Cancer Cells

Johns Hopkins scientists have found a way to screen for hard-to-detect endometrial and ovarian cancers in women using a routine Pap smear, a discovery they hope eventually could reduce the number of deaths caused by the deadly malignancies. The researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center hope the Pap smear, a procedure in which cells are scraped from the cervix and examined under a microscope, can catch the two cancers in early stages and allow for earlier treatment. The Pap test has dramatically improved detection of cervical cancer over the years, curbing deaths by 75 percent among those who are screened.

At Harford Friends School, an unusual field trip for middle school resulted from an equally unusual assignment for Cheryl Foley's science class: reading and discussing "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. " Eighth-graders from Harford Friends School recently toured the original lab at Johns Hopkins, where the HeLa cells were discovered. A HeLa cell is a cell type in an immortal cell line used in scientific research. Although many groups tour the facility every day, this group of middle schoolers was one of the youngest ever to be received by researchers.

A stranger approached a cluster of women laughing and chatting at an Annapolis coffee shop and politely inquired what type of group was having so much fun. "One that you don't want to join," answered 55-year-old Sally Ring, setting off another wave of giggles. Moments earlier, Ring had told the group her cancer had spread to her bones and she'd had another stint on a ventilator. Her colorful storytelling had the women doubled over. "My motto for through this whole thing is that somebody has it much worse," Ring said.

Johns Hopkins scientists have found a way to screen for hard-to-detect endometrial and ovarian cancers in women using a routine Pap smear, a discovery they hope eventually could reduce the number of deaths caused by the deadly malignancies. The researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center hope the Pap smear, a procedure in which cells are scraped from the cervix and examined under a microscope, can catch the two cancers in early stages and allow for earlier treatment. The Pap test has dramatically improved detection of cervical cancer over the years, curbing deaths by 75 percent among those who are screened.

Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee gets six or seven e-mails a day from desperate cancer patients and family members, pleading for help or for a spot in one of her studies. The Johns Hopkins University researcher keeps two of these entreaties tacked to a wall in her office. One is from a 13-year-old Alaska boy whose father was dying of pancreatic cancer. The boy begs Jaffee for help: "You have to save my dad. He's my best friend." The other is from a 16-year-old Kansas girl who had already lost her mother to breast cancer.

If there ever was a right time to be diagnosed with breast cancer , Beth Thompson found one. In February 2006, the pea-size tumor in her right breast was too small for a clinical trial of Herceptin, a targeted therapy that had proved effective in advanced stages of the aggressive cancer Thompson had. She underwent a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. When the cancer continued to show signs of growth, she had a double mastectomy. But soon after, her doctor, buoyed by promising trial results, encouraged her to consider Herceptin, developed by Genetech to target the protein that fuels the cancer's growth.

In a novel approach to treating cancer, Johns Hopkins researchers plan to begin using prostate cancer patients' own tumor cells -- and gene therapy -- to enable the men's immune systems to kill the cancer.The treatment, involving a complicated gene manipulation, has been proven to work in animals with prostate and kidney cancers.Researchers believe it could be effective against other malignancies, such as colon cancer and melanoma.The treatment might offer the patient a kind of vaccination to ward off future attacks by a specific type of cancer.

At 36, Tamera Bittinger wasn't even old enough for a mammogram. And when she found a lump in her breast last year, her doctor dismissed it. She barely had time for her concern to abate, however, because the lump quickly grew large and painful, and she returned for another exam. After a biopsy, the mother of two was told she had stage-three "triple negative" breast cancer , an aggressive form of the disease that disproportionally strikes younger women and African-Americans, and is impervious to the newest treatments.

A diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic breast cancer sounds like a death sentence. And, for some, it can be. It is both inoperable and incurable. But cancer experts say the disease is treatable, and its victims' prognoses vary as widely as their individual cancers. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, learned Monday that her breast cancer, first diagnosed and treated in 2004, has turned up in her bones. But chemical, hormonal and biological drug therapies can be used to keep it in check, said Dr. Michael Schultz, director of the breast center at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson.

