News in brief - Sept. 4, 2006

Smoking cessation drug proves effective - Breast cancer treatment and heart problems - Lingering effects of West Nile - New head of NCI is named

Smoking cessation drug proves effective

A drug recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a smoking cessation aid appears to be effective in both the short and long term for smokers trying to quit, according to a study in the Aug. 14/28 Archives of Internal Medicine.

The new drug, varenicline tartrate, made by Pfizer and marketed as Chantix, mimics the effects of nicotine to help offset cravings. In the presence of nicotine, it helps suppress some of the reinforcing effects of smoking.

Healthy smokers ages 18 to 65 were randomly assigned to get either varenicline in a variety of doses for six weeks -- 0.3 mg a day, 1 mg a day or 1 mg twice daily and a placebo for one week; or 150 mg of sustained-release bupropion hydrochloride twice daily for seven weeks or a placebo for seven weeks. There were 128 smokers in each group. The researchers report that the varenicline 1 mg twice daily dose triggered the highest rate of continuous abstinence. Four-week quit rates ranged from 48% for those on the high-dose varenicline to 17% for those on the placebo. Long-term quit rates ranging from four weeks to one year were 14% for the varenicline group and 5% for those on placebo.

Breast cancer treatment and heart problems

Studies that were published in the Aug. 15 Journal of Clinical Oncology reported that popular treatments for breast cancer can cause heart problems in women, although the benefits of the treatments still outweighed any risk.

The treatments, which were reported on in separate studies in the journal, were radiation and Herceptin (trastuzumab).

The clinical researchers who examined the effects of radiation checked the medical records of 961 patients who had either stage I or II breast cancer.

Those researchers concluded that, although irradiation to the left breast is not associated with a higher risk of cardiac death up to 20 years after treatment, it is associated with an increased rate of the diagnoses of coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction when compared with radiation treatment to the right breast.

The researchers who were evaluating the cardiac safety of long-term Herceptin treatment concluded that the benefits of the treatment outweighed the risk of heart failure and that the toxicity of the drug to the heart is reversible in most of the patients.

They assessed 173 patients with metastatic breast cancer.

Lingering effects of West Nile

More than a year after being diagnosed with a West Nile virus infection, half of the patients studied by North Dakota researchers had ongoing health complaints including fatigue, memory problems, headaches, depression and tremors, according to an article in the Sept. 15 Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The authors noted that patients with the relatively benign manifestation of West Nile fever are just as likely to have later health problems as those hospitalized with such illnesses as encephalitis or meningitis.

Although most people infected with the virus have no symptoms, about 20% develop a flu-like illness called West Nile fever.

About 1% may develop severe disease. The authors tested 49 patients about 13 months after they were diagnosed with an illness caused by the virus.

"I hope this study will raise awareness that West Nile virus poses a substantial public health threat," said lead author Paul Carson, MD, of MeritCare Health System, headquartered in Fargo, N.D.

New head of NCI is named

John E. Niederhuber, MD, has been tapped by President Bush to be the 13th director of the National Cancer Institute. He will replace Andrew C. von Eschenbach, MD, who was nominated to head the Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Niederhuber had been acting director of NCI since June. He also will continue as head of the Laboratory of Tumor and Stem Cell Biology, where he studies adult tissue stem cells as the cell of origin for cancer.

Other posts he held at the institute include chief operating officer and deputy director of translational and clinical sciences. He had been chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board until becoming acting director of the institute.

Before going to NCI, he was a professor of surgery and oncology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in Madison and directed the university's Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of NCI's 61 such centers.

Created in 1937, the NCI is the oldest of the 27 institutes and centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health.