INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) – There can only be one winner in Sunday’s Super Bowl but for two opposing players, a bigger battle has already been won, victory over cancer.

New York Giants linebacker Mark Herzlich and New England Patriots offensive lineman Marcus Cannon have both had to deal with life-threatening illness and came through their treatment to achieve their sporting dream, a place in the biggest game in American sport.

After an outstanding season for Boston College, Herzlich was diagnosed, in May 2009, with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of cancer affecting bone and soft tissue.

He underwent a six month course of chemotherapy and radiation and also needed surgery and a titanium rod inserted into his leg, which remains in place to strengthen his bone.

The linebacker said his aim of making it in the National Football League (NFL) motivated him through the arduous treatment.

“Playing football again was the goal and that really pushed me. After six hours of chemotherapy you’re sitting there and your body just feels drained,” he said.

“You don’t want to move but I said ‘I am going to be playing football again in eight months, so I need to go and workout. I need to go ride a bike, get some cardio in.”

Herzlich said he made a highlights video of his 2008 season to keep him motivated.

“I would put that on in the chemo room and watch it over and over again just to see myself succeeding,” he said.

“The physical pain was intense. The pain that I would get in my leg and my lower back felt like knives being stabbed into my legs. The pain coming after the surgery where I had to get the scar tissue kind of kneaded out with massage and stuff.

“That was probably the worst pain I have ever been in because they had to actually tear the muscle off the bone and tear the scar tissue away. I was screaming on the massage table,” said Herzlich.

Cannon’s treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma was less painful but going through chemotherapy inevitably weakened him.

“I still had faith I was going to get into the NFL, I didn’t know if I was going to get drafted or not but I still believed I would play in the league,” he told Reuters.

“I was blessed not to get all the side effects that so many other people get.”

Cannon entered the draft but his illness pushed him down the list. Nonetheless the Patriots took him in round five with the 138th pick.

After missing training camp and the early part of the season due to his treatment, Cannon was finally activated in week ten of the season and was part of the team which beat the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Conference game two weeks ago to secure a Super Bowl spot.

“The confetti was coming down and I’m sat there thinking how am I supposed to feel? It’s hard to take all of this in,” he said.

Herzlich returned to college football in 2010 but went undrafted and his only contract offer came from the minor UFL league, a chance he turned down to keep alive his dream of reaching the NFL.

The Giants picked him up as an undrafted free agent in July and he featured in 11 games this season.

Herzlich says his doctors played a perfect game but knows he has won one of the toughest challenges anyone can face.

“I think it is a little bit of a miracle. It’s a case of beating the odds,” he said.

(Editing by Julian Linden)

TUESDAY, Jan. 31 (HealthDay News) — Experts comparing three
leading prostate cancer therapies find external beam radiation therapy to
be more toxic and expensive than either surgery or a more localized form
of radiation therapy known as brachytherapy.

The findings were to be presented Tuesday at a meeting in San
Francisco, hosted in part by the American Society of Clinical Oncology
(ASCO) and focused on prostate cancer.

“Research to date has not given us a clear picture of how each prostate
cancer therapy affects men over the long run,” study lead author Dr. Jay
Ciezki, a staff physician at the Cleveland Clinic, said in an ASCO news
release. “Our analysis is one of the first to examine the quality of life
and financial costs of these three very common prostate cancer treatment
strategies for more than five years after treatment.

In conducting the study, researchers examined treatment outcomes among
more than 137,000 men who received external beam radiation, prostatectomy
(surgical removal of the prostate) or brachytherapy (radiation therapy
administered directly to the tumor via surgically implanted
radiation-emitting “seeds”). They also collected Medicare reimbursement
records to determine the total cost per patient per year for each of the
three prostate cancer treatments over time.

“We were able to get a good picture of the long-term costs of patient
care and were surprised to see such dramatic differences among the three
treatment strategies,” Ciezki noted.

The study revealed that overall, just over 7 percent of the men needed
some type of follow-up treatment for a problem related to their prostate
cancer therapy.

Brachytherapy, the researchers noted, resulted in the fewest number of
toxicities involving their genital or urinary organs. Just 3.4 percent of
those treated with this therapy experienced these types of problems, such
as a narrowing of the urethra or bladder bleeding. Brachytherapy also had
the lowest cost per patient per year of about $2,557.

A slightly higher number (6.7 percent) of those treated with
prostatectomy experienced problems with their genital or urinary organs.
This treatment, the study revealed, had a total cost of about $3,206 per
patient-year.

Meanwhile, just over 7 percent of patients who received external beam
radiation therapy had these adverse effects. This was also the most
expensive therapy, at $6,412 per patient-year. Similarly, 1.7 percent of
patients who underwent the treatment had gastrointestinal effects. In
contrast, only 0.1 percent of prostatectomy patients and 0.3 percent of
brachytherapy patients experienced these issues.