What should you pack in a family first-aid kit when you travel? That depends, obviously, on who's in your family, what medical conditions they have, and whether you're trekking in the Himalayas or hanging out closer to civilization. At a minimum, said Josh Baker, director of health and safety for the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay, you should include: Adhesive tape Antiseptic ointment Band-Aids of assorted sizes Blanket (can be a metallicized emergency blanket that folds to the size of a cigarette pack)

If there ever was a right time to be diagnosed with breast cancer , Beth Thompson found one. In February 2006, the pea-size tumor in her right breast was too small for a clinical trial of Herceptin, a targeted therapy that had proved effective in advanced stages of the aggressive cancer Thompson had. She underwent a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. When the cancer continued to show signs of growth, she had a double mastectomy. But soon after, her doctor, buoyed by promising trial results, encouraged her to consider Herceptin, developed by Genetech to target the protein that fuels the cancer's growth.

A stranger approached a cluster of women laughing and chatting at an Annapolis coffee shop and politely inquired what type of group was having so much fun. "One that you don't want to join," answered 55-year-old Sally Ring, setting off another wave of giggles. Moments earlier, Ring had told the group her cancer had spread to her bones and she'd had another stint on a ventilator. Her colorful storytelling had the women doubled over. "My motto for through this whole thing is that somebody has it much worse," Ring said.

When a young woman is diagnosed with cancer, getting pregnant is probably the last thing on her mind. But if she wants children in the future, it's something she should think about. The chemotherapy and radiation treatments used to treat cancer can hurt a women's fertility. Nearly 10 percent of the 1.5 million diagnosed with cancer each year are of childbearing age, according to the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Melissa M. Yates, an assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins Fertility Center, says these women need to think about fertility preservation before they begin treatment for cancer.

At 36, Tamera Bittinger wasn't even old enough for a mammogram. And when she found a lump in her breast last year, her doctor dismissed it. She barely had time for her concern to abate, however, because the lump quickly grew large and painful, and she returned for another exam. After a biopsy, the mother of two was told she had stage-three "triple negative" breast cancer , an aggressive form of the disease that disproportionally strikes younger women and African-Americans, and is impervious to the newest treatments.

Dr. Merrill Jon Egorin, an internationally known cancer researcher, a founder of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center, and a co-director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Molecular Therapeutics and Drug Discovery Program, died Aug. 7 of multiple myeloma at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Shadyside Hospital. The former Reisterstown resident was 62. "He was a brilliant, insightful and funny man who always made me laugh.

For the first time, researchers have decoded all the genes of a person with cancer and found a set of mutations that may have caused the disease or aided its progression. Using cells donated by a woman in her 50s who died of leukemia, the scientists sequenced all the DNA from her cancer cells and compared it with the DNA from her normal, healthy skin cells. Then, they zeroed in on 10 mutations that occurred only in the cancer cells, apparently spurring abnormal growth, preventing the cells from suppressing that growth and enabling them to fight off chemotherapy.

State police arrested a door-to-door salesman for trying to sell a phony cancer cure in southern Frederick County.About 1 p.m. yesterday, a resident of the Point of Rocks area called police to complain about a man promoting what he said was a cure for cancer. The salesman, saying "cancer cells cannot exist in a magnetic field," was selling magnets in a small box. An undercover policeman purchased several magnets from him.Louis Matacia, 60, of Bluemont, Va., was arrested after allegedly prescribing a treatment for cancer, representing to the public that he could cure or prescribe a treatment for cancer, and selling a device that is manufactured or represented to the public as a cancer cure.

CHICAGO -- A drug for use in treating patients with advanced kidney cancer won government approval yesterday. The Food and Drug Administration said the drug, Nexavar, is a significant step forward. The current standard treatment for kidney cancer - immune therapy with interferon or interleukin-2 - has modest benefits and can be extremely toxic. Nexavar, developed at the University of Chicago, has few side effects, and some patients who started taking it more than two years ago are doing well, researchers said yesterday.

In the nearly 40 years since the nation declared war on cancer, great advances have been made in breast cancer screening, early detection and treatment. The death rate for breast cancers has fallen. More is discovered all the time about the genetics and biology of the disease. But a cure remains elusive. Cancer, which is actually a variety of diseases, changes constantly and can spread throughout the body in ways that can be difficult to detect. Even when stopped in its tracks, it can often adjust and evade treatments that once worked against it. In most cases, the body's immune system learns to go after a foreign invader like a virus or a bacteria.