Hope on horizon for liver, pancreatic cancer

[Guest guest]

Posted 1/29/2006 9:11 PM

Hope

on horizon for liver, pancreatic cancer

Doctors have found ways to extend the lives of patients

who have liver and pancreatic tumors, two of the most difficult cancers to

treat.

At a meeting Friday in San Francisco of four leading medical

societies, researchers noted that liver transplants can be lifesaving for some

liver cancer patients.

About 75% of patients who have transplants survive,

compared with only 12% of those who didn't get a transplant, according to a

review of the records of nearly 1,200 patients with early-stage disease led by

Abby Siegel, an assistant professor at Columbia University.

Yet few patients — only 21% — are lucky enough

to receive liver transplants, according to the study, which analyzed records

from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results

Program. Other patients were treated with methods such as surgery and

medication.

Liver transplants are rare partly because not enough

organs are available. There were 6,169 liver transplants in the USA in 2004, according to the

United Network for Organ Sharing. Nearly 2,000 people await transplants every

year, says Merion, a University of Michigan professor and transplant

surgeon who was not part of the study.

Many cancer patients are ineligible for liver transplants,

which require people to take medications that prevent their bodies from rejecting

the donated organs, Merion says. These immune-suppressing drugs can allow

hidden cancer cells elsewhere in the body to grow.

In the study, researchers found that minorities were the

least likely to receive transplants.

Whites were twice as likely as blacks or Asians to get

liver transplants and 60% more likely than Hispanics. The study's authors say

minorities may live further away from transplant centers or have health

conditions that make them too weak for such major surgery.

More than 17,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer

each year, and more than 15,420 die from it, the American Cancer Society says.

Doctors from Germany also announced at the San Francisco meeting that certain drugs can

help pancreatic patients live slightly longer. Pancreatic cancer afflicts

32,180 people a year and kills 31,800, the cancer society says.

In an analysis of two studies involving 500 patients,

researchers found that patients who received gemcitabine,

the standard therapy, lived just over seven months. Those who added a second,

platinum-based drug — either oxaliplatin or cisplatin — lived nine months. Patients who took two

chemotherapy drugs experienced more side effects, however, says Volker

Heinemann, a professor at University Hospital in Munich and lead author of the study.

More than 19% of patients in the oxaliplatin

study developed serious nerve problems. About 22% of patients in the cisplatin study had major problems with diarrhea and

nausea, although Heinemann notes that new drugs can often relieve these side

effects.

Barb

in Texas - Together in the Fight, Whatever it Takes!

Son (Ken)

31 - UC 91 & PSC 99