The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer: November, 1996
Uterine Cancer and Uterine Cervix Cancer

• Cellular proliferation rate predicts outcome of radiotherapy for cervix cancer - Cervix cancer responds very well to radiation therapy with long-term survival rates exceeding 95% for early disease, and are still very high for locally more advanced tumors. However, recurrent disease is more refractory, so that an increase in efficacy of initial treatment is desirable. Researchers in Glasgow, London and Newcastle in the UK, reported in the October, 1996 issue of the British Journal of Cancer that the doubling rate of tumor cells in samples from cervical carcinomas was a good index of pelvic recurrence of the disease after radiotherapy. They used bromine labeled nucleoside (BUdR) as a marker and a semi-automated process of flow cytometry to measure cell division. Average potential time for cell doubling was 4 days and the labeling index (BUdR-LI) was 9.8%. A BUdR-LI above this value was statistically significantly correlated with pelvic tumor recurrence. (Bolger, Br J Cancer 74:1223)

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• A new marker, nm23, for aggressive endometrial and cervix cancer? - The gene nm23 is usually considered to be a tumor suppressor gene. How it works is a mystery, although its protein product does appear to be the same as or similar to a subunit of an enzyme, a kinase which adds phosphate groups to nucleotides, which are the building blocks of the cell's nucleic acids. When it is overexpressed, with extra amounts of protein product in breast, ovarian, prostate, and stomach cancers, and melanomas, nm23 is associated with a reduced tendency to form metastases. Now, an article in the October, 1996 issue of the British Journal of Cancer, suggests that the same relation holds for endometrial and cervix cancers also. Those cervix and endometrial cancers with lymph node involvement, as well as the more invasive types of endometrial cancer, showed significantly lower levels of the nm23 protein. (Marone, Br J Cancer 74:1063, 1996)