“We found that external beam radiotherapy had higher toxicity rates and
was the most costly therapy per patient-year,” Ciezki said. “While there
are clearly still some high-risk prostate cancer patients who will benefit
from external beam radiotherapy, for the approximately 80 percent or more
of prostate cancer patients diagnosed with low- and intermediate-risk
disease, brachytherapy or prostatectomy may be even more preferable
options than we’ve previously assumed for men with low- and
intermediate-risk prostate cancer.”

The researchers pointed out they were not able to determine how far the
disease had progressed in each patient and the study was limited to
patients older than 65 whose only diagnosed condition was prostate
cancer.

They added their findings are preliminary and more research is needed
to investigate why the three prostate cancer therapies produce different
results and whether or not certain types of patients are more vulnerable
to the long-term effects of a particular treatment.

Experts said decisions about treating the individual patient remain
specific to that patient and his disease, however.

“The selection of treatment must include a detailed discussion
addressing the life expectancy and comorbidities [other illnesses] of
the individual, the natural history and curability of the disease, and
how the potential complications — like incontinence, lower urinary tract
symptoms, erectile dysfunction and rectal symptoms — will impact quality
of life,” explained Dr. Herbert Lepor, chairman of the department of
urology and director of the Smilow Comprehensive Prostate Cancer Center at
NYU Langone Medical Center, in New York City.

He added that while more study into the short- and long-term side
effects of different treatment options are sorely needed, the new findings
“come as no surprise to those of us who manage prostate cancer based on
the mechanism for radiation therapy-induced cellular toxicity.”

Another expert said the new study “makes strides towards evaluating the
relative effectiveness of treatments.” Dr. David Samadi, associate
professor of urology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, in New York City, said
that “while external beam therapy has an important role in the treatment
of prostate cancer, these finds suggest we should reserve it for patients
who are unable to tolerate other treatment options or have advanced
disease, as in the case of adjuvant or salvage therapy.”

However, Dr. Louis Potters, chair of the department of radiation
medicine at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Island
Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., said the study may not be
the final word on the issue.

“Analyzing claims data is a good way to ‘see’ how patients are treated.
Yet, this type of study should not be used to imply that any one treatment
is better than another,” he said. “It is up to the treating physician to
understand the risks of each therapy. And it’s up to the treating
physician to make cogent and unbiased recommendations to patients
regarding their best outcome.”

Findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered
preliminary until they have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health provides more information on

prostate cancer .

Copyright © 2012HealthDay. All rights reserved.

TUESDAY, Jan. 31 (HealthDay News) — Vigorous exercise causes
changes in some 180 prostate genes among men with early stage prostate
cancer, a new study suggests.

Included are genes known to suppress tumor growth and repair DNA, which
might mean that exercise could prevent or delay progression of the
disease, the researchers said.

“There are many reasons to exercise,” June Chan, associate professor of
epidemiology and biostatistics, and urology at the University of
California, San Francisco, said during a Tuesday press conference. “Here’s
yet another great reason to exercise and it may offer a prostate
cancer-specific benefit.”

For the study, Chan’s team compared prostate genes from 70 men with
low-risk prostate cancer to normal prostate genes from 70 men.

The cancer patients in the study were undergoing “active
surveillance” — also known as “watchful waiting” — rather than active
treatment.

The men answered questions about how much and what type of exercise
they did.

Chan’s group found 184 genes that were differently expressed in men who
did activities such as jogging, tennis or swimming for at least three
hours a week, compared with genes in men who did less exercise.

Genes more highly expressed in men who did vigorous exercise included
well-known tumor-suppressor genes associated with breast cancer, BRCA1 and
BRCA2, the researchers found.

In addition, these men also had increased expression of genes involved
in DNA repair, they noted.

The researchers hope to confirm their findings in a larger group of men
who are undergoing active surveillance, and also among men who have
experienced a recurrence of their cancer.

There are limitations to this study, Chan said. Most important, the
study was small and so the results could be by chance, she said.

“If confirmed, the results suggest that vigorous physical activity
might offer protection against prostate cancer progression,” Chan said.

Exercise has also been found to have benefits for breast and colon
cancer, the researchers noted.

The results of the new study are slated for presentation Friday at a
meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San
Francisco.

Because this research is being presented at a medical meeting, the data
and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a
peer-reviewed journal.

Dr. Anthony D’Amico, chief of radiation oncology, and a prostate cancer
expert from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said that “this is an
interesting, hypothesis-generating study that will require further testing
and perhaps opens doors to exercise as part of future prostate cancer
treatment, but it’s too soon to tell.”

In two studies last year, Chan’s group found links between vigorous
activity, such as brisk walking, and a lowered risk of prostate cancer
progression and death.

In one study, which appeared in the February 2011 Journal of
Clinical Oncology, men with prostate cancer who participated in three
or more hours a week of vigorous activity had about a 50 percent lower
risk of death from all illnesses, and a 60 percent lower risk of death
from prostate cancer, compared to men who participated in less than one
hour per week of vigorous physical activity, Chan said.

In the other study, published in the May 2011 issue of Cancer
Research, men who walked three miles per hour or faster had about half
the risk of prostate cancer progression of men who walked at two miles per
hour or less, she said.

