The following post is one of a series of posts appearing Monday through Friday on The Cancer Blog. This feature -- Today, I am grateful -- allows me to share with readers my appreciation for all the treasures in my life, both big and small. In my post-cancer world, I find It healing for my soul to be mindful of the good in my life. It is my pleasure to share my gratitude with you.

The night before my lumpectomy, way back in December 2005, I was consumed with fear, worry, and panic. Since I'd found it, the lump in my left breast had been sitting untouched for nearly two weeks. I imagined the mass spreading with each day and believed I could detect its growth each time I felt for it. A doctor told me if it was growing like I thought it was, my tiny pea-sized tumor would be the size of an apple within days.

My fears were unfounded and irrational. I know that now. But during the moments of uncertainty that filled my days between diagnosis and prognosis, I had no direction. I had only my wandering mind for company. The waiting really is the hardest part. Once faced with the specifics of our diseases, we can take action.

Researchers are reporting that a new vaccine designed to treat breast cancer appears to be safe in women with advanced disease. It showed signs of slowing down tumor growth too.

The Neuvenge vaccine, made by Dendreon Corporation -- maker of the Provenge prostate cancer vaccine -- targets the aggressive Her-2 positive form of breast cancer, which affects 20 to 30 percent of breast cancer patients. Using immune cells from a cancer patient's own body, Neuvenge is a tailor-made therapy.

Reports about Neuvenge, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicate the vaccine did not cause any serious side effects and of the 18 women who participated in the Phase I study, there was a reduction in the size of a tumor in one patient. In three other women, the disease seemed to stabilize for as long as a year.

The folks at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona told me all about the merits of flax seed. They told me to sprinkle it here, sprinkle it there, sprinkle it everywhere. While at this desert destination, I did just that. I dipped into the bowls of flax scattered at all dining locations, and I topped my bagels, cereals, salads, and more with this powerful substance. As soon as I got home from this little slice of paradise, I bought my own personal container of flax. I promptly placed it in my refrigerator, have used it a few times, and just recently realized I'd forgotten why exactly it's so good for me.

I've done some research, and now I know a little more about this thing called flax -- and I remember why it must become a part of my everyday life.

Flax, also known as Common Flax or Linseed, is an annual plant that grows to 120 cm tall, with slender stems. Native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India, its leaves are green, its flowers blue, its fruit round and containing glossy brown seeds. Grown for both its seeds and its fibers, parts of this plant are used to make fabric, dye, paper, medicines, fishing nets, and soap. The seeds, like what sit in my refrigerator, come in two forms -- brown and yellow or golden. The yellow, golden variety is the one most often consumed.

The first step in finding a cure to cancer is finding out exactly what causes it. Scientists are making headway, at least a far as colon cancer is concerned, with new findings that show that colon cancer may be a disease of hormone deficiency.

The key here is GCC (guanylyl cyclase C), a protein receptor located on the intestines, which interacts with two hormones, guanylin and uroguanylin, to regulate growth of the organ. But it's thought that when colon cancer is in its early stages, these hormones are mostly absent, which gives way to the growth of tumors (for an more in-depth explanation, check out the full article here.) So then it's thought that if GCC can be stimulated, it would block tumors from growing.

This new approach to colon cancer is promising to scientists because, as clinical pharmacologist Scott Waldman, M.D., Ph.D., points out, 'it's a completely different way of thinking about the disease ... Not only does this give a new paradigm in how we think about the disease, but it gives us a new paradigm for treating the disease -- that is, by hormone replacement therapy.'

Roger Ebert, one of America's best known film critics, has not been able to speak since he had emergency cancer surgery on July 1 to repair a burst blood vessel near the site of his June 16 surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. But he can still give a thumbs up or thumbs down as he reviews movies on his Web site.

Starting today, clips from Ebert & Roeper and Ebert's prior episodes of his movie review TV show will be posted here. It just may be the largest collection ever of video-based online movie reviews -- 5,000 movie reviews spanning the past 20 years will be featured.

