples of normal-appearing epithelial cells of the upper airways to serve as diagnostic biomarkers. "Together, the two tests have a very high sensitivity for lung cancer."

Any improvement in lung cancer diagnosis could be important, he noted. The five-year survival rate for people diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer is only 5% but with earlier detection, while the cancer is still in stage I, five-year survival exceeds 60%.