N.Y. Times story tells of 'tumors melting away'

Experimental immunotherapies now sometimes replace chemo as a treatment for cancers

Immunotherapy.

Long word. Comparatively short history.

But one suddenly filled with lots of promise about fighting cancer.

A recent story by Denise Grady in The New York Times deals with how a patient's own immune cells may now help — even when standard treatments fail.

The experimental treatment, according to the article, has resulted in "remarkable stories of tumors melting away and terminal illnesses going into remissions that last years."

Those stories, Grady writes, are backed "by solid data [and] have led to an explosion of interest and billions of dollars of investments…Pharmaceutical companies, philanthropists and the federal government's 'cancer moonshot' program are pouring money into developing treatments."

The explosion, the story continues, "has brought new optimism to cancer doctors — a sense they they have begun tapping into a force of nature, the medical equivalent of splitting the atom."

Dr. Jedd Wolchok

The Times quotes Dr. Jedd Wolchok, chief of melanoma and immunotherapeutics services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, as saying, "This is a fundamental change in the way that we think about cancer therapy."

Immunotherapy — which "tries to help the immune system recognize cancer as a threat, and attack it" — now sometimes replaces chemotherapy, which attacks cancer cells more directly.

Two new techniques stand out.

The first "creates a new, individualized treatment for each patient by removing some of the person's immune cells, altering them genetically to kill cancer and then infusing them back into the bloodstream."

The second involves mass-produced drugs (called checkpoint inhibitors) "that do not have to be tailored to each patient. [They block] a mechanism — called a checkpoint — that cancer uses to shut down the immune system."

Those drugs are not cheap — they cost about $150,000 a year.

And that's not the biggest downside.

Grady notes that "immunotherapy has worked in only a minority of patients, and researchers are struggling to find out why."

Immunotherapy and other treatment innovations are addressed in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Mastectomy may be in the offing for 45-year-old

Actress Shannen Doherty preempts breast cancer hair loss by shaving her head

Shannen Doherty, with pre-cancer
treatments haircut in process.

Suddenly, actress Shannen Doherty is bald.

Temporarily, at least.

She's shaved her head while fighting breast cancer, according to a recent Associated Press story in the Washington Times.

The 45-year-old Doherty posted six black-and-white photos on Instagram that showed her lopping off her locks, preceded by another picture with a caption carrying the phrase #cancersucks.

Her cancer initially was disclosed in a lawsuit filed last year against her ex-business managers.

It alleged that they caused her health to deteriorate while they mismanaged her money. She charged in the suit that her cancer went undetected because she put off going to a doctor when they let her insurance lapse.

Doherty gained fame in a four-year stint as Brenda Walsh on "Beverly Hills 90210" — but even greater notoriety as being someone extremely difficult to work with.

The actress — who maintains she'll probably be unable to have children because of her cancer treatments — has signed to do a television series based on the 1995 Kevin Smith movie, "Mallrats."

She's also said she's prepared to have a mastectomy if other treatments fail.

You can learn about the psychological damage of hair loss in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

DNA mutations plus sun damage equals trouble

Genes linked to red hair and pale skin increase your risk of melanoma, a new study says

News reports, I've found, sometimes merely confirm what conventional and folk wisdom have known forever.

Case in point — the recent UPI story (based on one in HealthDay News) that carried the headline "Genes tied to red hair, pale skin greatly raise melanoma risk."

I could have told you that. 

Because I've been living for a long time with a woman with red hair and pale skin and freckles.

Nancy Fox — and her long red hair.

My wife, Nancy Fox, successfully had a melanoma on her arm removed — after she'd conquered breast cancer. And neither of us can count how many pre-cancerous growths she's had dermatologists cut out, burn off or otherwise remove.

But what I hadn't realize was that, at least according to the story, having the troublesome gene mutation — known as MC1R— "is roughly equivalent to the person spending an extra 21 years in the sun."

The British study, which examined more than 400 people and whose findings were published in Nature Communications, determined that "there were 42 percent more mutations linked to sun damage in the tumors of those carrying the red hair gene variant than in those without that DNA."

It showed, moreover, that "skin cancer isn't just about being more vulnerable to the sun's harmful UV rays. Carrying the MC1R gene variant raises the number of mutations triggered by sun exposure, the researchers explained, but it also raises the level of non-sun-linked mutations within tumors."

