For patients with advanced head and neck cancers who receive an initial treatment of chemotherapy prior to other therapies, three drugs appear to be better than two. Patients who received docetaxel (Taxotere) in addition to the standard combination of cisplatin and fluorouracil had better outcomes than those taking cisplatin and fluorouracil alone, according to findings in the October 25 New England Journal of Medicine.

The results are from two randomized clinical trials that evaluated the addition of docetaxel to standard chemotherapy for patients receiving induction (or neoadjuvant) treatment. This treatment is given before radiation-based therapy, as was the case in the two reported clinical trials, and/or surgery.  Read more  

Drs. Mitch Mitsuya, Samuel Broder, and Robert Yarchoan were honored at last week's symposium for their work on HIV/AIDS. Also recognized was Dr. Robert Gallo (not pictured).

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the disease it causes, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), announced itself in the United States in 1981, in the form of a small, sudden uptick in reports of a rare cancer, Kaposi sarcoma (KS), and a rare form of pneumonia among young gay men in New York and San Francisco. That same year, in the NIH Clinical Center, NCI physicians treated the first patient with this deadly, yet-to-be-named disease.

NCI's history will forever be intertwined with that of HIV and AIDS. NCI scientists were at the forefront of the effort to identify HIV as the cause of AIDS, characterize how it hijacked cellular machinery, and, in turn, develop the first treatments for it.  Read more  

The NCI Cancer Bulletin is produced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). NCI, which was established in 1937, leads the national effort to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer. Through basic, clinical, and population-based biomedical research and training, NCI conducts and supports research that will lead to a future in which we can identify the environmental and genetic causes of cancer, prevent cancer before it starts, identify cancers that do develop at the earliest stage, eliminate cancers through innovative treatment interventions, and biologically control those cancers that we cannot eliminate so they become manageable, chronic diseases. For more information on cancer, call 1-800-4-CANCER or visit http://www.cancer.gov. NCI Cancer Bulletin staff can be reached at ncicancerbulletin@mail.nih.gov.