Ebert is not quite sure when he might return to television as he awaits another surgery to restore his voice. In the meantime, he screens as many as three films a day. He watches DVDs at night to catch up on those he missed, and he's writing more than ever, he says.

Axitinib is an agent that targets angiogenesis -- blood supply to a tumor. It disrupts blood vessels that grow and provide nutrients to cancer cells. Without the nutrients and oxygen supplied by blood vessels, cancer cells cannot grow or replicate.

Researchers conducted a trial to evaluate axitinib in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. Patients were either given Taxotere or Taxotere plus axitinib. Anticancer responses were achieved in 40 percent of patients treated with the addition of axitinib to Taxotere, compared with only 23 percent of patients treated with Taxotere alone.

The researchers concluded -- that the addition of axitinib to Taxotere improves anticancer responses and delays cancer progression compared to Taxotere alone in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer.

Melanoma that has spread to other areas of the body is a very difficult cancer to treat successfully. It usually does not respond well to chemotherapy. Sadly, those diagnosed with metastatic melanoma survive only about a year after diagnosis.

The combination of Taxol (paclitaxel) with carboplatin, added to an agent that prevents the growth of blood vessels called bevacizumab has been shown to significantly delay the spread of tumors in patients with advanced melanoma. A Phase II clinical trial showed that tumor growth was delayed by almost six months; typically these cancers begin to start spreading again in about eight weeks.

Dr. Domingo Perez, M.D., the lead author of the study says "The clinical benefit may seem small, but in the world of melanoma where there is very little progress, this is certainly a strong indication that the combination of chemotherapy with an antiangiogenic agent may be a valid treatment strategy for these patients."

New cancer drug Torisol was approved on Wednesday by the FDA for use with renal cell carcinoma, an advanced form of kidney cancer.

Torisol, also known as temsirolimus, is an enzyme inhibitor made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and has shown promise for prolonging patient survival. It's the third kidney cancer drug approved in the past 18 months -- the other two are Nexavar, intended to delay disease progression, and Sutent, for tumor size reduction.

Many kidney cancer patients are cured by surgery. About 35 percent of patients, however, experience a recurrence or a spread of the disease. Until just recently, there were no effective drugs to control these issues. Now there are several -- and Torisol is the one showing modest improvement in survival for patients with the most advanced tumors. Further study will indicate whether or not the drug is useful for patients with less extensive metastatic disease.

It's been suspected that taking too many vitamins may spike men's risk of dying from prostate cancer. On Wednesday, the biggest study yet to link high-dose multivitamins and prostate damage was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Government scientists have been looking at the diet and health of almost 300,000 men. One third reported taking a daily multivitamin. Five percent were heavy users, marked by use more than seven times per week. Within five years of the study's launch, 10,241 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. About 1,476 had an advanced form of the disease. And 179 died.

It seems heavy multivitamin users were nearly twice as likely to get fatal prostate cancer as men who never took the pills. Yet, oddly, researchers found no link between multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer. It could be that vitamins have little effect until a tumor appears -- and then it spurs growth.

More studies are on the horizon for this topic, which is becoming more and more pressing.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins discovered that a drug commonly used to treat toenail fungus could block angiogenesis, blood vessels that feed a tumor.

The drug, itraconazole, is FDA approved for human use, which may fast-track its availability as an anti-cancer drug.

If you are interested in reading more about Angiogenesis and cancer growth you can read my post back in July.

The researchers at this point have yet to determine exactly how itraconazole works to stop vessel growth.

Back in the news: the link between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer. This time, the connection is seemingly more conclusive than before, when some argued that many factors influence the risk of breast cancer, that HRT could not do the job all on its own.

Now, two separate studies offer up powerful evidence that HRT is linked to tumor growth. Case in point: when use of the therapy drops, so do incidences of breast cancer.

New figures in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest there have been 16,000 fewer cases of breast cancer nationwide since mid-2002, when women stopped taking their hormone pills following the federal Women's Health Initiative announcement connecting the therapy with increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart attack.

Many did not want to believe HRT was to blame for so many breast cancer diagnoses. And maybe it's not the actual cause of the disease, but the fuel for tumors trying to grow.

