Tumors

The PSA test should be abandoned as a prostate cancer screening tool, a government advisory panel has concluded after determining that the side effects from needless biopsies and treatments hurt many more men than are potentially helped by early detection of cancers. At best, one life will be saved for every 1,000 men screened over a 10-year period, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. But 100 to 120 men will have suspicious results when there is no cancer, triggering biopsies that can carry complications such as pain, fever, bleeding, infection and hospitalization.

Researchers have found a way to classify breast cancer tumors into 10 distinct categories ranging from very treatable to extremely aggressive, a major step on the way to the long-sought goal of precisely targeting therapies for patients. The new categories, described in a study released Wednesday, should help scientists devise fresh approaches to treat some of the cancers and could spare many women the risks and pain of unnecessarily toxic treatments, oncologists said. "If you belong to one group you'll need one therapy, and if you're in another you'll need another," said Dr. Carlos Caldas, a breast cancer geneticist at the University of Cambridge in England who helped oversee the research.

Manny Hamelburg, 68, a retired businessman, had fought prostate cancer for years. First, he tried radiation, then a drug with side effects that nearly killed him, and finally Lupron, a drug that blocks production of testosterone, the hormone that can fuel prostate cancer. The cancer disappeared. But life was miserable. Without normal levels of testosterone, Hamelburg says, he had no energy, and "zero libido for seven years. I was like a eunuch. I was chemically castrated. Sex was just hugs."

Blocking "don't destroy me" signals that normally sit on the surface of tumor cells and render them resistant to immune-cell attack slows the growth of a broad range of human cancers when they're implanted in mice, researchers have found. The approach, reported by immunologists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was effective against ovarian, breast, colon, bladder, liver, prostate and brain cancer cells. If the work can be repeated in people, the approach may someday help doctors marshal defender cells in patients' own bodies to fight cancers, the researchers said.

Researchers have found a way to classify breast cancer tumors into 10 distinct categories ranging from very treatable to extremely aggressive, a major step on the way to the long-sought goal of precisely targeting therapies for patients. The new categories, described in a study released Wednesday, should help scientists devise fresh approaches to treat some of the cancers and could spare many women the risks and pain of unnecessarily toxic treatments, oncologists said. "If you belong to one group you'll need one therapy, and if you're in another you'll need another," said Dr. Carlos Caldas, a breast cancer geneticist at the University of Cambridge in England who helped oversee the research.

The hospital waiting room was packed with patients, but not with humans. These were endangered green sea turtles covered with golf-ball-sized growths. At least 40 scientists and veterinarians participated in delicate surgeries at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center on Tuesday to remove noncancerous tumors, called fibropapilloma. The tumors, some of them on the turtles' eyes, resembled moldy cauliflower. Once the tumors are removed, some turtles will have a chance to regain lost sight.

Former Texas Ranger manager Johnny Oates has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and will undergo surgery later this month. Oates began to experience some weakness in his left side in late October and was forced to cut short a telephone interview because of weakness and slurred speech. He underwent tests and was told of the diagnosis Monday.

The last time Antisha Anderson was in this third-floor operating room at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, she was groggy from anesthesia and puzzled by the big, round lights shining down on her. "They looked like alien eyes," she said, laughing. Anderson, a four-time national youth heptathlon champion and aspiring Olympian, was in that surgical suite Nov. 28 to undergo a rare heart procedure. Returning recently for a visit she was greeted like a friend, not merely a statistical success.

A woman who lost two-thirds of her inflated body weight when doctors removed a nearly 200-pound benign tumor was in fair condition Thursday, still needing extensive skin grafts, hospital officials said. It took surgeons at the University of Chicago Hospital 18 hours to remove the neurofibroma from Lori Hoogewind, 40, on Dec. 14.

Injections of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone normally produced early in pregnancy, can shrink skin tumors of Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common form of cancer among AIDS patients. In preliminary tests on 36 people, USC physicians injected hCG into the tumors, which shrank in response. The higher the dose of hCG, the greater the impact on the tumor, the study found.