“These studies suggested that some form of cardiopulmonary exercise
might offer specific benefits for prostate cancer,” Chan said. “However,
the molecular mechanisms by which physical activity exerts this effect on
prostate cancer remains unknown.”

More information

To learn about prostate cancer, visit the

American Cancer Society .

Copyright © 2012HealthDay. All rights reserved.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A new study links the diabetes drug metformin to fewer cases of pancreatic cancer — at least in women — but finds other diabetes medications are associated with a higher risk of the disease.

The differences in medication history among people who did or didn’t get pancreatic cancer were small, researchers said, and it’s unclear why the drugs might affect cancer risks in men and women differently.

Still, the new finding is in line with previous research suggesting that metformin may decrease the risk of multiple cancers, said Dr. Peter Butler, a diabetes researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

“One theme that seems to be coming through… is that the oldest drug we have for diabetes, metformin, is undoubtedly the best drug we have for diabetes,” he told Reuters Health.

Pancreatic cancer is relatively rare as far as cancers go, but progresses quickly; most people don’t survive more than a couple years after diagnosis. The National Cancer Institute estimates that about 44,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States this year, and close to 38,000 will die from the disease.

Research has suggested that people with pancreatic cancer may have an increased risk of diabetes, but it’s unclear how diabetes — and the drugs used to treat it — may affect pancreatic cancer risks in previously cancer-free people.

To help answer that question, Dr. Christoph Meier of the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues consulted a database of more than eight million people in the UK, including about 2,800 who were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer between 1995 and 2009.

For each of those people, they found another six of the same age and gender that didn’t have pancreatic cancer to serve as a comparison group.

Using records from primary care doctors, the researchers determined how many people in the pancreatic cancer and cancer-free groups had previously been diagnosed with diabetes and were on an anti-diabetes drug, such as metformin or sulfonylureas, which include glimepiride and glyburide.

Those drugs cause the body to make or absorb less glucose (metformin) or to produce more insulin (sulfonylureas) to keep blood sugar levels in check.

One in nine people with pancreatic cancer had a prior diagnosis of diabetes, compared to about one in twelve in the cancer-free comparison group, according to findings published Tuesday in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

According to their medical records, two percent of people with pancreatic cancer had been taking metformin long-term before they were diagnosed, compared to 1.6 percent of the group without cancer — a difference that could have been due to chance.

But when the researchers separated the records by gender, they found that significantly fewer women with a new diagnosis of pancreatic cancer had been taking metformin for at least a few years, compared to cancer-free women.

That was after the researchers had already taken into account whether women were overweight or obese and if they smoked or drank alcohol.

The association in one gender but not the other was “somewhat unexpected,” according to Meier’s team, and there’s no clear biology-based way to explain why metformin might help protect women against pancreatic cancer, but not men.

The findings were reversed for insulin and sulfonylureas in the study population. Significantly more people with pancreatic cancer had a history of long-term use of those drugs than cancer-free people.

Craig Currie, who has studied diabetes drugs and cancer at the Cardiff University School of Medicine in the UK, said it makes sense that insulin and sulfonylureas would increase the risk of pancreatic cancer. Insulin promotes cancer growth, he said, and also acts directly on the pancreas.

The study’s investigators “raise doubts about these treatments,” he told Reuters Health in an email.

“There is a possibility that exogenous insulin (insulin that’s not made naturally by the body) is of questionable safety in people with type 2 diabetes,” added Currie, who didn’t participate in the new research.

Still, absolute differences in medication use were small even in people with cancer: less than one percent of those with or without pancreatic cancer had taken insulin long-term. Sulfonylurea users accounted for just over three percent of people with a new pancreatic cancer diagnosis and two percent without cancer.

Butler said it’s hard to tease out what cancer risks may be due to the drugs, and what could be a result of poor diet and lack of exercise, for example, in people with diabetes. He said that more research will be needed to tease out those specific effects.

“Honestly for patients at this point, I think this is another piece of the jigsaw puzzle,” Butler said.

“This paper in itself would not cause me to recommend a change in treatment for people.”

That said, Butler concluded that evidence suggests most people with type 2 diabetes who don’t have any medical reasons not to take metformin should be on the drug, either alone or in combination with other anti-diabetes medications.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/kkA6Tc American Journal of Gastroenterology, online January 31, 2012.

(Reuters) – Cell Therapeutics Inc said on Monday it has voluntarily withdrawn the marketing application for its cancer drug, sending its shares down 17 percent before the bell.

The company said it withdrew the application as it needed additional time to prepare for the review of the drug, Pixuvri, designed as a treatment for relapsed or refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in patients who failed two or more lines of prior therapy.

Cell Therapeutics said it had requested the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reschedule the drug’s review date prior to the withdrawal, but the health regulator was unable to accommodate the request.

The company plans to resubmit the application later this year.

Shares of the Seattle-based company were down 17 percent at $1.13 in premarket trade. They closed at $1.33 on Friday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Kavyanjali Kaushik in Bangalore; Editing by Supriya Kurane)

CAIRO (AP) — A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.

The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

“Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors,” she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.