Showing papers on "Cancer published in 1978"

Repair deficient human disorders and cancer

Abstract: The analysis of the repair of damage to DNA in mammalian cells leads not only to a knowledge of which environmental agents are deleterious to living creatures, but also to an understanding of which reaction products in DNA are potentially carcinogenic and which tissues are the more sensitive.

Diet in the Epidemiology of Cancer of the Colon and Rectum

Abstract: We examined the diets as reported in interviews of 256 white male patients with cancer of the colon and of 330 white male patients with cancer of the rectum. Controls were 783 patients with nonneoplastic, nondigestive system diseases distributed by age similarly to the colon cancer patients and 628 patients with nonneoplastic, nondigestive diseases distributed by age like those with cancer of the rectum. We found no increase in risk for cancer of the colon or rectum regardless of the amounts of beef or other meats ingested. However, we found an increase in risk of colon cancer with decreases in the frequency with which vegetables were eaten. A study of 214 females with cancer of the colon and 182 females with cancer of the rectum yielded similar results. The decrease in risk we found associated with frequent ingestion of vegetables, and especially cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli, is consistent with the decreased numbers of tumors observed in animals challenged with carcinogens and fed compounds found in these same vegetables.

Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Reevaluation of prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer

Abstract: A study has been made of the survival times of 100 terminal cancer patients who were given supplemental ascorbate, usually 10 g/day, as part of their routine management and 1000 matched controls, similar patients who had received the same treatment except for the ascorbate. The two sets of patients were in part the same as those used in our earlier study [Cameron, E. & Pauling, L. (1976) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 73, 3685-3689]. Tests confirm that the ascorbate-treated patients and the matched controls are representative subpopulations of the same population of “untreatable” patients. Survival times were measured not only from the date of “untreatability” but also from the precisely known date of first hospital attendance for the cancer that eventually reached the terminal stage. The ascorbate-treated patients were found to have a mean survival time about 300 days greater than that of the controls. Survival times greater than 1 yr after the date of untreatability were observed for 22% of the ascorbate-treated patients and for 0.4% of the controls. The mean survival time of these 22 ascorbate-treated patients is 2.4 yr after reaching the apparently terminal stage; 8 of the ascorbate-treated patients are still alive, with a mean survival time after untreatability of 3.5 yr.

An epidemiologic and clinical study of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract: An etiology hypothesis for nasopharyngeal carcinoma is postulated from current epidemiologic and experimental data. Three factors are thought to be involved—the ubiquitos Epstein-Barr virus, a genetically determined susceptibility and an environmental factor which may vary from one populations group to another. In the case of southern Chinese, especially the boat people living along the south China coast with the highest risk for the cancer, the most probable environmental factor is the inclusion of salted fish coupled with a deficiency in vitamin C in their diet in early life. We added to the diet of WA albino rats such salted fish has induced carcinoma in the nasal or paranasal region. If the environmental factor is an essential co-factor, the cancer is preventable. Clinical studies have shown a good correlation between prognosis and a grouped TNM stage classification described by Ho in 1970. 12 Using this stage classification difference has been found in the treatment results between the two sexes; however, the results are significantly better for patients under the age of 40 years than those older when the have Stages I or II disease but not Stage III. Prophylactic cervical nodal irradiation in Stage I patients has not been found to confer better survival or tumor control prospects. Cervical irradiation therefore, should be withheld until nodal metastasis becomes clinically evident.

Survival after liver resection for secondary tumors

Abstract: The results achieved by liver resection for metastatic cancer in more than 400 patients have been studied in a collected review. Certain conclusions seem justified: The liver is no longer the surgeon's "no-man's-land," and local excision of metastatic tumor can achieve clinical cure in some patients. The risk-benefit ratio for hepatic resection for secondaries seems to be shifting in favor of benefit for selected patients with primary colorectal tumors. At present liver resection for tumors metastatic from pancreas, breast, lung, stomach, kidney, reproductive organs, and skin (melanoma) cannot be recommended. Liver resection may play an important part in the multi-modal therapy of children with extensive malignant disease.

The prevention of invasive cancer of the rectum

Abstract: The results of the 25+ year Cancer Detection Center study, including 20,000 participants and 100,000+ patient-years experience, demonstrate the obviation of appearance of most lower bowel cancers associated with a program of proctosigmoidoscopy and adenomatous polyp removal. Once on a schedule of periodic examinations, study participants developed only a fraction of the anticipated number of rectal cancers; most of the cancers which did develop were detected while at an early stage and with involvement of only the mucosa. Not a single death from lower bowel cancer has occurred among active study participants or for 7+ years following the most recent examination at the Center.

