Good Reason for Prostate Patients Not to Smoke
Prostate cancer patients who smoke might want to quit--at least if they want to maintain a sex life. A new study of patients who underwent radiation therapy for prostate cancer has found that none of the patients who smoked were potent six years after their treatment, compared to about two-thirds of those who did not smoke.
Dr. James Wurzer of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia was studying the aftereffects of a new form of radiation treatment called three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy, which strives to irradiate only tumor tissue. He compared 34 men who had been treated with the technique six years earlier to 18 healthy men.
Wurzer will report today at a meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in San Antonio that men receiving the treatment were no more likely to suffer incontinence, persistent diarrhea or other bowel complications than those who did not. But almost 40% of those treated were impotent, compared to 22% of the healthy men. Further study showed that most of the impotent men smoked.
Mastectomy Compared to Lumpectomy
Breast cancer patients who undergo breast-conserving surgery (a lumpectomy) and radiation therapy are no more likely to have a recurrence than those who choose mastectomy, according to another paper to be presented today at the same meeting.
Dr. Bruce Haffty and his colleagues at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., compared 1,029 patients with early-stage breast cancer who had undergone lumpectomy and radiation therapy at the university with 1,387 who had a mastectomy. They found that 6.5% of those who had the combination therapy eventually had another tumor in their second breast, compared to 6.6% of those who were treated by mastectomy alone. Five percent of the women treated with the combination therapy developed cancer at a site other than the breast, compared to 7% of those who received only surgery. And the efficacy was independent of the age of the woman, Haffty added.
Beta-Carotene Deficit, Prostate Cancer Linked
If you have low blood levels of beta-carotene, taking supplements can reduce your risk of prostate cancer by about a third, according to Boston researchers, but they don’t provide any benefit to men who already have high levels of the chemical. The findings come from the ongoing Physician Health Study, which has been following 15,000 men since the early 1980s.
Earlier results from the study showed no overall effect of beta-carotene on prostate cancer, a finding that surprised many doctors who have studied the potential benefits of beta-carotene. But epidemiologist Nancy Cook and her colleagues at Harvard Medical School report in today’s Cancer on a reanalysis of the data. It shows that supplements reduced the risk of prostate cancer by 32% if the men’s blood levels of the chemical were low before they start taking it. Men who consumed adequate quantities of beta-carotene by eating large amounts of green and yellow vegetables, however, showed no benefit from the supplement.
Two More Studies Relate Bacteria, Heart Trouble
Two new studies support the idea that bacterial infections can be an important risk factor for heart disease. Several previous studies have hinted at the possibility, and physicians are already conducting clinical trials to determine whether antibiotics can reduce the risk of heart attack. The new studies further buttress the theory.
Dr. John Danesh of the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, and his colleagues in the International Studies of Infarct Survival Collaborative Group studied 1,122 survivors of a myocardial infarction (heart attack) and compared them to a control group of healthy men. They reported in Saturday’s British Medical Journal that the heart attack victims were twice as likely to have antibodies to Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium associated with ulcers and stomach cancer. The results are strongly suggestive of a link between the bacterium and heart disease, the researchers said, but much larger numbers of patients need to be studied to establish a causal relationship.
In a separate study, Dr. Yuki-ki Wong and his colleagues at Southampton General Hospital in Southampton, England, examined the blood of 1,005 men and women undergoing arteriography as a test for heart disease. They were looking for traces of Chlamydia pneumoniae, a bacterium that, like H. pylori, has previously been found in atherosclerotic plaques.
Wong and his colleagues report in today’s Journal of the American College of Cardiology that they found C. pneumoniae DNA in the blood of 8.8% of the men with coronary artery disease, but in only 2.9% of those with healthy arteries. In an editorial in the same journal, Dr. Juan Carlos Kaski of St. George’s Hospital Medical School said the study provides a sound basis for future research on whether antibiotics can prevent heart disease.
Slow-Release Drug May Be as Effective as Ritalin
A new slow-release version of methyl phenidate is as effective as the conventional form of the drug--called Ritalin--in treating the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but can be administered only once daily, according to researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Because the drug is released over the course of a day from specially designed tablets, the drug would not have to be administered by nurses or teachers while children are at school.
Dr. William E. Pelham and his colleagues enrolled 68 children from the ages of 6 to 12 in the study, giving them either the new drug, called Concerta, once a day, Ritalin three times a day or a placebo. They reported last Monday at a meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in New York City that the two forms of the drug were equally effective in controlling symptoms of the disorder, and both were much more effective than placebo.
Medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II can be reached at thomas.maugh@latimes.com.
