When Dr. Jian-Wei Gu went to Mississippi to study the cardiovascular system and the process of blood vessel growth, he had no idea he'd make national headlines about his research into the world of cancer.

Gu, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, says his discovery of the mechanism by which alcohol consumption causes tumor growth was purely accidental.

And extremely significant.

Scientists have known for a hundred years about the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. A study from Paris in 1910 showed that 80 percent of patients with cancer of the esophagus or gastric track were alcoholics. More recently, scientists have found correlations between alcohol consumption and cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, large bowel, and even the breasts. Yet lab experiments have always failed to show the effects in animals that investigators knew to be true in humans.

Until now.

It seems past studies used too much alcohol -- in concentrations of 20 percent -- and the animals just wasted away while showing no tumor growth. But when Gu used concentrations of one percent -- about one to two drinks per day in humans -- to study blood vessel growth, he detected stimulated tumor growth in both chick embryos and mice. Thus, his cancer discovery was born.

Gu has further concluded that melanoma cancers in mice grew significantly faster and larger in the mice who consumed the equivalent of one or two alcoholic drinks a day than the mice receiving no alcohol.

Gu's findings, now confirmed by other scientists, are evidence of what many have long suspected -- alcohol, even in moderation, increases cancer risk.

An article recently published in the International Journal of Cancer says that airborne exposure to some occupational carcinogens appears to increase the risk of noncardia gastric cancer among men.

Noncardia gastric cancer refers to cancer that is in the middle or lower part of the stomach. Researchers from Sweden recently conducted a clinical study to evaluate potential occupational airborne exposures that may be associated with the risk of developing noncardia gastric cancer. This study included over 256,000 men with 200 different jobs.

Conclusions:

• Workers exposed to cement dust has a 50 percent increased rate of noncardia gastric cancer
• Workers exposed to quartz dust had a 30 percent increased rate of noncardia gastric cancer
• Workers exposed to diesel exhaust has a 40 percent rate of noncardia gastric cancer
• Exposure to asbestos, asphalt fumes, concrete dust, epoxy resins, isocyanates, metal fumes, mineral fibers, organic solvents, or wood dust did not appear to increase the risk of noncardia gastric cancers.

Men exposed to these airborne carcinogens may wish to speak with their physician regarding potential screening measures for noncardia gastric cancer.

In previous studies there has not shown to be an increase in survival when adding chemotherapy after surgery for gastric cancer compared with surgery alone. Most U.S. patients that are diagnosed with cancer of the stomach or lower esophagus have locally advanced disease that is hard to cure.

The MAGIC trial represents a landmark study in gastric cancer, as it is the first trial to demonstrate a survival benefit for pre- and postoperative chemotherapy. Researchers studied 503 patients with cancer of the stomach, esphagogastric junction or lower esophagus. One arm of the trial received three preoperative and three postoperative cycles of chemotherapy, the other arm of the study had only surgery.

The trial concluded that the chemotherapy group had smaller resectable tumors with negative margins, fewer patients had advanced nodal disease and the five year survival rate increased by 13 percent. It was noted that this is a significant advance for the treatment of this disease.

Gastric cancer staging by lymph node sampling has a profound effect on patient survival. Survival of patients with gastric cancer can be compromised if the staging is done inadequately. This can happen if too few lymph nodes are removed and analyzed.

A study in an issue of Cancer, a peer-review journal of the American Cancer Society revealed that less than one third of gastric cancer patients had adequate lymph node assessments (ALNA). There was a change in the guidelines of the staging system for gastric cancer in 1997 but since then only minimal improvements have been made.

Compliance with the new guidelines remains poor because the lymph nodes removed and sampled since the change in the guidelines only increased from 9 nodes to 10. The guidelines now say that 15 lymph nodes removed and analyzed should be the standard. The lymph nodes that are tested will show how far the cancer has spread. If you do not have the correct information that the lymph node sampling can provide it can cause the patient to receive incorrect treatments and less survival rates.

What would you do if you tested positive for a gene that caused the death of many of your family members? The descendants of Golda Bradfield, who died of gastric cancer and from whom the defective gene was inherited, made a radical decision based on knowing they had inherited the gene that killed their grandmother. Eleven cousins in all had their stomachs removed to avoid the certain fate of dying from gastric cancer. Some of the cousins had already watched their parents, aunts and uncles, die from gastric cancer. It is a decision they do not regret. After the stomachs were surgically removed and sent to the lab for analysis, the stomach tissue had already begun to develop cancerous growths. Without surgical removal of the stomach, this would not have been discovered in time as there are no tests to detect early stage gastric cancer.

According to experts, in the near future, doctors may do routine DNA tests to detect disease risks that can be lowered. "We do not yet have a general DNA test that fits into that category, but we're headed for it at a pretty good clip," said Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

The CDH1 gene mutation, first discovered about eight years ago in a New Zealand family with a history of stomach cancer, is extremely rare. It is estimated only 100 families worldwide carry the flawed gene that leads to hereditary gastric cancer.  

The last post in Anita Robert's blog My Journey -- where she shared her thoughts and feeling about the difficulties and surrealism of being diagnosed with cancer, going through cancer treatments and trying to survive cancer -- reads: Anita's journey ended peacefully at home on May 26, 2006. Robert's journey battling gastric cancer has come to an end.

Dr. Roberts, the 49th most-cited scientist in the world and the third most-cited female scientist, chief of the Laboratory of Cell Regulation and Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute, had found blogging a therapeutic tool for introspection and in communicating and connecting with others online. She had created a special page in her blog for devotions, mantras, words of faith, guidance or wisdom tradition, and invited readers to share some of their own. She was highly-regarded and much loved by the people she worked with, and most deeply loved by her family and friends. Her adult children wrote The Song of BellaDonna: a true story of hope when they learned of her cancer diagnosis. Dr. Anita Roberts was 66.