Fat Tissue Is Sensitive to Irradiation

Researchers led by Dr. Béatrice Cousin at Institut Louis Bugnard found that irradiation damages fat tissue. They report their findings in the January 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

Radiation therapy directed at cancer management also damages normal tissues. Autologous transplant of tissues such as fat tissue has often been used to prevent the fibrosis, organ dysfunction, and necrosis that result from radiation treatment; however, the effects of radiation on the transplanted fat tissue had not been studied.

Dr. Cousin's group characterized adipose tissue isolated from mice after total body irradiation. They found that fat pads weighed significantly less post-irradiation and had decreased adipocyte size and a reduced number of mature adipocytes. Poglio et al also observed severe decreases in the number of proliferating cells and increases in the number of dying cells.

Taken together, the data from Dr. Cousin's group suggest that "in terms of therapeutics, these acute affects may modify the reconstructive capacity of adipose tissue and therefore its use in autologous fat tissue transfer after irradiation." These results call into question the effectiveness of transplanting adipose tissue during radiation therapy.

source: EurekAlert

Pediatric Patient Treated Using RapidArc™ Radiotherapy Technology in Switzerland

BELLINZONA, Switzerland, Dec. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- A Swiss cancer clinic is among the first in the world to use a new, faster radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems to treat a child patient. A 12-year-old girl with Hodgkin's lymphoma was treated using Varian's RapidArc™ technique at the Istituto Oncologico della Svizzera Italiana (IOSI) in Bellinzona, southern Switzerland.

The girl received her targeted radiotherapy dose in less than two and a half minutes, using two continuous revolutions of the device while she lay on the treatment machine. The RapidArc treatment was considerably faster than would have been possible with conventional intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatments, which are slower and more difficult for radiotherapy radiographers because they target tumors using a complex sequence of fixed beams from multiple angles.

source: Varian

SenoRx Announces Additional Patent Granted for Contura(tm) Multi-Lumen Radiation Balloon (MLB)

IRVINE, Calif., Dec 18, 2008 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- SenoRx, Inc. today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company its sixth brachytherapy-related patent and fourth patent directly related to its Contura(tm) Multi-Lumen Radiation Balloon (MLB) catheter for the treatment of breast cancer. The new claims allowed in United States Patent No. 7,465,568 add to SenoRx's current intellectual property relating to asymmetrically irradiating a patient's breast with the Contura MLB after breast biopsy or lumpectomy procedures.

SenoRx received 510(k) clearance for Contura MLB from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 2007 for delivering radiation to the tissue surrounding the lumpectomy cavity following surgery for breast cancer. For appropriate patients, Contura MLB is one of a new class of devices which may reduce treatment time to five days from six to eight weeks. SenoRx believes that the Contura MLB may play an important role in the shift from traditional whole breast radiation therapy to localized partial breast radiation therapy.

source: Global Newswire

Refining Cancer Treatments To Reduce Potential Nerve Damage

While radiation treatments deliver precise doses of high-energy X-rays to stop cancer cells from spreading or to shrink tumors, oncologists have become increasingly concerned about inadvertent exposures during head and neck cancer treatments to nerves responsible for upper body mobility. To reduce the possibility of permanent nerve damage, UC Davis Cancer Center researchers have taken the lead in establishing new treatment guidelines for physicians nationwide.

The team, led by Allen Chen, assistant professor of radiation oncology, noticed a trend following treatment for cancers of the tonsil, tongue, throat, and other head and neck organs: A number of patients reported ongoing weakness and sensation problems in their necks, shoulders and upper arms. Chen recognized that these symptoms could be attributed to injury of the brachial plexus nerves, which begin at the back of the neck and extend behind the clavicle and down to the hand. Specific standards for delivering radiation treatments and avoiding this critical body structure, however, did not exist.

source: Medical News Today

Beyond the Abstract - Recent London Improvements in Curative Radiation Therapy for Relevant Early Prostate Cancer

BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) - The most effective form of treatment for localized prostate cancer remains a matter of great debate. There are no randomized controlled trials comparing radiotherapy with prostatectomy. Long-term outcome data from historical series, even those from the 1990s, have limited relevance as rapid advances in radiotherapy techniques have since permitted further dose escalation to the prostate. The published article describes recent advances in radiotherapy techniques and discusses the improved outcomes with regard to cure and toxicity.

