New Help For CancerPatients Kit el (NAPSA)—Research reveals bad news, good news and better news whenit comesto cancer. The bad newsis, canceris still the second-leading cause of death in the United States and 1.4 mil- lion new cases are diagnosed every year. The good news is most people who have cancer will survive it; in fact, as of 1997, fewer Americans die of cancer every year than did the year before. Better news for many cancer patients is that new and more effective treatments are avail- able—and doctors have high hopes for several others currently in the pipeline. One such drug that’s now being tested is called Talotrexin or PT923, developed by Hana Biosciences. Researchers say it’s par- ticularly promising for patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), other kinds of leukemia and certain solid tumors. ALL starts from white blood cells in the bone marrow and quickly moves into the blood. It can then spread to other parts of the body, making it vulnerable to infection or easy bleeding. About 4,000 new cases occur a year, mostly in children. This form of cancer worsens quickly if not treated but it usually responds well to initial treatment. Adults have a 30 to 50 percent cure rate. The more potent the medication used against the cancer cells, the less that’s needed andthe easier it is on both patient and caregivers. “Currently, there are no drugs specifically approved for adults with relapsed or refractory ALL. As such, ongoing efforts are needed to investigate new thera- pies in these patients for whom [SP 22 Patients, their families and physicians are looking for better ways to treat cancer and America’s biopharmaceutical research companies are responding. current therapy is inadequate, as well as to incorporate active agents, into frontline therapy,” says Francis Giles, MD, Professor of Medicine and Chairman, Section of Developmental Therapeutics, at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Compared to methotrexate, the medication commonly used now, Talotrexin is ten times moreefficient at moving into cells, ten times better at sticking to its target and ten to a hundred times more efficacious in a wide variety of tumorcell lines. Hana Biosciences, Inc. is a pub- licly-held biopharmaceutical company focused on advancing cancer care. It trades as HNAB.OB and additional information can be found at www.hanabiosciences.com. Information on cancer statistics, treatment and research is at the American Cancer Society at www.cancer.org.
