Here is something of interest: DON'T FALL FOR EMAIL WARNING ON OVARIANCANCER.............By Marla KrauseSpecial to the TribunePublished May 27, 2007The e-mail starts out innocuously enough; it's from a female friend concerned about health issues. But the type is big, so you quickly get the message that THIS IS IMPORTANT.Did you know, it asks, that there is a simple blood test for ovarian cancer that your doctor is not telling you about and that your insurance company doesn't want to pay for? And, it goes on, because the writer of this e-mail was denied the test, she is now battling peritoneal cancer, a disease similar to ovarian cancer that attacks the stomach lining.But what appears to be the kind of information that gives women nightmares is really an urban legend, according to gynecologists, medical Web sites and Gilda's Club, a support community for people with cancer founded in memory of comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989."I have seen a version of this e-mail for many years," said Karyn Grimm Herndon, an ob-gyn with practices in Evanston and Glenview. "The CA-125 test is almost never an appropriate first-line test for ovarian cancer. If a person has risk factors, like a mother or a sister with ovarian cancer, or has previously been diagnosed, this test might be used, but it is not a recommended screening test for the average person.""We have gotten calls in the past about this e-mail story," said LauraJane Hyde, CEO of Gilda's Club Chicago. "We are all for a call to action that empowers women, but alarmist tactics like this don't help what we do."Ovarian cancer is called the silent killer because the symptoms often go unnoticed until the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Because many of the symptoms mimic other conditions and the survival figures for ovarian cancer are terrifying, e-mails telling women there is a reliable test out there are sure to cause a stir. The CA-125 test measures cancer antigen 125, a protein that is produced in the ovaries and released in the bloodstream.According to the e-mail circulating, an elevated level signals ovarian cancer. However, according to Herndon, it also can signal endometriosis, fibroid tumors, liver disease and normal menstruation resulting in many false positive tests.The test can be helpful with a woman who has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, according to research by Johns Hopkins University. A decreasing level can indicate that therapy has been effective, and an increasing level can indicate recurrence; but a single test in a healthy woman is seldom useful. Some women with ovarian cancer never have elevated 125 levels, while most women who do have elevated levels do not have cancer, according to the Hopkins research, which recommends that the test not be used alone to detect ovarian cancer."The best thing to come of something like this is a discussion of cancer screening in general and why things work and don't work," Herndon said. "Anything that gets a patient talking to her doctor and asking questions is good."http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/living/chi-0527_health2_r_kmay27,1,6338907.story?coll=chi-living-hedMORE*********Gene may help cancer cells to thriveWEDNESDAY 23 MAY 2007The p53 'tumour suppressor' gene, which researchers believe is essential in helping chemotherapy to kill cancer cells, may actually help them to survive, a study has found.Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Ovarian Cancer Institute found that just 30 per cent of chemotherapy patients whose tumours had a normal p53 gene were alive after five years, compared to 70 per cent of patients with a faulty p53 gene, regardless of the stage of cancer at the time the tumours were surgically removed.For some time, researchers have believed that p53 is essential to successful chemotherapy, as it is responsible for starting the process of cell death if a cell is damaged beyond repair.The gene is therefore thought to assist in cancer treatment by killing cancerous cells which have been damaged by chemotherapy.However, before it initiates cell death, p53 attempts to repair the cell and researchers now believe that it may help some damaged cancer cells to survive.John McDonald, chairman of Georgia Tech's school of biology and chief researcher at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, said: "p53 has long been recognised as a key player in directing chemotherapy-damaged cancer cells to self annihilate, but less attention has been paid to p53's role in repairing damaged cells.""If we are correct, inhibiting p53 in tumours being treated with chemotherapy may substantially improve patients' long-term survival."http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/newsarchive/2007/may/18157360
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