Patients are holding out hope that someday - soon, they hope - physicians will be able to personalize medical treatment more precisely than they've been able to in the past.  For people with cancer, this might mean taking a quick biopsy, studying the genetic profile of a tumor and then tailoring interventions  to target the cancer effectively, with as few side effects as possible. But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday underscores why the vision remains a challenge.  Cancer researchers in England showed that individual kidney tumors and their metastases had different mutations in different locations - and that those mutations, in turn, affect the biology of those tumors in varying ways in different locations.    “A single tumor-biopsy-specimen reveals a minority of genetic aberrations … that are present in an entire tumor,” wrote Dr. Marco Gerlinger of the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and co-authors.  For example, the scientists found that one region of a renal carcinoma could display gene expression signatures associated with a good prognosis, while signatures in another region of the same tumor could be associated with a poor prognosis.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced Tuesday that he will undergo surgery to repair a 1-inch "abscess" in the same abdominal area where Cuban doctors removed a cancerous tumor in June. Chavez's surprise announcement, made during an official trip to Barinas state, came amid swirling rumors published this week in Brazil's O Globo newspaper that his cancer had metastasized to his liver. "It's a small lesion, about 2 centimeters in diameter, very clearly visible, which requires new surgery, which one supposes will be less complicated than the last one," Chavez said as he visited the Santa Ines industrial complex.

Gary Carter, a Hall of Fame catcher from Fullerton who helped lift the New York Mets to a dramatic victory over the Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series, died Thursday in Florida. He was 57 and had brain cancer. Nicknamed "Kid" for his grit and youthful exuberance, Carter was an 11-time All-Star who hit .262 with 324 home runs and 1,225 runs batted in during 19 seasons playing for the Montreal Expos, Mets, San Francisco Giants and Dodgers. His goal to become a major league manager unfulfilled, Carter was coaching at Palm Beach Atlantic University near his Florida home last May when he experienced headaches and forgetfulness and was diagnosed with brain cancer.

A medication for people with advanced colorectal cancer who have exhausted all other treatment options appears to slow tumor growth and extend life, according to new data. Bayer HealthCare, the makers of regorafenib, said it would seek Food and Drug Administration approval of the medication this year. If approved, regorafenib would be the first new treatment for colorectal cancer in more than five years. Although chemotherapy and other medications can extend life in people with metastatic cancer (cancer that has spread throughout the body)

Reporting from Sacramento -- A California legislator pleaded no contest Friday to charges that she tried to shoplift $2,500 in clothes from Neiman Marcus in San Francisco. As part of a plea deal, a San Francisco County Superior Court judge reduced the charges against Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi (D-Hayward) from felony grand theft to a misdemeanor. Hayashi was sentenced to three years' probation and $180 in fines and required to stay at least 50 feet from the store on Union Square.

Avastin can stabilize tumors in women suffering from advanced-stage ovarian cancer, extending the period before the disease worsens by more than 3.5 months, according to the results of two large, international clinical trials conducted by separate research teams. The findings, published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, come less than a week after the European Commission approved Avastin for treating women newly diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. The drug, known generically as bevacizumab, has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat ovarian cancer in the U.S. Though Avastin has not been shown to prolong the lives of women with ovarian cancer and does come with significant side effects, it offers some hope for treating what remains the deadliest of gynecologic cancers, researchers said.

Doctors have found new tumors on the lungs and the back of a 14-year-old cancer patient whose preacher-father fought court-ordered chemotherapy on religious grounds, a hospital spokeswoman says. The tumors were discovered when Pamela Hamilton underwent tests last week at East Tennessee Children's Hospital here to check her progress, hospital spokeswoman Pat Kelly said Friday.

Treatment for advanced breast cancer could improve significantly if doctors give women combinations of medications that attack tumors in different ways, two large clinical trials suggest. In one study, researchers found patients fared better when a breast cancer drug called an aromatase inhibitor was combined with another medication, Afinitor, which is used to treat kidney cancer but is not yet approved for breast cancer. In the second study, two standard medications for women with a type of breast cancer known as HER2-positive were more effective when the investigational drug pertuzumab was added to the regimen.

Detroit Lions running back Jerome Harrison was scheduled for surgery for a brain tumor Friday, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. Harrison's agent, Mitch Frankel , did not immediately respond to text messages from the Detroit newspaper seeking comment, and Lions Coach Jim Schwartz announced only that Harrison was placed on the reserve/non-football illness list. The tumor was discovered during a physical that nullified Harrison's trade to the Philadelphia Eagles.