Cuba: Medical Authorities Launch New Lung Cancer Vaccine.

Cuba launches world's first vaccine against lung cancer. More updates as the story develops...

HAVANA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cuban medical authorities have launched the sales of the world's first therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer, local officials said on Tuesday.

The CimaVax-EGF vaccine, as a result of a 25-year research into diseases related to tobacco smoking, has been developed by researchers and scientists at the Center of Molecular Immunology (CIM) in Havana.

The active drug ingredient in the vaccine is based on "a protein we all have when cancer is uncontrolled." "The epidermal growth factor is related to all cell proliferation," said Gisela Gonzalez, head researcher of the project.

"The drug could turn the cancer into a manageable, chronic disease by generating antibodies against the proteins which triggered the uncontrolled cell proliferation," she said.

The immunogenic vaccine is appropriate to patients with advanced lung cancer in stages of three and four, showing no positive response to other kinds of treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the expert said.

"It is not possible to prevent the disease but this vaccine improves significantly the status of the critically ill patients," she added.

She said the CimaVax-EGF has gone through clinical studies and trials in over 1,000 patients across the island and is currently distributed free of charge in all hospitals of the Caribbean island nation.

Gonzalez also said researchers at the CIM planned to use the same principle of the CimaVax-EGF in treating other cancerous tumors such as prostate, uterus and breast cancers.

Lung cancer is regarded as one of the world's most serious, common and deadly cancers and is most frequently found among tobacco smokers.According to the World Health Organization, the disease generally kills 5 million people a year, and the figure is expected to rise to as much as 8 million by 2030 unless smoking habits are changed.

In Cuba, like many other developing countries across the world, smoking is seen as a status symbol. Lung cancer, killing about 20,000 people a year in the Caribbean country, is considered a serious threat to public health and the leading cause of death in 12 of the country's 15 provinces.

Dogs Detecting Lung Cancer In Humans By Smell.

Dogs can sense, or even smell various ailments that humans may be exhibiting, but not know it.

According to new research, they are able to sniff out lung cancer, a disease that estimates suggest will claim the lives of more than 150,000 people in the U.S. this year alone.

Researchers in Germany had a hunch that they could train dogs to pick up the scent of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which are linked to presence of lung cancer and released in the breath. So they collected breath samples from 220 volunteers, including people who were healthy, had lung cancer and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and ran them through several tests with four dogs.

The canines -- two German Shepherds, an Australian Shepherd and a Lab -- were able to detect 71 out of 100 samples in which people did have lung cancer, and correctly identified 93 percent of the samples that were cancer-free.

"In the breath of patients with lung cancer, there are likely to be different chemicals to normal breath samples, and the dogs' keen sense of smell can detect this difference at an early stage of the disease," Dr. Thorsten Walles from Schillerhoehe Hospital and the author's lead study said in a statement.

This isn't the first time research has shown that dogs can sniff out cancer. Earlier this year, Japanese scientists reportedly trained a Black Lab to detect colorectal cancer with near perfect accuracy, and past studies have shown that dogs can smell skin, breast and ovarian cancer. A study from the journal PLoSOne found that dogs aren't the only super-sniffing animals either, suggesting that mice can also sniff out lung cancer, although they are more successful in the later stages. (Early detection is key in preventing lung cancer deaths.)

"Early on, I basically laughed the idea of cancer-sniffing dogs off," said Dr. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, who has blogged about the phenomenon for the organization.

"I am no longer a skeptic. It's an interesting idea that has some scientific rationale behind it, and it is worth pursuing," he added.

But both Lichtenfeld and the study's authors point out that there are difficulties in actually using dogs' superior sense of smell as a practical, widespread detection technique, because researchers still do not know exactly what compounds present in the breath of patients with lung cancer are a marker of the disease.

"If we target exactly what those volatile compounds are -- and there are lots of scientists working on that -- we may well turn this into a process or test that could show the presence of a cancer or recurrence of cancer." Lichtenfeld said. He was hesitant, however, to guess how far down the road that might be.

One additional roadblock could come in terms of training.

According to Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a past president of the American Veterinary Medical Association, it can be tough to train dogs in something like this, because humans can't smell what they're smelling. That makes it difficult to properly teach and reward them.

Another issue? The dogs have to want it.

"There has to be a drive to smell things, and that's not necessarily teachable through training," Beaver said, laughing that she could try training her own dog all she wanted, but it wouldn't work. "You can pick a breed that has a high likelihood of success, but it's individual, too. The dog has to be motivated."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/dogs-cancer-lung_n_930386.html

Update: Life expectancy in U.S. trails top nations

 New analysis of government data shows that the U.S. is once again lagging behind in health. On a county to county basis, many demographics are lagging behind Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and Canada.

 With consistant evidence and hard data pointing to changes in diet, exercise and personal habits having a dramatic effect on health; this study further shows that something as simple as diet and smoking tobacco can have extremely negative long-term consequences to our longevity, and heath, further taxing our health care system.

Link through to video from CNN.com From CNN.com

Life expectancy in most U.S. counties lags behind that of the world's healthiest nations, in some cases by 50 years or more, according to a new analysis of government data.

For instance, in Holmes County, Mississippi, which has the lowest life expectancy in the country, a woman can expect to live 73.5 years, the average life span that women in the healthiest nations had in 1957 and have since far surpassed.

To determine how American life spans stack up internationally, researchers from the U.S. and the U.K. compared life expectancies in the U.S. to a moving average of those in the 10 nations with the lowest death rates, a group that includes other affluent countries such as Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and Canada.

The authors suggest that smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, and other behaviors and conditions that contribute to poor health and early deaths might be responsible.

Locally tailored programs that aim to help people quit smoking, lose weight, and otherwise improve their health may help reverse the troubling life-expectancy trends, they say.