Tumors

Scientists Thursday reported progress in cutting off blood supply to a wide variety of tumors in laboratory animals, a finding that could lead to new ways of making human cancers shrink and disappear. "We don't want to oversell this--we're not saying we have the magic bullet, there's a lot more research to be done. But so far, we have green lights," said Dr. David A. Cheresh, one of the lead scientists on the project at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.

A new technique can predict the likelihood that tumors of the breast and colon will spread throughout the body, a Canadian researcher reported here Tuesday. If the technique shows that a tumor will not spread, then debilitating radiation and drug therapy may be safely avoided after the tumor has been surgically removed, chemist Ian C. P. Smith of the National Research Council in Ottawa said at the Third Chemical Congress of North America.

Researchers have found a second gene for tuberous sclerosis, a rare genetic condition that causes tumors all over the body. About 1 of every 6,000 babies is born with the condition, which can lead to epilepsy, learning difficulties, autism and kidney and skin disease. Reporting Friday in the journal Science, a team of European and U.S. researchers said the discovery of the second gene could lead to a test for the disorder.

A mutated version of an ordinary cold virus turns into a cancer killer when injected into tumors, according to research with laboratory mice. The therapy is now being used experimentally in human patients. In a study published Friday in the journal Science, researchers report that a genetically engineered version of adenovirus, one of a number of viruses that cause the common cold, is able to attack and destroy human cancer cells that lack a gene called P53.

Massachusetts researchers have shown that a genetically engineered virus can kill human brain tumor cells grown in test tubes and in mice. The findings open the door to a new approach to cancer therapy. Researchers from the Harvard Medical School reported in Science magazine that they used a herpes virus from which they removed the gene for a protein that is required for the virus to replicate and infect cells.

A protein made in the white blood cells of AIDS patients appears to play a key role in triggering Kaposi's sarcoma, a mysterious skin tumor that afflicts many such patients with the fatal disease, National Cancer Institute researchers reported in Washington on Monday. The discovery of the growth-promoting factor may lead to new treatments for the tumor that either block the production of the protein or interfere with its actions.

In a rare teaming of local health-care rivals, UCI Medical Center and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian plan to operate Orange County's first center using noninvasive radiosurgery to treat benign brain tumors. The center, expected to open at Hoag in Newport Beach next summer, will become home to a $3.2-million "gamma knife" that both hospitals wanted to acquire but neither could afford alone.

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.

In cancer treatment, brain tumors often defy doctors' best conventional therapies. Chemotherapies seldom work because the natural blood-brain barrier prevents blood-borne toxins (and medicines) from reaching the brain. The use of conventional radiation therapy is limited by the risks of damaging healthy areas of the brain. Surgery, while usually the treatment of choice, may not be possible: Some areas of the brain cannot be safely operated upon.

When Maria Silis looks in the mirror now, she is happy. She sees past the stitches and shaved area of her scalp to focus on what is now missing--a fleshy tumor behind her ear. The tumor had taken over the right side of her face, pushing down an eyebrow, pulling at her bottom eyelid and muffling her hearing. "I feel normal now," she said from her bed at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, her smile accented by a bouquet of red roses from her 9-year-old daughter.