Conotoxin is toxin made by cone snails, which are fish eating snails that inhabit tropical coral reefs. Each of the 500 species of cone snail produces roughly 50 to 100 distinct conotoxins which they use to immobilize prey. Researchers believe that this sea snail venom could be used to create a pain medication to replace morphine.

Conotoxin has not yet been tested on humans but when tested on animals conotoxin could produce pain relief without the nasty side effects. The researchers believe that with more studies and testing on humans that conotoxin has the potential to completely revolutionize pain treatment for cancer patients and chronic pain sufferers.

Morphine can have a range of side effects including nausea, drowsiness and movement defects. If the research proves successful they hope the treatment will allow sufferer’s to lead a normal life, pain free.

The drug sildenafil, better known as Viagra has been shown in mice to support the immune system’s response to cancer cells. Mice with colon and breast tumors showed that the tumor size decreased two and threefold when treated with sildenafil compared with the mice that did not receive the drug. The researchers also believe that they have evidence that sildenafil is effective on the immune system because in mice engineered to lack an immune system the tumors were unaffected. Tissue samples taken from head and neck cancer and multiple myeloma patients showed similar results.Viagra is a class of drugs used to treat impotence. It is known to stimulate nitric oxide which hinder the effects of a specialized cell that can divert the immune system away from the tumor. The researchers are trying to figure out how cancer cells can avoid detection by the immune system. T-cells that mount the attack on cancer cells are manipulated by the cancer cells and prevent them from being seen by the immune system. Viagra can unmask the cancer cells and let the immune system recognize and attack them.

Germany’s biggest Drug makers Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. and US Partners Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. said that Phase III skin cancer tests of their Nexavar (sorafenib) tablets failed to meet their primary endpoint of improving progression-free survival (PFS).

The addition of the drug Nexavar to chemotherapy failed to improve the survival of skin cancer patients.

“We are disappointed, first and foremost, for the patients with refractory metastatic melanoma for whom treatment options are so limited,” Onyx chief executive Hollings Renton said in a statement.

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Common cancer drugs may be more harmful to the brain than the tumor cells they are meant to destroy.

Cancer chemotherapy can damage the brain, killing crucial brain cells and causing key parts of the brain to shrink, according to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center and published in the Journal of Biology.

Laboratory tests have shown that dose levels typically used when treating patients killed 70-100 per cent of neural cells but just 40-80 per cent of cancer cells. Several types of healthy brain cell continued to die for at least six weeks after exposure. Even though the cancer drugs are targeted at replicating cancer cells, the researchers found that both replicating and non replicating brain cells were killed.

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Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard said that Australia will spend $342 million USD on Merck and Co.’s Gardasil vaccine which can protect against 70 percent of cervical cancer in young women.

Australia had recently been in talks with distributor CSL Ltd. to bring down the price. The company readily agreed to cut down the prices by 27 percent.

PM Howard further added “Gardasil will be available for a nationwide vaccination campaign commencing next year. This remarkable Australian drug can be made cheaply available to women.”

Australia is all geared up to launch this unique wonder vaccine, free of cost for women aged between 12 and 26.

A synthetic steroid compound used to abort pregnancy could fight breast and ovarian cancer, caused by a mutant gene, from growing, according to researchers at the UniversityCalifornia, Irvine.

The research published in the December 1 issue of journal Science, revealed that by blocking the hormone progesterone in breast tissue cells, the drug can also prevent formation of tumors.

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In a clinical trial conducted at the University of Nottingham, scientists gave a vaccine to 67 colorectal cancer patients before and after surgery to remove the cancerous tumors. The British researchers say they have developed a vaccine that stimulates the immune system to fight colorectal cancer cells.Vaccine trials are not new in the search for effective cancer treatments but many times they are given as a last resort and are not effective. The vaccine is named 105AD7. The antibody in the vaccine was cloned from a patient who survived seven years despite liver metastasis from colorectal cancer. Lindy Durrant, study senior author and professor of cancer immunotherapy said “This is very unusual, as most patients die within a year of getting liver metastasis. I thought if this antibody had helped this patient, if we could clone it, it might help others”.

The researchers reported in the current issue of Clinical Cancer Research that the vaccine helped stimulate immune cell production in up to seventy percent of the patients studied.

The lung cancer drug Gefitinib has been taken off shelves in the United States due to ineffectiveness. But it remains effective in some Taiwanese lung cancer patients, according to a study published in the journal Lung Cancer.

The study, conducted by the National Health Research Institutes, involved 65 non-small-cell lung cancer patients and found that more than 50 percent of participants responded to the drug therapy — while only 10 percent respond in Western studies.

A genetic mutation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) was found in most patients who responded to Gefitinib. The mutation is rare in Western countries but much more common in East Asian countries where the mutation increases the likelihood of developing adenocarcinoma.

About 6,800 Taiwanese patients develop non-small-cell lung cancer every year. Of these, 65 percent of cases are adenocarcinoma. Of this group, 57 percent will have the genetic mutation. And roughly half will respond to Gefitinib.

In September of 1998, the FDA approved Herceptin to treat breast cancer after it had become metastatic. Few days back,  the FDA approved Herceptin’s use for women diagnosed with breast cancer just after surgery. The drug is already widely prescribed for adjuvant therapy even without the FDA’s approval, a practice called off-label use. Off-label use means that a prescription drug is being prescribed for a purpose not listed on the product’s label. This is a common and acceptable practice by doctors and the Food and Drug Administration.Clinical trials were conducted that showed women who received Herceptin (trastuzumab) given along with chemotherapy had fewer relapses than those who only received chemotherapy. Twenty to thirty percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have this genetic alteration of the HER2 gene and could benefit by being treated with Herceptin.

An experimental vaccine may help colorectal cancer patients battle the disease. This vaccine developed in the U.K. stimulated the production of killer T cells in up to 70 of colorectal cancer patients.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham cloned an antibody called 105AD7 from a patient with colorectal cancer who survived seven years with liver metastases.

“This is the first vaccine shown to stimulate TNF-alpha — an immune system protein that is very effective at killing cancer cells,” says senior author Professor Lindy Durrant, from the University of Nottingham in England.

The study involved 67 patients, average age 66, with colorectal cancer of varying severity. They were randomized to receive 100 mcg of 105AD7, 105AD7 with BCG (a bacteria used to stimulate the immune system in cancer patients) during the first immunization followed by 105AD7 alone, or no treatment.

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