AUTHOR: Anonymous
TITLE: Cancer chemoprevention.
SOURCE: Non-serial; Cancer Chemoprevention. Wattenberg L, Lipkin M, Boone WB, et al, eds., Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press, 630 p., 1993.: 1993   UI: 95606775
ABSTRACT: This volume represents the proceedings of the 'Workshop on Cancer Chemoprevention,' held in La Jolla, California, on February 2-5, 1991. As is stressed in the introduction to this book, cancer chemoprevention is a highly interdisciplinary field in which relatively few scientists are involved, so that there is a paucity of fundamental information and need for more investigators, while testing with cancer development as the endpoint is slow, laborious and expensive, both in animal models and humans, so that reliable intermediate endpoints are urgently needed. The workshop was intended to focus on these problems and their solution, as well as to present the latest information. The contributions from 47 collaborators are grouped into 11 categories, beginning with four chapters that represent overviews of the area. They cover environmental carcinogens and anticarcinogens, chemoprevention by naturally occurring and synthetic compounds, recent preclinical and clinical results from the National Cancer Institute, and the histopathology of human intraepithelial neoplasia. Succeeding sections cover: retinoids, from basic mechanisms to clinical trials in breast, basal cell and lung cancer, and oral leukoplakia; inhibitors of the arachidonic acid cascade and their application to chemoprevention of colon and skin cancers; sulfur compounds, including N-acetylcysteine, oltipraz, garlic compounds and alkyl isothiocyanates; micronutrients; prevention of the formation of carcinogens in foods by such compounds as ascorbic acid and tocopherol; a variety of polyphenolics including ellagic acid, curcumin, and the green tea polyphenolics; other promising chemopreventive agents, such as dehydroepiandrosterone, selenium, glycyrrhetinic acid and protease inhibitors; polyamine synthesis inhibitors such as difluoromethylornithine; future possibilities in chemoprevention with stress on genetic parameters; and considerations regarding development of chemopreventive drugs, both the challenges for the future, and the results obtained with the four current leading agents. There is an adequate subject index, and the discussions that followed the presentations are included.