FORCANCER - Moores Cancer Center

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New Information Service ON OUR WEB SITE UCSD Cancer Center is making access to cancer information easier than ever with a new service on our Web site. The Cancer Information Service (CIS) of the National Cancer Institute provides answers to commonly asked questions in a monthly column called “Ask the CIS.” Just visit the Cancer Center’s homepage at http://cancer.ucsd.edu and click on the “Ask the CIS” logo for new topics each month. Here is a sampling of topics you’ll find: ■ Non-drug Treatments for Cancer Pain ■ Inflammatory Breast Cancer ■ Clinical Trials ■ Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ■ Cell Phones and Cancer ■ Environmental Tobacco Smoke ■ Metastatic Cancer In addition, to talk with a CIS cancer information specialist, individuals can call the Cancer Information Service toll-free at 1-800-4-CANCER between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. These information specialists provide callers with individualized answers to questions about cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, symptoms and risks, and clinical trials. CIS staff answer calls in English and Spanish, and from deaf and hard-of-hearing callers. New Hope for Kidney Cancer Physicians with the UCSD Blood and Marrow Transplant Program are evaluating an experimental type of stem cell transplant for its effectiveness against advanced kidney cancer, a disease known to be highly resistant to conventional therapy and usually fatal. This approach, which uses blood stem cells donated by the patient’s matched sibling or matched unrelated donor, has shown promise in a small research study recently conducted at the National Institutes of Health. In that study of 19 patients, 53 percent had either complete or partial regression of their disease. Some patients have remained completely free of disease more than two years after treatment. Researchers attribute these results to an immune response that the donor cells develop against the recipient’s cancer, a phenomenon known as a “graft versus tumor response.” This is often seen in certain leukemias and lymphomas, but kidney Dr. Asad Bashey, M.D., Ph.D. cancer is the first solid tumor to exhibit the response. “The NIH study was small, but the results were so dramatic we believe they represent a tremendous advance against this disease,” said Asad Bashey, M.D., Ph.D., a member of UCSD Cancer Center and assistant professor of medicine at UCSD School of Medicine. “These early results are particularly exciting when you consider that we’ve had precious little to offer patients who were not helped by conventional therapy.” The UCSD clinical trial is open to patients with a sibling who can donate stem cells for the transplant. For patients lacking a suitable sibling donor, an alternative trial is designed to use matched unrelated donors obtained through the large volunteer donor database from the National Marrow Donor Program. For further information about this study call the UCSD Blood and Marrow Transplant Program, (858) 657-6840. Correction: In the Winter 2001 issue of UCSD Cancer Center News we mistakenly identified Thomas J. Kipps, M.D., Ph.D., as leader of the Center’s Translational Oncology Program. That post is now held by Edward D. Ball, M.D. We regret the error. …Editorial Staff UCSD Cancer Center News 8
Magnifying the Search for Breast Cancer Researchers have known for decades that most breast cancer starts in the cells lining the milk ducts. Until recently, though, there was no way to see how these cells were behaving until they formed a lump that could be felt or seen on a mammogram. A new method called ductal lavage allows doctors to collect milk duct cells and look for possible early warning signs of breast cancer. UCSD Cancer Center is among the first in the nation to offer ductal lavage to women at high-risk for breast cancer. In a recent clinical study, ductal lavage detected abnormal cells in 24 percent of the high-risk women who enrolled in the study. All of the women had non-suspicious mammograms and physical exams within the 12 months prior to their participation. “Ductal lavage gives us the ability to look for the very beginnings of abnormal changes,” said Anne Wallace, M.D., director of UCSD Cancer Center’s Breast Care Unit. “It can offer high-risk women unique, early information when used in conjunction with mammography and breast examination.” During ductal lavage, a tiny microcatheter is inserted into the duct through its natural opening on the nipple. (The use of topical anesthetic prevents discomfort for most women.) A teaspoon of saline is flushed through the microcatheter to “rinse” the duct to collect cells. The fluid is sent to a laboratory for analysis. For more information about ductal lavage, call the Cancer Center’s toll-free information line: 1-866-558-7933. A Treatment Against Metastasis? UCSD Cancer Center researchers have obtained evidence that the common anticoagulant drug heparin diminishes metastasis of certain cancers in mice by interfering with interactions between platelets (a type of normal blood cell) and specific molecules on tumor cell surfaces. The researchers, reporting in the March 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say these findings make a compelling argument for initiating clinical trials of heparin in patients with newly diagnosed cancer. “The notion of using anticoagulants to inhibit metastasis is not new,” said the study’s senior author Ajit Varki, M.D. “However, our new findings suggest that heparin therapy to prevent the spread of cancer in humans should be revisited.” Animal studies in the ‘60s and ‘70s showed that heparin — which is delivered by injection or intravenously — inhibits metastasis. Follow-up human studies focused instead on the use of oral anticoagulants, which are easier to manage than heparin. Those attempts failed, however, and research in this area stalled. The new research, led by Lubor Borsig, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow working in Varki’s laboratory, details heparin’s precise mechanism and explains why earlier clinical trials using oral anticoagulants failed. “Our findings show that the antimetastatic effect of heparin is not due to its ability to prevent blood clotting, as was previously thought, but rather its blockage of early tumor-platelet interactions in the bloodstream,” said Borsig. “Oral anticoagulants work by a completely different mechanism and do not block these interactions.” When cancer cells break away from the original tumor and enter the bloodstream they attract platelets, which bind to sugarcoated molecules on the cancer cell surface, forming a cloak. This platelet cloak appears to protect the tumor cells from the body’s natural defense system, enabling them to establish new tumors in other parts of the body. Heparin interferes with formation of the platelet cloak, apparently leaving tumor cells exposed to attack by white blood cells. This work involved an active collaboration with UCSD Cancer Center laboratories for Histology (directed by Nissi Varki, Ph.D.) and Digital Imaging (directed by James Feramisco, Ph.D.), and with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (David Nadeau). It was supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute. 9 UCSD Cancer Center News
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FORCANCER - Moores Cancer Center

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