Detection and significance of occult axillary node metastases in patients with invasive breast cancer

Abstract: Blocks of axillary lymph nodes from 78 patients with invasive breast cancer, which after “routine”pathological examination were regarded as negative for metastases, were step-sectioned at 20 u intervals. Occult metastases were detected in 24% of the cases. A significant association between such metastases and a lack of or slight degree of an intraductal carcinomatous component of the dominant cancer was noted. There was no relationship between occult metastases and 15 other histopathological and 3 clinical features investigated, including an average 5 year survival rate. Similarly there was no correlation between any of the possible discriminants investigated in the 24% of patients who have died of their diseases or are living with recurrence regardless of the presence of occult metastases. Factors accounting for the lack of universal survival in patients with Stage I (and those with occult metastases that might be designated as Stage 1 1/2) remain enigmatic. It is concluded that attempts to detect occult metastases by extending histopathological methods may be more academic than practical or therapeutically significant. Cancer 42:2025–2031, 1978.

Direct resorption of bone by human breast cancer cells in vitro

Abstract: OSTEOLYTIC bone metastases occur frequency in patients with advanced malignancy. Breast cancer, the most common malignant disease of women, metastasises to bone more frequently than to any other organ1, and over 80% of patients with advanced breast cancer develop bone metastases2–4. The cellular and molecular mechanisms of bone destruction in patients with cancer are not clearly understood. It has been postulated that there may be two mechanisms, one which is mediated by osteoclasts and one which occurs independently of osteoclasts5,6. We show here that cultured human breast cancer cells have the capacity to resorb directly in vitro, independently of osteoclast stimulation.

Estrogen Receptors and Responses to Chemotherapy and Hormonal Therapy in Advanced Breast Cancer

Abstract: To determine the correlation between the estrogen-receptor status and responses to chemotherapy or hormonal therapy, we retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 143 patients with advanced breast cancer. Receptor contents were determined by a sucrose-gradient method and designated arbitrarily as "rich" or "poor." The response rate to chemotherapy was significantly higher in receptor-rich tumors (86 per cent) than in receptor-poor tumors (36 per cent) (P<0.001). Patients with receptor-rich tumors also responded favorably to hormonal therapy. However, there was no correlation between the responses to hormonal therapy and to chemotherapy when they were used sequentially, a phenomenon that may be attributed to the changes in tumor receptor content during the clinical course. These data suggest that separate factors associated with the response to chemotherapy may coexist with estrogen receptors in breast cancer. (N Engl J Med 299:1330–1334, 1978)

Steroid Receptors in Human Breast Cancer

Abstract: The measurement of cytoplasmic estrogen receptor in tumors from patients with breast cancer is now well established Potential uses include prognosis of early recurrence following mastectomy, stratifying patients for adjuvant therapies, and selecting or rejecting endocrine therapy in advanced breast cancer The use of progesterone receptor measurements to improve our selection process has a good theoretical basis, and early reports now emerging indicate that the presence of both estrogen and progesterone receptor in a breast tumor predicts a high response rate to endocrine therapy Further work in this area is required, however, since patients with estrogen receptor but not progesterone receptor still have an appreciable response rate

Gowden's disease. A cutaneous marker of breast cancer

Abstract: Cowden's disease features facial trichilemmomas (a benign tumor of follicular epithelium), acral keratoses on the limbs, and oral mucosal papillomas and fibromas; it may also involve thyroid, gastrointestinal tract, ovaries, uterus, and breasts. Among 32 known cases of Cowden's disease, 21 are women, in 10 of whom breast cancer has already developed (bilateral in 4). The 11 women in whom breast cancer has not yet developed have fibroadenomas, fibrocystic disease, virginal hypertrophy of the breasts, and malformations of nipples and areolae. Their median age is only 36 years. Two have mothers with breast cancer and in one both mother and maternal grandmother had breast cancer. Dermatologic lesions, including pathognomonic multiple facial trichilemmomas, precede the development of malignancy and can identify women with a high risk of developing breast cancer.

Male breast cancer: a clinicopathologic study of 97 cases.

Abstract: From 1949 through 1976, 97 men have been treated at Memorial Hospital for primary operable breast cancer. Seven per cent had intraductal carcinoma. Of the patients with invasive carcinoma 30% were pathologic stage I, 54% stage II, and 16% stage III. Fourty-six per cent had pathologically negative axillary lymph nodes. The most common type of tumor was infiltrating duct carcinoma. Fourty per cent of the patients had microscopic gynecomastia. None of the eight patients with intraductal or intracystic carcinoma died of cancer. Survival of the entire group of men with invasive carcinoma was 40% after ten years. The ten year survival for men with negative nodes was 79%, for men with positive nodes 11%. Comparison with a series of 304 women with breast cancer operated on at Memorial Hospital in 1960 revealed no difference with regard to incidence of positive axillary lymph nodes or stage of disease. There was, however, a significantly lower survival rate for men. This poorer prognosis was limited to those men with pathologically positive axillary nodes.

Chemotherapy of gastrointestinal cancer.

Abstract: IN this country, and, indeed, the world over, gastrointestinal cancer causes more deaths than cancer taking origin in any other organ system. Although management of these diseases has traditionally...

Cancer of the pancreas: diagnostic accuracy and survival statistics.

