© 2005 Oxford University Press
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In Brief
Family History, Atypical Moles Found To Be Risk Factors for Multiple Primary Melanomas
A new study has found that the incidence of multiple primary melanomas—melanoma found at two or more sites on the body—is higher among people with a family history of melanoma or a personal history of atypical moles.
In 2005 in the United States, about 62,000 people will be diagnosed with melanoma and 7,600 will die from the disease. The rising incidence of melanoma means that people are at increased risk of not only the first primary melanoma but also later ones. However, the risk factors for multiple primary melanomas have not been well studied.
In the October 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Cristina R. Ferrone, M.D., of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and colleagues examined incidence of and risk factors for multiple primary melanoma in 4,484 patients diagnosed with a first primary melanoma at the cancer center between 1996 and 2002.
The researchers found that 385 patients had multiple primary melanomas, with an average of 2.3 melanomas per patient. Of these patients, 21% had a family history of melanoma and 38% had a personal history of atypical moles, compared with 12% and 18%, respectively, of patients with a single primary melanoma. The estimated that the cumulative 5-year risk of being diagnosed with a second primary melanoma was 11.4% for the whole cohort, 19.1% for patients with a family history of melanoma, and 23.7% for patients with atypical moles.
Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded for Discovery of H. Pylori
Two Australian scientists who discovered that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori causes most cases of duodenal and gastric ulcers have been selected to receive the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Assembly announced October 3.
Robin Warren, M.B.B.S., a pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia, observed that signs of inflammation were always present close to where H. pylori was found in gastric mucosa. Barry Marshall, M.B.B.S., of the University of Western Australia in Nedlands, and Warren together discovered that H. pylori was present in nearly all patients with gastric inflammation or duodenal or gastric ulcer and proposed that the bacterium was involved in the development of these diseases.
It was later discovered that H. pylori can also infect the corpus region of the stomach, resulting in widespread inflammation that predisposes a person to stomach cancer. Also, inflammation of the stomach mucosa has been found to be a risk factor for mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma, which can regress when patients are treated with anti–H. pylori therapy.
Biomarker Test May Be Useful for Prostate Cancer Screening
A new study has found that a blood test that analyzes a panel of 22 biomarkers may be a more accurate screening test for prostate cancer than the current test, which looks at blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA).
The use of prostate cancer screening has risen dramatically since the PSA test was first introduced in the 1980s. However, the test does not detect all cases of prostate cancer and has a high false-negative rate, resulting in many unnecessary prostate biopsies. Researchers have been searching for new biomarkers that may be better than PSA in detecting prostate cancer.
In a study published in the September 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, and colleagues looked at blood samples from 119 prostate cancer patients and 138 male control subjects and used protein microarrays to identify a set of 22 autoantibodies against tumor antigens that would be biomarkers for prostate cancer.
When the 22 biomarkers were tested on a second set of blood samples—from 60 prostate cancer patients and 68 male control subjects—the test correctly identified 88.2% of the cancer patients and 81.6% of the control subjects. The authors note that the test still needs to be evaluated in larger studies.
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