The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer: August, 1996
Hematologic Malignancy

• No unusual effects on the health and chromosomes of offspring of treated Hodgkin's patients. - Younger cancer patients are naturally concerned about whether their treatment will affect the health of any children they might have later on. A study carried out in Mount Vernon Hospital in the UK on 11 men and 16 women conceiving children after treatment for Hodgkin's disease failed to find any adverse effects in terms of stillbirths, low birth weight or congenital malformations. In addition, there was no evidence of any genetic chromosome damage specifically due to treatment in the children. (Swerdlow, Br J Cancer 74:291, 1996 - July issue)

  ---

• Arsenic for acute promyelocytic leukemia? - A flurry of interest has resulted from a finding by Chinese researchers from Harbin and Shanghai that a secret component of a traditional Chinese remedy for arthritis and skin disorders, arsenic trioxide, is effective at low doses by mouth in treating patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. Unlike all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA), which also was first identified by these researchers, arsenic trioxide does not cause the cancer cells to "grow-up" and become normal differentiated cells, but instead triggers a "self-destruct" process called apoptosis in the cancer cells. This recent work was presented in the August, 1996 issue of Blood and discussed in the August 2, 1996 issue of Science. (Science 273:578, 1996)