Abstract: We have reviewed the natural history, reliability of diagnosis, and survivorship of 100 patients with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, in the context of a thorough review of the literature on survival after therapy for adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. There is 40-62.5% error in the histologic confirmation of the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The error by inspection and palpation alone at the time of surgery may be as great as 25%. The absolute 5 year survival rate calculated from 61 clinical studies representing approximately 15,000 patients is 0.4%. The best series in the current literature has only 3% 5 year rate based upon the total population of pancreatic cancer patients. 12.3% of 5 year survivors from the world literature did not have curative surgery. This study shows the necessity for standardization of reporting methods. The same patients and survivors should not be used repeatedly in different reports. Some authors who claim the most effective palliation by pancreatic resection have the highest mortality rates. Cancer 42:2494–2506, 1978.

Cancer in Crohn's disease after diversionary surgery: A report of seven carcinomas occurring in excluded bowel

Abstract: The incidence of bowel cancer was studied in 132 patients who had undergone bypass surgery for Crohn's disease and who had been admitted to The Mount Sinai Hospital between 1960 and 1976. Seven patients (5.3 per cent) developed cancer (4 of 63 with ileocolitis and 3 of 69 with ileitis). All seven cancers appeared in excluded loops, four in small bowel and three in colon. Six of the cancers occurred at sites of previous active inflammatory disease and one in a relatively normal “skipped” area of cecum. Four were associated with fistulas: two with enterovesical; one with enterocutaneous; and one with both. In only one case was a tumor mass palpable. All seven patients in this series underwent operation and all showed metastatic spread to liver, lymph nodes, or adjacent organs. All patients died within two years of the diagnostic laparotomy. The mean latent period between onset of disease and appearance of cancer was twenty-seven years, and between bypass surgery and appearance of cancer thirteen years. Four of the seven cancers occurred relatively early, within four years of the bypass procedure, but all seven cases had one feature in common—a long duration of Crohn's disease prior to the development of cancer, ranging from seventeen to forty-four years. The diagnosis of cancer in excluded bowel was difficult to make and impossible to confirm prior to laparotomy. Among the large bowel cancers, a preoperative diagnosis was established, by sigmoidoscopy, in only one case. Cancer in a bypassed loop should be suspected in any case of Crohn's disease of long duration when a late recrudescence of symptoms occurs, especially when the symptoms are associated with the new appearance of fistula or mass.

Epidermodysplasia verruciformis. An autosomal recessive disease characterized by viral warts and skin cancer. A model for viral oncogenesis.

Abstract: EV is an autosomal recessive disease which usually begins in infancy or childhood, with an average age of onset of 9. Flat warts are most common, but pityriasis-like warts occur in approximately 75% of patients. Warts are disseminated and chronic. Cancer may develop as early as age 13; the average age of onset is 31. About 1/3 rd. of patients develop cancer of the skin usually multiple and in light-exposed areas. It may take only two years from wart to cancer, or many more years. The cancer is carcinoma-in-situ of the Bowenoid type or squamous cell carcinoma. Two deaths have occured by local invasion and only one metastasis has been reported. One patient died of Burkitt's lymphoma and another was reported to have disseminated reticulosis. 8% of the patients are mentally retarded. Humoral immunity is normal; cell mediated immunity is depressed in most patients. The gene defect in EV has not yet been uncovered.

The suppressor-cell network in cancer (first of two parts).

Abstract: IN the near future, new insights into the cellular control of immune reactivity may become important to physicians who manage patients with cancer. The objectives of this article are to provide an ...

Inflammatory carcinoma of the breast.

Abstract: Fifty-eight patients with clinical inflammatory breast carcinoma and 15 patients with "occult" inflammatory cancer (dermal lymphatic carcinomatosis without clinical inflammation) are grouped and reviewed to determine whether diagnosis is pathologic or clinical. All cases represent a retrospective study of records from the Ellis Fischel State Cancer Hospital, Columbia, Missouri. Lesions of clinically apparent and occult inflammatory carcinoma demonstrate similar gross and microscopic growth patterns, histologic types, axillary involvement and early widespread metastases. Regardless of pathologic evidence of dermal lymphatic tumor, patients with clinical inflammation had rapid deterioration. Cases with only a pathological diagnosis were slightly less fulminant in progression. Either clinical or pathologic criteria justify use of the term "inflammatory breast carcinoma" to indicate short-term prognosis despite available treatment.

The association of body weight with recurrent cancer of the breast

Abstract: 962 women who underwent surgery for breast cancer were divided according to body weight which was correlated to the recurrence of the cancer. The tendency for cancer to recur increased with body weight. Women under 65 kg had a significantly better prognosis than those over 65 kg (P < .005). The influence of body weight on later recurrence of cancer was particularly apparent in women without axillary lymph node metastases but was not evident in women who already had metastases at the time of the breast operation.

Radical or modified neck dissection: a therapeutic dilemma.

Abstract: Three hundred ten evaluable patients received a classic, functional, or spinal accessory-nerve-sparing neck dissection during 1970 to 1975. The functional procedure was at least equal to the classic procedure in the patients in whom it was employed. The spinal accessory-nerve-sparing operation is offered as an alternative to the classic procedure in all patients in whom the nerve is not directly invaded by cancer. If these guidelines are followed, the patient will rarely experience the pain and shoulder dysfunction that result from the loss of the trapezius muscle, while the chances of control of cancer in the neck remain optimal.