I, not incidentally, based my VitalityPress book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," which is aimed at male caregivers, on my wife's courage in battling her cancers. 

Unfortunately, what she's still faced with — constantly — is having doctors take off pre-cancerous growths from her face, arms and other body parts. All because she has red hair and pale skin and didn't protect herself from the sun when she was young.

Risks of side effects and over-treatment cited

Estrogen-suppressing drug may lower cancer patients' odds of recurrence, new study reveals

A new study says letrozole, an estrogen-suppressing drug, can benefit breast cancer patients.

If post-menopausal women with early-stage breast cancer take the aromatase inhibitor for 10 years instead of five, according to a recent story by Andrew Pollack in The New York Times, the chances of their cancer returning is lowered by 34 percent.

And their odds of developing a new case of cancer in the other breast dropped similarly.

The study — which involved 1,900 post-menopausal women in the United States and Canada — was presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting, and published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Skeptics, however, said the extra five years boosted "the risk of side effects like bone loss and joint and muscle pain."

Dr. Eric Winer

Dr. Eric Winer, director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston's breast cancer program and an author of the study, insisted the added five years is "an option but not the standard," and specifically noted that the new approach isn't for every woman.

"You have to be careful not to over-treat everyone," The Times quoted him as warning.

But, he told the newspaper, it's "most important to prevent recurrence outside the breast because that is what kills people."

Typically, the article said, women now take either tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor "to block or suppress estrogen in hopes of keeping the cancer from returning."

Guidelines from the oncology society suggest that women take tamoxifen for 10 years "because studies have show this prevents cancer recurrence and improves survival."

But woman also may take tamoxifen for five years and follow with an aromatase inhibitor for another five.

The majority of post-menopausal women currently start on the latter.

To learn about these or other cancer drugs, check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

15,000 results from Silicon Valley startup studied

Will new liquid biopsies replace painful, risky, invasive tumor tests? Perhaps, research says

Are painful, risky biopsies on the way out?

Maybe.

According to a recent story by Andrew Pollack in The New York Times, a new test known as a liquid biopsy can detect cancer mutations — with results that apparently agree, generally, "with those of an invasive tumor biopsy."

Conventional biopsies mean a needle or surgery extracts a piece of a tumor. But both those methods can lead to complications.

The liquid biopsies, the Times piece says, "take advantage of the fact that DNA fragments from tumors can be found in tiny amounts in the blood of patients with cancer."

Dr. Philip C. Mack

The story quotes researcher Philip C. Mack, Ph.D. director of molecular pharmacology at the U.C. Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, who presented his result at the annual meeting of 
the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The findings come from a study that looked at the results of more than 15,000 liquid biopsies performed by Guardant Health, a Silicon Valley startup, on people with breast, lung, colorectal and other cancers.

So far, the liquid test only monitors disease progression or detects the genetic mutations "that could suggest which drug should be used," according to The Times, and is not yet used to diagnose cancer.

And it isn't cheap — with a list price of $5,800.

Dozens of companies, The Times notes, "are now developing or offering liquid biopsies, and tissue biopsy companies are trying to defend their turf."

Cancer research is extensive. To learn more about it, check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Coffee, tea join list of 80 cancer-causing agents

Super-hot drinks can trigger disease, says a 10-country arm of World Health Organization 

Damn, that coffee's hot!

Well, that very pick-me-up — or similarly super-hot drinks — are not only likely to burn your tongue, they might well be cancer triggers.

According to an article by Alice Park in the current Time magazine, the World Health Organization (WHO) says liquids such as coffee and tea belong on the list of cancer-causing agents.

An organizational arm of WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), checked 1,000 studies that looked into links between high-temp drinks and various forms of the disease and found anything above 149 degrees fahrenheit hikes the risk of esophageal cancer.

Dr. Otis Brawley

The conclusions of that study by the IARC, which is composed of 23 scientists from 10 countries, were published recently in Lancet Oncology.

As with virtually every piece of research, however, there's another side.

Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Society's chief medical and scientific officer, believes smoking and excessive alcohol are much bigger perils, the Time piece notes.

