School of Medicine

In 2005, physicians in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the School of Medicine saw more than 1,500 cancer patients in their brachytherapy treatment rooms where implanted or injected radiation sources are used to treat cancer. That number was up five-fold from the fairly steady numbers of the late 1970s to the mid 1990s.

Physicians have come to understand that what we call breast cancer is really several — probably at least five — different diseases that need different treatments and have different outcomes. Now researchers at the School of Medicine and collaborating institutions in the United States and Canada plan to evaluate these breast cancer subtypes and determine the likely prognosis and most effective treatment for each.

An international team of researchers, led by investigators at the School of Medicine, are zeroing in on a gene that increases risk for Alzheimer’s disease. They have identified a region of chromosome 10 that appears to be involved in risk for the disease that currently affects an estimated 4.5 million Americans.

The thin, single-cell boundary where a tumor meets normal tissue is the most dangerous part of a cancer according to a new study by scientists at the School of Medicine. The researchers found that tumor cells bordering normal tissue receive signals that tell them to wander away from the tumor, allowing the cancer cells to establish deadly metastatic tumors elsewhere in the body.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Non-visual functions of the eye (week of Jan. 4) • Calorie restriction dieting (week of Jan. 11) • Alzheimer’s gene (week of Jan. 18) • Genes and side effects (week of Jan. 25)

Alcoholism may be linked to taste.A team of researchers, led by investigators at the School of Medicine, has found that a gene variant for a bitter-taste receptor on the tongue is associated with an increased risk for alcohol dependence. The research team studied DNA samples from 262 families, all of which have at least three alcoholic individuals. Investigators report in the January issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics on the variation in a taste receptor gene on chromosome 7 called TAS2R16.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, issued an announcement encouraging treatment with anticancer drugs via two methods, after surgery, for women with advanced ovarian cancer. The combined methods, which deliver drugs into a vein and directly into the abdomen, extend overall survival for women with advanced ovarian cancer by about a year. The Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital participated in the NCI-supported clinical trial which led to this clinical announcement.

Chances are good that a medication you take is one of several drugs that can be affected by genetic factors, according to researchers at the School of Medicine and the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. They found that 29 percent of patients seen at local primary-care offices had taken at least one of 16 drugs that can cause adverse reactions in genetically susceptible people.

As the New Year begins, millions of people are resolving to exercise more in 2006. A team of researchers at the School of Medicine in St. Louis hopes that similar lifestyle changes will help HIV-positive people avoid metabolic and cardiovascular problems associated with HIV and anti-HIV drugs.

WUSTL and BJC will provide new help for smokers who want to quit.People seeking help to quit smoking have many options, from support groups to nicotine replacement to prescription drugs designed to lessen the urge to light up. Now Washington University researchers and BJC HealthCare are testing another one: telephone counseling.