Radiation Therapy

Dr. Jeffery A. Williams, associate professor of neurosurgery and oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who devised a method of treating brain tumors with radiation that spared surrounding tissue, died Saturday of a heart attack while exercising at the hospital's fitness center. He was 50. The Canton resident was one of the world's foremost radiosurgeons and director of stereotactic radiosurgery, a division of the department of neurosurgery at Hopkins that treats tumors with focused radiation.

MATOACA, Va. - In the days after he resigned as manager of the Texas Rangers last May, Johnny Oates would sun himself on the scenic waterfront of his rural Virginia home and wonder about his future. His managerial credentials were solid, so there surely would be other chances to guide a major-league team to the World Series, and the rare opportunity to be home in the summer with his wife, near his grown kids and his two young grandsons, quickly took the sting out of an unhappy ending in Texas.

A GenVec Inc. drug designed to enhance the effects of radiation therapy in cancer patients showed promise in an early-stage clinical trial, according to results presented yesterday at a scientific conference in San Francisco. Tumors injected before radiation with the gene-therapy drug TNFerade shrank in all seven patients in the trial, with tumors treated in two patients disappearing entirely, the company said. Meanwhile, "control" tumors did not shrink when treated with the same doses of radiation alone in some of the same patients.

A Carroll County jury has awarded $300,000 to a Westminster woman after deciding that her oral surgeon, an Arbutus-based laboratory and its pathologist failed to diagnose her oral cancer properly more than four years ago.The jurors found Friday that the co-defendants -- Maryland Medical Laboratory Inc., now known as Quest Diagnostics Inc.; its pathologist Martin Lunin; and Westminster oral surgeon Donald B. Lurie -- breached the standard of care in their...

Dr. Patrick C. Walsh, director of urology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, will share the prestigious Charles F. Kettering Prize for his innovations in prostate cancer surgery.The award, sponsored by General Motors Corp., is considered a major prize in the field of cancer research. It is given to people who have made the most outstanding contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.Walsh will share the award with Dr. Malcolm A. Bagshaw of Stanford University, a radiation oncologist credited with major advances in radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

Two studies to be published today confirm that women with breast cancer who have a lumpectomy followed by radiation have the same survival rate as women who have cancerous breasts removed.About 70 percent of women with early breast cancer were alive after 10 years, whether they had a mastectomy or breast-conserving lumpectomy with radiation, according to a review of 36 breast cancer trials that included more than 17,273 women. The review was to be published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The obituary in yesterday's editions for Dorothy Smallwood should have listed the cause of death as complications of diabetes.The Sun regrets the error.Dorothy SmallwoodSeamstress, presserDorothy Smallwood, a retired presser and seamstress in men's clothing plants, died Saturday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center of complications of leukemia. She was 67 and lived in Lansdowne.Mrs. Smallwood retired five years ago from Oakloom Clothes Inc., after working there, and for Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, for about 35 years.

Q: Our 25-year-old son had been perfectly well but went to our family doctor because of enlarged lymph glands in his neck. A diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease was made by examining one of the glands after its removal. We were shocked and understand that Hodgkin's disease is a form of cancer. We would like to know our son's chances of being cured.A: Hodgkin's disease belongs to a group of lymphatic tissue growths, or neoplasms, collectively called the malignant lymphomas. Specific findings during the microscopic examination of tissue distinguishes Hodgkin's disease from other types of lymphomas, termed non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, which are more common and generally more cancerous.

Signaling increased consolidation in the specialty medical business, New Jersey-based Transworld Home HealthCare Inc. announced yesterday that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire 80 percent of the privately held RADAMERICA Inc., the single largest provider of radiation oncology therapy in Maryland.Terms of the cash transaction were not disclosed.Transworld, a $16 million home health firm catering to cancer patients, said the acquisition gives it the expertise to add radiation therapy centers to the services it now offers patients in New York, New Jersey and Florida.

Older men with early-stage prostate cancer may be better off waiting and having regular checkups and tests to monitor their cancer than having surgery or radiation therapy, says a new report.The study in yesterday's Journal of the American Medical Association is likely to stir controversy among doctors and the public about the effectiveness of surgery and radiation to treat prostate cancer, the most common kind of cancer among American men.Surgery and radiation for men older than 60 with early stages of prostate cancer may not help them live longer and may put them at risk for complications, particularly impotence and incontinence, which may "severely degrade quality of life," the study said.