Word: nci
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...malignant cells. Last week scientists at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., revealed some of the most promising results to date in the use of this new category called immunotherapy. In an unusual "special report," published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Steven Rosenberg and his NCI colleagues described a complex technique that enables doctors to turn some of a patient's own white blood cells into "killer cells" that attack tumors...
...news prompted tabloid headlines proclaiming CANCER BREAKTHROUGH and led desperate patients around the country to deluge the NCI with requests for the new "cure." Such a reaction is clearly premature, warned Rosenberg (who was a spokesman for the team that treated President Reagan's colon cancer). "I am really anxious that this be kept in perspective," he said. "This is a promising first step in a new approach to use the body's own immune system against cancer. It is certainly not a cancer cure...
...NCI report met with a mixture of optimism and caution in the medical community. "A 50% tumor regression is very good," observed Dr. Kurt Stenzel of the Rogosin Institute at New York Hospital, who is also working with IL-2. "But you still want more," he said. "You want it to go away and never come back." Doctors, including Rosenberg, expressed concern about the treatment's side effects. For most of the patients in the NCI experiment, the treatment caused serious fluid retention, with up to 20 lbs. of water accumulating in the lungs, liver, kidneys and elsewhere...
Last week the NCI cancer hot lines were besieged with thousands of calls from Americans seeking information about IL-2 treatment. "In many cases, these were people who had no other hope," said Judith Stein of the Cancer Information Service. At present, however, the Institute can treat only eight patients a month and is not accepting new patients. Plans are under way to begin testing the new procedure next year at cancer centers around the country. Dr. Frank Rauscher, a former NCI chief who is now a top official at the American Cancer Society, explained that the excitement in medical...
...hope in this grim picture is the rapid pace of research with the newly identified AIDS virus. There is now little doubt that the viruses isolated by the Pasteur group and by the NCI team under Dr. Robert Gallo are the same microbe. They are, however, slightly different strains, "like two brothers," explains Jean-Claude Chermann of Pasteur. Though a few questions remain, most researchers are now convinced that the virus is indeed the primary cause of AIDS. The evidence is compelling...