These new findings do not appear to be a statistical fluke, says one doctor. Numbers have been computed and re-computed, and the message is clear: HRT is strongly implicated as the guilty party. There is just no other culprit, says a statistician at the National Cancer Institute.

Wyeth, maker of Premarin and Prempro -- two forms of hormone therapy -- continues to caution women against drawing any conclusions about HRT and breast cancer. There still may be broader explanation for the decline in cases, say their spokespeople.

A new study of mice implanted with human breast cancer cells shows the spread of the disease to the lungs -- a common metastasis site -- is caused by the abnormal activation of four specific genes working together.

The study, published in the journal Nature, indicates that shutting off the genes one by one can slow the growth and spread of this cancer. But turning off all four at one time almost completely stops the process. In mice anyway.

These genes are no strangers to researchers who have known for some time about their existence and functions. They just know more about them now.

The four genes work together at every step of the metastatic process to allow a breast tumor to develop blood vessels, let tumor cells enter the vessel walls and lungs, and permit them to pass out of the lung vessels and resume growth. New analysis shows that blocking these genes significantly reduces the tangle of blood vessels, making it harder for cancer cells to escape.

Researchers, who say the four genes are among 18 they associate with breast cancer metastasis, report that one implication of this study is clear: combined use of drug therapy may be more effective at inhibiting the activity of multiple gene targets.

More and more media reports are mentioning the potential merits of marijuana. The most recent headlines say the active ingredient in the drug cuts tumor growth in common lung cancers in half and greatly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread.

Researchers at Harvard University tested marijuana's main ingredient, delta-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, in both lab and mouse studies and say their experiments are the first to show THC inhibits the growth of cancer.

Researchers are not certain why THC inhibits tumor growth, but it could be that the substance activates molecules that arrest the cell cycle. THC may also interfere with angiogenesis and vascularization, which promotes cancer growth.

There is a long way to go in the study of THC. Yet "the beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer," says Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will take an additional three months to review Wyeth's kidney cancer drug Torisel -- the first of five new medications the company plans to introduce this year.

The FDA needs more time to investigate data on tumor growth in patients taking Torisel. If all goes well, the drug will be one of only three to effectively hold off incurable kidney cancer. The other two drugs are Pfizer's Sutent and Bayer AG's Nexavar.

Robert Ruffolo, president of Wyeth Research, says he is encouraged by the review process so far. And he is optimistic about launching the product in late 2007.

Studies show Torisel, which will cost patients about $30,000 per year, prolonged survival by 50 percent in those faring poorly with kidney cancer. The sickest kidney-cancer patients were essentially kept alive for 10.9 months, compared with 7.3 months with interferon drugs. Torisel also postponed tumor growth for 5.5 months. This is 77 percent longer than with interferon.

Sutent and Nexavar, both on the market since last year, also slow tumor growth. All three kidney-cancer medicines are of the variety that block the growth of cancer cells -- different from standard chemotherapy which kills tumors and harms nearby tissues too.

Wyeth is relatively new to the oncology market. And soon, the company hopes to launch three more cancer drugs. One, called CMC-544, treats non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Another, SKI-606, is for chronic myelogenous leukemia. And the third, HKI-272, is for breast cancer.

About 51,000 Americans will be diagnosed with kidney cancer this year.

Cancer cases are expected to more than double between the years 2000 and 2030, says the director of the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer.

This upward climb will occur primarily in poor countries due to an increase in population growth, longer life expectancy, more smoking, and a lack of health care in low and medium-resource countries.

"What's going to happen between now and 2030 is that the population is going to increase from about 6.5 billion to 8 billion in 2030," Dr. Peter Boyle reports. "So even if the risks remain constant at each five-year age group, because we've got more people around, we're going to have more cases of cancer.

It's the unfortunate successes for developed countries over the past 40 years, such as the export of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, that have doomed poorer countries, says Boyle.

Consider this definition of doom: By the year 2030, there will be 27 million cases of cancer, 17 million deaths caused by the disease, and 75 million people living with cancer.