Word: antitumor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Readers of your report on new antitumor drugs that have been approved for treating breast cancer [PERSONAL TIME: YOUR HEALTH, Sept. 14] were left hanging. They must be asking themselves, "When should I take tamoxifen?" since the panel of experts who ruled on the drug did not endorse the idea that tamoxifen actually "prevents" breast cancer. If you are at proven elevated risk for breast cancer, the answer is, Take tamoxifen at any time. Tamoxifen does not wear out as a preventive after five years; in fact, it "imprints" the breast and protects women for years after they stop taking...
Once malignant cells have spread beyond their original location, however, traditional chemotherapy is usually much less successful at producing a cure. In an attempt to develop a treatment for these more advanced cases, the researchers at Dana-Farber have been experimenting with levels of antitumor agents that are much higher than those normally prescribed. In Lehman's case, the treatment was to last four days, and the amount given during each 24-hour period was supposed to be barely shy of lethal. The physician in charge of figuring out her daily dosage, whose identity has not been released, apparently made...
...companies are already planning to test the antitumor proteins in people. However, clinical trials probably will not begin until 1996 at the earliest. One of the most important issues that scientists will have to address is whether the blocking agents will also prevent the body from forming new blood vessels during the normal course of repairing cuts and other wounds. In addition, researchers must pay particular attention to the proteins' safety for women. The creation of new blood vessels is a regular part of the menstrual cycle and crucial to pregnancy as the fetus grows and develops. So any protein...
...patched, p53 activates other genes that cause the cell to self-destruct. Mutations in p53, which have been detected in more than 50% of all human cancers, are thus extremely dangerous. In laboratory cultures, some cancer cells that possess mutant versions of p53 do not die when challenged by antitumor agents, while those that have normal p53 genes go belly...
...even metastatic cancer may eventually be brought to heel. Squeezed into a tiny cubicle day after day at the National Cancer Institute, Patricia Steeg stares at colonies of aggressive breast-cancer cells that have shut down the protective nm23 gene. Soon she will squirt over these colonies newly identified antitumor compounds. Among them she hopes to find one, maybe more, that interferes with metastatic growth. A total of 14 of these compounds are already sitting in a freezer in her lab -- white crystals that cluster like snowflakes in the bottom of test tubes. If these fail to have an effect...