It has been demonstrated in the last decade that delivering a conventionally fractionated dose above 72Gy to early prostate cancer improves cure rates. Whilst delivery of this dose is possible with the previous gold-standard modality (3D-conformal radiotherapy), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) allows the prostate and seminal vesicles to be irradiated to higher doses, delivered in distributions bespoke for the size and shape of the individual’s gland, with further reductions in dosage to surrounding tissues. Our team has compared two different methods of IMRT (Linac and Tomotherapy) and found they provide very similar dosimetry, hence equivalent efficacy.

source: UroToday

DOR BioPharma Announces FDA Clearance of IND for DOR201 in Radiation Enteritis

Ewing, NJ – December 8, 2008 – DOR BioPharma, Inc. (OTCBB: DORB) (“DOR” or the “Company”), a late-stage biopharmaceutical company developing products to treat the life-threatening side effects of cancer treatments and serious gastrointestinal diseases, and vaccines against certain bioterrorism agents, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its review and cleared the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for DOR201, a time-release formulation of oral beclomethasone dipropionate (oral BDP), for the prevention of acute radiation enteritis. DOR is, therefore, cleared to initiate a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in acute radiation enteritis.

The IND application included the Phase 1/2 protocol BDP-ENT-01, which is designed as a multicenter, open-label, sequential, dose-escalation study in approximately 36 patients. Patients with rectal cancer who are scheduled to undergo concurrent radiation and chemotherapy prior to surgery will be enrolled in four dose groups. The objectives of the study are to evaluate the safety and maximal tolerated dose of escalating doses of DOR201, as well as the preliminary efficacy of DOR201 for prevention of signs and symptoms of acute radiation enteritis. The study is planned to be initiated in the first half of 2009.

source: DOR BioPharma

Prostate Cancer Patient in Montpellier Becomes First Cancer Patient in France Treated with Varian's RapidArc™ Radiotherapy

MONTPELLIER, France, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- A 60-year-old prostate cancer patient from Montpellier has become the first person in France to be treated using RapidArc™ technology from Varian Medical Systems for fast and precise forms of intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Each of his treatments at the CRLC Val D'Aurelle - Paul Lamarque in the city took just 75 seconds, several times faster than conventional IMRT treatments. Dr. Pascal Fenoglietto, the hospital's chief medical physicist for scientific projects, presented the case to colleagues at the annual meeting of the French Society of Radiation Oncologists (SFRO) in Paris from November 12- 14.

"The treatments went extremely well and the patient was very pleased because compared to conventional IMRT it was three times quicker," Dr. Fenoglietto said. "We are now able to use the time we save on treatment delivery to take more images and increase the quality of our care."

source: Varian

Survival Rates In Advanced Rectal Cancer Patients May Be Improved By Preoperative Radiation

Dec. 1, 2008, WILKES-BARRE, PA. – Patients treated with radiation prior to surgery for advanced rectal cancer have fewer instances of cancer recurrence and better overall survival rates, according to a recent Geisinger report.

The report examined a treatment called neoadjuvant therapy, which can reduce cancerous tumor size or limit the spread of cancer, before surgery to remove the tumor. Neoadjuvant therapy may include chemotherapy and/or radiation.

Neoadjuvant therapy should not be considered a “one size fits all” approach for rectal cancer patients, said the report’s primary author, Mohammed Mohiuddin, MD, FRCR, FACR. Dr Mohiuddin is director of The Henry Cancer Center and co-director of Geisinger Health System’s Cancer Institute.

“Physicians need to consider a variety of factors such as tumor size, cancer stage and patient preference before deciding on the course of preoperative treatment,” said Dr. Mohiuddin, who has published extensively on the topic of radiation oncology.

source: Geisinger

Physicists Receives Patent for Design of Precision Cancer Therapy System

Four physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have been awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,432,516 B2 for the design of a “medical synchrotron” capable of delivering precision doses of proton radiation to cancerous tumors with minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue. The new device would be more precise and less costly than existing proton-therapy systems, potentially increasing the availability and benefits of this treatment for cancer patients worldwide. The Brookhaven scientists are now seeking industrial partners to license and commercialize the technology.

“In the realm of cancer treatment, proton therapy is considered ‘surgery without a knife’ because proton beams can deliver cell-killing energy with extreme precision, unlike conventional x-ray radiation therapy,” said Brookhaven physicist Stephen Peggs, one of the lead scientists on the project. Peggs, while working at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, witnessed the completion of the nation’s first hospital-based proton-therapy synchrotron, installed at California’s Loma Linda University Medical Center in 1990.

source: AZoMaterials