The family of a mother who was recently diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia has been chosen by The Salvation Army to benefit from donations this holiday season to the Neediest Families Fund Drive. The family lives on a monthly income of $512 in disability
benefits for the mother and $53 in state aid. The father was forced to quit his job to care for his four children and his wife, who is hoping to qualify for a CML clinical trial studying Glivec.
The Tulsa World hopes to raise $275,000 by
Christmas Eve. To make a donation, send a check or money order to The Neediest Families Fund Drive in care of the Tulsa World, P.O. Box 21920, Tulsa, OK 74121-1920. Donations are
tax-deductible, and donors may request anonymity. For a minimum donation of $5, an electric candle will be placed in a window at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel in the donor's name. If a donation is made in honor or memory of someone, the hotel staff will send that individual or their family a card
of acknowledgment.
(Dec. 17, 2000)
Cord blood donations begin in Alabama
Baptist Health Hospital and Montgomery Community Blood Bank have started the first public donation program in Alabama for umbilical cord blood, a promising treatment for leukemia, sickle cell disease, and other life-threatening illnesses. The project, called "Give Life Twice," collects umbilical cord blood from volunteer mothers after they give birth. The blood is frozen and stored at a Florida lab and put on the registry for bone marrow transplants and other life-saving procedures.
(Nov. 18, 2000)
New trial drug offers promise in GVHD
Repligen Corp. has won approval from the U.S. Food & Drug
Administration to initiate a Phase II clinical trial with CTLA4-Ig. The trial
will evaluate the safety and efficacy of CTLA4-Ig in patients receiving a stem
cell transplant for leukemia or other malignancies. The main objective of the study is to determine if CTLA4-Ig, in
combination with T cell depletion, can reduce the incidence or severity of
graft vs. host disease in patients receiving a stem cell transplant
from a genetically mismatched donor. The clinical trial will be initiated
at the Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at
the University of Alabama-Birmingham pending internal approval.
(Nov. 8, 2000)
Keebler, Kroger help fight children's cancer
Every time you purchase a Keebler product from a Michigan Kroger grocery store from November 5 through December 2, five
cents will be donated to Pediatric Cancer Research at Children's Hospital of
Michigan. Kroger, Keebler Snack Products and WJR have teamed up with
Children's Hospital to make this special promotion a success while raising
awareness and funding a cure for cancer. Children's Hospital of Michigan, known nationally and internationally for
leadership in clinical care and child advocacy, is Michigan's only
freestanding pediatric hospital.
(Oct. 6, 2000)
Clinical trials patients duping docs
As many as one-third of patients in clinical trials could be lying about following proper protocol and taking their medications correctly, according to a report in the August issue of the journal Chest. The study supports concerns that noncompliance by patients in clinical trials is much more widespread than previously thought. Doctors and researchers had believed that because patients volunteered to participate in trials — many of them want to try drugs not otherwise available — that they would be more likely to follow trial directions. "If 30 percent of patients are
not using their medications at all or hardly using them, you could
misinterpret data on the efficacy of a drug or overestimate the dose
required to provide a desired effect," said study co-author Dr. Donald P.
Tashkin, professor of pulmonary medicine at the University of
California, Los Angeles.
(Oct. 1, 2000)
California governor vetos bone marrow bill
California Gov. Gray Davis has vetoed a bill that would have paid for people to be tested as potential bone marrow donors. Supports of Assembly Bill 536 had been planning a rally for Sept. 16 in Fresno to sway Davis to sign the legislation into law. "It takes that hope away from you," Randy Jones, 28, of Kingsburg, told The Fresno Bee. Jones was diagnosed in July with chronic myelocytic leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. "Right now, I'm trying to put together bone-marrow drives that would basically save my life," he said from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in Fresno, where he was helping notify people about the governor's veto. The bill would have set aside $1.5 million to create the Human Leukocyte Antigen Testing Fund to provide free screening tests for people who cannot afford to be tested. The governor's reason: Money for the testing was not included in the 2000-01 budget and would "take away" from other projects.
(Sept. 13, 2000)
Organ donations up, but still lacking
The number of organ donors increased nearly 4 percent during the first half of 2000 compared to
the first six months of 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Association of
Organ Procurement Organizations. "Our efforts to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation
appear to be paying off, but with 71,000 people on the transplant waiting list, we
still have a long way to go," said HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala. For the first six months of 2000, the
number of donors was 2,978, up from 2,875 in 1999 in the same time period.
(Sept. 12, 2000)
CareThere, Kmart form partnership
CareThere, a company dedicated to improving the lives of caregivers of the
elderly, disabled and chronically ill, and BlueLight.com, an independent
e-commerce company formed by Kmart and other investors, formed a strategic partnership with both on- and off-line components. CareThere and BlueLight.com will partner to leverage the Internet and provide caregivers with comprehensive knowledge and a wide array of
e-commerce solutions through BlueLight.com's online shopping destination and by providing caregivers with BlueLight.com's
Totally Free Internet Service. The partnership is the country's first web-based
alliance for caregivers with ties to a national brick-and-mortar retailer.
(Sept. 12, 2000)
New method IDs leukemia patients at risk of relapse
Researchers from the Parker Hughes Institute in St. Paul, Minn., say the
quality of remission for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients after
first relapse is lower than the quality of remission after initial
chemotherapy. ALL is the most common form of cancer in children. Although curable, about one-fifth of patients relapse. Early identification of those high-risk patients would enable therapy to be altered to prevent relapse. The results of this study show it is now possible within the first weeks of initial diagnosis to identify children at high risk for failure. Such children have leukemic cells left stranded in their body. These cells can now
be detected with a new method that permits the detection of a single leukemic
cell among one million normal cells.
(Sept. 6, 2000)
Of mice and men
Japanese researchers say they have created a "designer" molecule that destroys chronic myelogenous leukemia cells in lab mice. Their findings, published in the Aug. 3, 2000, edition of the journal Nature, raise hope that a similar process might be possible in humans with CML. However, cancer experts quickly cautioned that applications in people are a long way off, and that making the leap from mice to men is equally long. The designer molecule, a ribozyme, has been dubbed a "maxizyme" by the researchers. A ribozyme is made of RNA, a nucleic acid related to DNA, that can act like an enzyme, a protein that helps make reactions happen inside cells. The researchers produced a molecule that "chops up" essential substances inside the
leukemia cells, causing spontaneous cell death.
(Aug. 3, 2000)
Pain in the rear?
Not any more, says a medical instruments maker that claims its new needle takes the pain out of bone marrow biopsies. Ranfac Corp. of Massachusetts says its new needle retrieves a sample of your marrow without the usual twisting and manipulating that can cause so much pain and damage the sample itself. Ranfac's Goldenberg Snarecoil bone marrow biopsy needle works by using a coil at the tip that winds around and grabs the tissue specimen, severs it, and retains it within the needle as it's withdrawn. In a traditional BMB, a needle is inserted (jammed, actually) into your lower back and twisted in order to break off the biopsy sample, creating pain. (July 24, 2000)
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