Interested in more info on some of the 79 other substances — including exposure to UV radiation from the sun, air pollution, red meat and DDT — that can be cancer risk factors? Check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Adventure ranges up to 97 degrees, down to 29

Cross-country biker looking for volunteers to help cancer patients cope with hair loss

Nina Huston on cross-country trip.

Nina Husen's on a two-month cross-country bicycle trip filled with heart.

She's almost midway through a two-month adventure to the East Coast on her bike, which will be followed by a leisurely trip home with her crew (sons, Blake and Spencer) — by car.

Husen, 52, one of the owners of the NH2 Salon in Novato (along with Nicole Hitchcock), hopes to recruit 500 volunteer hairstylists nationally who'll "provide pro bono services to patients with cancer experiencing hair related side effects from treatment."

In a June 2 blog item, she succinctly summed up her mission: "I am riding across the country to bring awareness to Hairdressers with Heart" — which, she wrote, is a network of 50 hairstylists in Marin and Sonoma counties known as Style Heroes who connect with cancer patients and shave their heads, help style their wigs "or take them through one full year of complimentary clean up services as their hair grows in."

The trip — which she's never attempted before (though she's previously ridden "100 miles at a stretch") — has hardly been easy so far.

The Corte Madera resident already has "encountered 97-degree weather all the way down to 29-degree weather."

She left San Francisco at 6:30 a.m. May 18 with the intention of riding through "Nevada, Utah, Colorado, then on to Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and finally Virginia."

On May 24, she noted, "I've had cramps, sun sickness, fatigue, skin loss in places unmentionable, tears and, well, a few sore muscles. The joys? Support from my sons…Their faces at each stop with smiles on them and hands waving, food and water ready for me. Lakes, trees, birds, the sun, the moon, clouds from heaven, and the landscape changing as quickly as my emotions."

She added, with great honesty and poignancy, "I climb out of the shower, a moment of usual reprieve…burnt nose and slits of eyeballs, I burst into tears…Feeling better now after water, ice, smoothie and rest, I have to mention that (A) No one is making me do this (B) I am enjoying myself much of the time, but if you did not hear the challenges it would simply be a pictorial of me riding and smiling and that would be a snoozer."

Hairdressers with Heart, "100% volunteer run," was formed seven years ago after Hitchcock's sister, Brandy, died at age 37 from heart failure while undergoing chemotherapy for acute myelogenous leukemia.

Earlier, Brandy had been upset when her hair started to fall out. So Nicole found her "a long, sexy, blonde wig" — which changed her attitude.

The Hairdressers with Heart foundation was created not long after Brandy's death.

Promotional materials for Nina's trip noted that "over a million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year in the United States. Individuals afflicted with cancer that suffer from unappealing hair loss often find the experience emotionally crippling. Hairdressers with Heart highlights Style Heroes that choose to share their gift of hairdressing with cancer patients across the nation."

To read how other organizations help folks with life-threatening diseases, check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Marin Man to Man original a 23-year regular

Weekly support group for partners of breast cancer patients losing a key member

Marv and Maria Edelstein

The Marin Man to Man weekly support group for guys whose partners have or had breast cancer will lose one of its key members in a few days.

Marv Edelstein is leaving the San Francisco Bay Area — and the state of California.

One of the four original members of Man to Man, he's been a regular for 23 years, since shortly after his wife, Maria, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

But Marv has found the local traffic and congestion more than he chooses to handle. And Maria apparently is even more bothered by the negative impact those changes have had recently.

It's not easy for them to say goodbye to the area, however.

They've lived in their San Rafael home 37 years.

Marv has been a regular in the weekly support group for 23 years and, in fact, has been vice chair and treasurer for a long time.

He's always been the epitome of the perfect member — particularly helpful to newcomers because he's been willing to be totally vulnerable, open and honest about his own ups and downs with Maria's bout with breast cancer more than two decades ago.

And her second bout earlier this year.

Marin Man to Man began when husbands of women with breast cancer in the First Position ballet support group realized they needed support themselves.

Eight current Man to Man members gathered this past Wednesday to wish Marv a fond farewell, to express their appreciation of his past contributions, and to say they hope he'll drop in again whenever he's visiting the Bay Area.

The Edelsteins intend to vacation in McCall, Idaho, then move either to Oregon or Washington to be closer to their son, who lives in Seattle.

The stories of their fighting cancer and Man to Man can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, have aimed at male caregivers.