I just want to let you know that in the post appended below Gilbert has provided incomplete and inaccurate information. He has once again failed to give us the "few years old" reference of his own to back his claims. Instead, he is now citing a 1976 reference that I had sent him privately to point out the errors in his earlier claims. This 1976 paper deals with removal of a primary tumor, and not some metastatic tumors, as he had claimed. What is amazing is after engaging in this incredible bait-and-switch act he has the gall to assert that it is Jayant and I who are confused.
In the interest of accuracy I want to point out pertinent facts about the Simpson-Herren et al. (1976) paper that are completely at odds with what Gilbert had claimed. They are as follows: 1. This paper is from 1976 and not from a few years ago, as Gilbert had claimed. 2. In this paper the primary tumor under the skin was surgically removed along with the overlying skin, and not some metastatic tumor(s) from one lung, as Gilbert had claimed. 3. When the tumor was removed in the first few days (i.e. before 6 days) the mice lived much longer than unoperated mice. 4. When the tumor was removed after 6 days (i.e. even when gross metastasis had started to appear) the mice still lived longer than sham-operated control mice (i.e. mice in whom a piece of non-tumor bearing skin from the other side was removed as control). 5. The results in items 3 and 4 above are inconsistent with the notion that cancer surgery reduces the lifespan of mice in comparison with proper controls. 6. The authors did not do any experiment to demonstrate that the immune system was involved in any of the effects seen. It was a mere speculation on their part. This speculation was directly refuted by the breakthrough discovery of Judah Folkman and coworkers in 1993. The latter investigators were able to describe the actual molecular mechanism involved, which had nothing to do with the immune system. Jayant provided these seminal references in his write-up. Cheers, Santosh --- Gilbert Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Santosh challenged me (rather harshly) to my facts > and kindly sent me about seven references to back > his claim. It is clear that he and Dr. Jayant > appeared to confuse the issue of excising a single / > solitary / primary tumor (take your pick, depending > on your technical background); to removing only > some tumors in multiple / several / metastatic lung > tumors. The detrimental effects of the surgery in > the LATTER SITUATION was attributed to depressed > immunity. > > >From the seven references on Santosh's list, two > papers appeared relevant papers. I requested our > librarian to retrieve the 1976 paper, titled: > Effects of Surgery on Cell Kinetics of Residual > Tumor, by Linda Simpson-Herren et al. (Cancer Treat > Rep 60:1749-1760, 1976). > > After describing their mice experiments, under > RESULTS (pg 1750), the authors report, "The mass of > lung tumor in surgery-treated mice appears to > approach this (lethal tumor) burden at a more rapid > rate that similar tumor masses in the intact - > untreated, tumor bearing mice." > > Under Effects of Surgical Excision (pg 1756), the > authors report (with surgery) there is an increase > in growth rate (of remaining tumors); and reduction > in life span of the surgically treated mice than in > controls. In the following paragraph, the authors > continue, this "would be entirely consistent with > outburst or acceleration of growth of existing tumor > foci and may be due, in part to change in the immune > status of the host (4 additional references) after > removal of the tumor." > _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
