Toremifene

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A new study gives encouraging signs that a hormonal drug used to fight breast cancer might help prevent abnormal prostate growths from turning into cancers.

Men who took low doses of the drug for a year cut their chances of developing prostate cancer roughly in half, doctors reported Saturday at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The findings need to be tested in larger studies, specialists say. But this is the first time any drug has been shown to prevent a precancerous condition from forming a tumor.

Approach 'opens up a new era'

As many as 50,000 men each year are diagnosed with such growths, and then suffer constant worry and frequent biopsies to see whether cancer has developed.

"Before, we had nothing to offer them. Now you may have something," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy medical director of the American Cancer Society, which had no role in the research.

The drug is toremifene, sold as Acapodene for treating advanced breast cancer. It selectively blocks some of the effects of estrogen, a hormone men have but in smaller quantities than women.

For decades, prostate cancer prevention and treatment has focused on blocking the male hormone, testosterone. Targeting estrogen "opens up a new area," said the cancer society's medical director, Dr. Harmon Eyre.

Prostate cancer is the most common major cancer in the United States. More than 230,000 new cases and about 30,000 deaths from it are expected this year.

Men with abnormal growths called prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia have about a 30 percent chance of developing prostate cancer within a year and about a 65 percent chance within two years.

"This is a significantly worse prognosis than, say, patients with just an elevated PSA," a blood protein used to measure prostate cancer risk, said Dr. David Price, a Shreveport, La., urologist who led the study. He consults for Memphis-based GTx Inc., which sells toremifene and paid for the study. The study involved 514 men.

Stubbing out smoking

Another study presented Saturday at the Florida meeting showed that an experimental vaccine to treat nicotine addiction helped smokers quit.

The vaccine by Cytos Biotechnology, which funded the study, helped 40 percent of smokers who received it abstain from smoking between eight and 24 weeks after starting treatment. Thirty-one percent of smokers given a placebo were also able to quit, showed the study of 341 male and female smokers between 18 and 70 who smoked between 10 and 40 cigarettes a day for at least three years and were motivated to quit.

The vaccine is designed to induce the production of antibodies against nicotine to block the entry of the toxic substance to the brain. This should eliminate the addictive and satisfying effects of nicotine.

AP, with Bloomberg News contributing

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