Oct 19, 2001

In This Issue:
SPECIAL REPORT FROM TODAY'S ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE CONFERENCE, New Drugs & Novel Combos, Survival Estimates Increasing, Large New Study of African-Americans, and Key Melanoma Organization

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THE LATEST NEWS

SPECIAL REPORT From Today's Alternative Medicine Conference
By Rachael Myers Lowe, Editor, cancerpage

Bringing The Power Of Positive Thinking To Cancer Care

New Drugs, Novel Combos Set To Tackle Cancer

Survival Estimates At Diagnosis Improve Over Time

Protein Controls Tumor's Blood Supply

cancerpage updates the news throughout the day, Monday through Friday, and adds late-breaking stories on holidays and weekends.

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CANCER STUDY SEEKS 70,000 AFRICAN-AMERICANS

African-Americans experience higher rates of some cancers than other Americans for reasons that are unknown.
To learn more, the National Cancer Institute granted funds to create one of the largest health studies of
African-Americans ever conducted. The new Southern Community Study will recruit about 70,000 African-American
and 35,000 non-African-American residents of the Southern United States especially through community health centers.
This group of 105,000 will be followed for years, possibly decades. The study group is large enough to shed light not only
the most common cancers right away, but holds the promise of looking at rarer cancers affecting certain racial groups.
To join the study, patients and non-patients are eligible if they are age 40-79 and not currently under treatment for a
terminal disease. For more information about the clinics enrolling people and other eligibility details,
see http://www.southerncommunitystudy.org/about.html

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MELANOMA PATIENT INFORMATION PAGE

This nonprofit organization operates a well-organized website that should interest anyone concerned about melanoma. The site features many sections for new patients and for health professionals, but they also include graphics, clinical trials links, as well as a "Patient Network" that includes regular chat rooms and a busy bulletin board. In addition, by activating their Glossifier, any article will appear with all the medical terms linked to definitions. The MPIP Staging Calculator and Prognostic Calculator are especially unique. See the Melanoma Patient Information Page at

http://www.mpip.org/index.html