Colon Cancer

With soothing walls of turquoise tile and a vase of orchids on the front desk, the Colon Health Center of Delaware has been selling an alternative to one of medicine's most unloved procedures -- the colonoscopy. Rather than insert several feet of tubing into patients' lower intestines, clinicians slide patients into a computed tomography, or CT, imaging machine that can quickly scan the abdomen for signs of cancer.

Gaylord L. Campbell, 81, a U.S. marshal who was appointed by President Nixon and then served two subpoenas on him dealing with the Watergate scandal, died Thursday at Tarzana Health and Rehabilitation Center, said his daughter, Gayle Campbell Hughes. He had colon cancer. Campbell was Los Angeles County Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess' most visible public information officer when he was appointed by Nixon in 1969. Campbell's jurisdiction included Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.

A highly toxic cancer drug linked to antibodies and directed against a protein on the surface of cancer cells can completely eradicate human colon tumors grown in mice without producing adverse side effects, researchers from ImmunoGen Inc. reported in the Aug. 6 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignancies, striking about 140,000 Americans each year, killing 55,000. Surgery is the most common treatment.

Close relatives of patients with benign polyps in their colons or rectums run an increased risk of developing cancer in those regions, according to a study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. As a result of their findings, the investigators from nine medical centers across the United States and one in Great Britain suggested that people younger than 60 who are parents or siblings of patients with benign polyps undergo routine screening.

Men and women over 50 should have regular screenings for colorectal cancer, the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths, U.S. health officials said Thursday. A Public Health Service advisory panel said people over 50 should have a stool sample tested annually for blood that can be caused in some cases by cancer of the colon or rectum. It also recommended having a doctor regularly look inside the rectum and lower colon with an instrument called a sigmoidoscope.

In research that could lead to human clinical studies next year, researchers have shown that transferring tumor-related proteins from one species to another may trigger a strong immune-system attack against cancer. Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have found that injecting a protein found on the surface of human melanoma cancer cells into a cancer-ridden mouse will cause the rodent's immune system to attack and kill the mouse's own cancers. Next year, said Dr.

Next to lung cancer, colon cancer is the second most common cancer death and it shows up in about one out of 20 people, said Dr. J. Randolph Hecht, director of UCLA's new Colon Cancer Prevention Center. The center is to open next week to help counsel people and prevent them from getting the disease. It will be open Friday afternoons and will focus on finding people who are most at risk for colon cancer.

A North Carolina psychiatrist with colon cancer died with help from Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who drove up to an emergency room and said he had a body in the car. Kevorkian drove the body of Richard Faw, 71, of Wilson, N.C., to the William Beaumont Hospital about 6 p.m. and told the doctor on duty that the man had had no vital signs for 45 minutes, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Women using estrogen replacement drugs after menopause reduce their risk of colon cancer by about half, researchers say. The finding adds to a growing list of effects, good and bad, from hormone therapy. "This is a very important benefit from the use of hormone replacement therapy," said Polly A. Newcomb of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "This a big reduction in a disease that is the third most common cancer among women."

The husband and son of cancer victim Joyce Ching were awarded more than $700,000 Wednesday when a Ventura County jury ruled that her Simi Valley doctors' negligence led to her death last year at age 35. The jury decided that Dave Ching, 37, and 5-year-old son Justin should receive nearly $3 million because doctors Elvin Gaines and Dan Engeberg did not detect Joyce Ching's cancer in time to save her life.