This is the story I meant to post last week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Golden bullet’ may be cancer hunter and killer
By David Derbyshire
June 22, 2007 01:00am

A “GOLDEN bullet” treatment for cancer which tracks down tumours before wiping them out with a blast of heat is to be tested on patients within weeks, it was revealed yesterday.

The “seek and destroy” technique uses an injection of microscopic glass spheres, coated in gold, which seek out potentially deadly cancers in the body. Once enough spheres have flocked to the tumour, doctors “activate” them using a low energy beam of light.

In tests, tumours have been totally destroyed. Unlike conventional cancer treatments, the golden bullet approach uses no toxic chemicals and no radiation, reducing the risk of unpleasant side effects.

It could also be far cheaper than existing treatments. Cancer scientists have predicted that it could help tackle a range of potentially deadly diseases, from skin cancers to cancers of the cervix, breast, brain and neck.

Tests on mice found that the treatment worked exceptionally well, New Scientist magazine reported yesterday. When it was tried on nine mice with colon cancer, the tumours were
destroyed.

Rice University (Texas) professor Jennifer West, who helped develop the
treatment, said clinical trials on cancer patients were expected to begin in
the US within weeks.

The first phase will find out whether the treatment successfully kills off tumours.A second stage, due to start in a couple of years, will test the particles’ability to identify tumours.

“From the work we have done so far, we believe that this therapy will work on any soft-tissue tumours, such as the breast, prostate, brain, skin, head, neck and cervix,” Professor West said.

Cancer Council Queensland director of community services and research programs Associate Professor Suzanne Steginga said the emergence of nanotechnology as a potential area for cancer treatment emphasised the critical importance of research.

“The question, of course, will be how this work transfers from animal to human models, and this will take some years to answer,” she said. “We wait with great interest for the outcomes of these trials.”

The golden bullet treatment is not the first to use “nanoparticles”. Past studies have shown that microscopic capsules injected into the bloodstream can deliver drugs directly to tumours.

There haven’t been many updates in world of PC lately, well there was the whole Provenge story, but that wasn’t very encouraging for us dealing with Advanced PC. So here’s a story from Israel, that involves, gold, ‘nano-pharmaceutics’ [my word].The story is below.
——————————————————————————–
New Method For Combating Prostate Cancer Under DevelopmentScience Daily 06.22.2007A novel method of drug delivery to inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells has been developed by a doctoral candidate in pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men in the U.S. Present treatments for metastatic prostate cancer (cancer cells that spread to other parts of the body) include hormonal therapy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which frequently have serious side effects.

The well known drug, paclitaxel, exhibits a wide spectrum of anti-tumor activity. However, its therapeutic application in cancer therapy is limited, in part, due to its low water solubility, making it difficult to effectively deliver the drug to the points needed. It is also known to induce hypersensitivity reactions. Therefore, novel methods are needed that would allow for delivery of effective concentrations of paclitaxel over extended time intervals while minimizing toxicity.
Targeting drugs to disseminated prostate metastases is one of the most challenging goals in prostate cancer therapy. Drug carriers — nanoemulsions, liposomes (fatty droplets) and nanoparticles — have shown great potential as delivery systems for an increasing number of active molecules. Although capable of enhanced accumulation in the target tissue, these carriers cannot achieve their missions unless specific binding agents are attached to them which will ensure that they succeed in attaching to the targeted tissues.

It has been shown that the HER2 receptor is over-expressed in prostate cancer cells. It was also known that trastuzumab (an antibody) binds specifically to HER2. But there had been no clinical data indicating that this antibody would provide any relief for prostate cancer patients.

Danny Goldstein, a student of Prof. Simon Benita, was able to show that attaching trastuzumab molecules to the surface of oil droplets in nanoemulsions made possible the targeting of such droplets to cells over-expressing the HER2 receptor. He coupled trastuzumab with emulsions containing the toxic agent paclitaxel-palmitate and evaluated the efficiency of these emulsions in laboratory tests on cancerous prostate cells and on mice with induced prostate cancer. He found that this emulsion compound did not cause a hypersensitive reaction upon injection and even yielded better results than known drug treatments while inhibiting tumor growth substantially.

Goldstein cautions that this inhibiting activity of tumor metastases growth was not absolute and that while the results are encouraging, there is a need for further research to combat metastatic prostate cancer. Prof. Benita added that he hopes clinical trials using the new method can begin in about two years.

Danny Goldstein, received the Barenholz Prize for Creativity and Originality in Applied Research for his work.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Copyright 2007 Science Daily

I had my third and final doctor appointment for the week this morning. This was with my Urologist, actually his nurse. Today I received my tenth injection of Lupron. Lupton is the medication that shuts down the production of testosterone and lowers PSA levels. Since one of the side effects are hot flashes, it was only appropriate that I had a real beauty while receiving the injection!

Yesterday afternoon I received my updated PSA number from Monday’s blood draw:
17.80

Up a little but still a rather insignificant change. Historical numbers are below:

Date: PSA:
6/04/07 17.80
4/30/07 16.25
4/2/07 17.68
3/5/07 21.87
2/5/07 20.90
1/8/07 18.90
12/11/06 24.86
11/13/06 43.61
10/16/06 51.48 (Started “High Dose” Ketoconazole and Hydrocortisone, 10/01)
9/11/06 83.97 (started Zometa)
8/23/06 41.77
8/18/06 54.66
(no tests in June or July)
5/19/06 11.37 (stopped Casodex)
4/3/06 4.25
3/5/06 1.45
1/27/06 0.44
12/28/05 1.85
[some day I’ll go find the missing data]
Pre-treatment test: 2/?/05 219
Original test: 12/?/04 189