Among the highlights in the October 1996 Cancer Watch issue are: Estrogen and its Many Functions, Adequacy of Cervical Cell Sampling, Human Papillomavirus 18 and Cervical Cancer Prognosis, Twenty Third International Symposium on Controlled Release of Bioactive Materials: New Drug Delivery and Pain Relief, DNA, The Master Molecule. Genetic Gridlocks Drive RNA Editing, Endometrial Cancer: Risks and Diagnosis, Technology Update: Taxol Production in the Laboratory, Cremophor and Paclitaxel, NCI Seeks Subjects for Cancer Screening Trials and Opportunistic Infections In Cancer Patients: Highlights From The 36th Interscience Conference On Antimicrobial Agents And Chemotherapy.

• Estrogen or antiestrogen exerts its biological effect by interacting with the receptor in the cell nucleus; this ligand-receptor complex in turn binds to a specific site on the DNA to activate a specific gene. Now it is believed that the estrogen receptor, in combination with various estrogen entities may bind to more than one specific site on DNA, thus eliciting different effects.

• A British study show that the use of cervical brush to collect cells from the lining of the cervix that causes anxiety and inconvenience for women does not produce any added advantage over the use of the spatula in regular screening programs.

• The presence of human papillomavirus 18 in the tumors of women with early stage cervical cancer, independent of other known prognostic factors, may predict a higher risk of disease recurrence.

• Science continues to move forward in the development of new treatments and medical therapies for cancer patients. Combining 20 years of research knowledge about proteins and genes and decades of polymer chemistry had led to several fruitful developments in drug delivery. The results of collaborations among molecular biologists, protein chemists, and bioengineers offers a method for administering vaccines, proteins, toxic anti-cancer agents: Micro-encapsulation in microspheres. Micro-scopic bubble-like polymer formulations, or microspheres, appear to deliver vaccines, peptides, antisense oligonucleotides, and genes. Researchers meeting at the 23rd International Sym-posium on Controlled Release of Bioactive Materials recently in Kyoto, Japan, offered several novel techniques for reducing toxicity of current and new cancer drugs and alleviation of pain related to cancer using unique microsphere technology.

• Even though many evolutionary errors in the genome can be rectified by back mutations, certain organisms are driven to handle this by appropriate editing of the gene product due to the genetic grid lock the back mutations will create.

• Endometrial or uterine cancer, is one of the common gynecologic cancers, and is the most curable of the 10 common cancers in women. The low death rate is mainly due to early diagnosis. About 85 to 90 percent of all uterine cancer is diagnosed while it is still confined to the uterus.

• Many innovative ideas have been tried in the laboratory to produce Taxol, one of the most promising natural-product drugs, for the treatment of a variety of cancers. One of the techniques is to grow embryonic yew plant Taxus, the source of Taxol, in culture medium. Yield, however, is disappointedly poor. Another approach to boost the production of taxane compounds is to expose the cells in culture medium to external agents that might have stimulating effect on Taxol synthesis. Jasmonic acid, a natural component of plant cells is one such compound. Methyl jasmonate or its free acid form is found to significantly stimulate Taxol production in certain species of yew plant cells.

• Cremophor is a modified castor oil that is used as a vehicle to infuse paclitaxel into cancer patients. This compound can also reverse multidrug resistance mediated by P-glycoprotein when employed in short infusion schedules.

• Researchers of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO) are seeking 75,000 more men and women ages 55 to 74 to help them determine whether medical tests to detect some of the most common cancers reduce the number of deaths from these diseases. Moving into the final recruitment phase, this largest-ever US cancer screening trial will include 148,000 men and women in 10 cities: Denver, CO; Washington, DC; Honolulu, HI; Detroit, MI; Minneapolis, MN; St. Louis, MO; Brooklyn, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; Salt Lake City. UT, and Marshfield, WI.

• Over 12,000 physicians, infectious disease specialists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals gathered in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 15-18, 1996, to hear the latest developments in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of infectious diseases. One of the areas of increasing interest is that of opportunistic infections in cancer patients. These are of significance as they are on the rise because of an increase in the use of high-dose chemotherapy treatments and bone marrow transplantation procedures. Furthermore, in addition to infections associated with drug-induced reduction in some white blood cell (neutropenia), cancer patients are vulnerable to infections when chemotherapy is delivered via central venous access catheters. Whatever the cause, such infections are life-threatening, very expensive to treat, and represent an important part of disease management of cancer patients. Listed below are some suggested approaches for the treatment of some types of these infections.

• A glossary of unfamiliar words and jargons in Cancer Watch, October 1996.