Inverse relation between prostate-specific antigen and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 in bone metastases and serum of patients with prostate cancer.

The usual osteoblastic phenotype of metastatic prostate cancer is unexplained. Here we show that tissue and serum concentrations of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-vary inversely with a substrate protein that binds a growth factor known to activate osteoblasts. These findings suggest that PSA may contribute to the osteoblastic phenotype, and could thus represent a new drug target devoid of antiandrogenic toxicity.

Popularity of less frequent follow up for breast cancer in randomised study: initial findings from the hotline study.

Objective: To compare the experiences of patients with breast cancer who were conventionally monitored with those in whom routine follow up was restricted to the time of mammography.

Design: Randomisation to conventional schedule of clinic visits or to visits only after mammography. Both cohorts received identical mammography and were invited to telephone for immediate appointments if they detected symptoms.

Active minimisation of radiation scatter during breast radiotherapy: management implications for young patients with good-prognosis primary neoplasms.

Background And Purpose: Radiotherapy is used to reverse or prevent local tumour growth but is also a carcinogen in its own right. A recent audit of post-radiotherapy second malignancies in this institution revealed a striking preponderance of tumours originating near the outside edge of the treatment field. Since this finding suggests the existence of a critical subtherapeutic dose range predisposing to tumourigenesis, we attempted to define and reduce this radiation scatter dose.

Hormonal factors associated with weight loss in patients with advanced breast cancer.

Fasting blood samples were collected from 83 patients with histologically proven breast cancer and analysed for plasma glucagon, serum immunoreactive tumour necrosis factor (TNF alpha), insulin, glucose, growth hormone, cortisol and TSH. Samples from patients with known diabetes mellitus or thyroid disease, and those on parenteral nutrition or with evidence of infection were excluded as were patients who had a history of weight loss through dieting or who were anorexic. Fasting plasma glucagon, serum cortisol and immunoreactive TNF alpha concentrations in patients with stage IV breast cancer who had developed weight loss were significantly higher than those in patients with stage IV disease who had not developed weight loss.