Johns Hopkins Gazette: June 26, 1995

Newsbriefs MEDICAL NEWS ---------------------- Surviving pancreatic surgery predictable ---------------------- Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a group of factors that can accurately predict which patients survive long term after Whipple surgery, a procedure used for the most common type of pancreatic cancer. Results of the study, the largest of pancreatic cancer patients to date, are published in the June issue of Annals of Surgery. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, accounting for more than 25,000 deaths per year. In recent decades, five-year survival rates have increased dramatically from almost zero in the 1960s to more than 20 percent at some medical centers, Hopkins researchers say. In the study led by Charles Yeo, an associate professor of surgery, researchers found that the best predictors of long-term survival after surgical removal of the cancer were a normal chromosome count in the tumor cells; small tumor size; no tumor spread to the lymph nodes; whole tumor removal; surgery in the 1990s; chemotherapy and radiation after surgery; and molecular genetic information, such as minimal or no damage to the p53 tumor-suppressor gene. The study looked at post-hospitalization survival rates for 201 Hopkins patients undergoing the Whipple procedure between 1970 and 1994 to remove the cancerous head of the pancreas. The Whipple procedure, or pancrea-ticoduodenectomy, involves not only the removal of part of the pancreas, but also the duodenum (a portion of the small intestine), the gallbladder, the bile duct and sometimes part of the stomach. OTHER NEWS ---------------------- Searching the Net for new research funding ---------------------- Faculty can now run their own funding searches--at no charge--directly from their office computer. Research Information Systems, which has run searches at no charge for the past 12 years, now offers faculty free access on the World Wide Web to a data base of more than 5,000 federal and non-federal funding opportunities. The advantage of the new service, said information systems manager John Paul Elrod, is that faculty can directly access the funding sources, avoiding the often slow and cumbersome divisional process of putting in a request and waiting for it to be processed. That system, however, still exists if needed. On the Web, faculty can experiment interactively to get as specific or as broad a search result as they like. For example, a search can be tailored to return only opportunities that the candidate qualifies for, by telling the system the academic degree level (Ph.D., grad student, etc.), citizenship, sex, etc. To take a look, try: ; then select "Funding Opportunities," then select "Begin Your Funding Search." For help and more information, call Elrod at (410) 516-8732. ---------------- Here's one for the books ---------------- The new Guinness Book of Sports Records, 1995-96, is on the street, and it includes the following listing on page 21: "IS ANYBODY LISTENING? Are baseball fans mad about the 1994 baseball strike? They're mad as hell--and at least one radio station did something about it. "WJMP 1520 AM, an Akron, Ohio, sports talk radio station, played 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' continuously 57,161 times. The station began broadcasting the song at 6:20 a.m. on August 12, 1994--the day the strike began--and ended at noon on October 19, 1994. "From sunup to sundown, WJMP alternated between two versions of the song: a 70-second recording sung by Tom Chalkley [who teaches cartooning in the Art Workshops at Homewood] with the Bruce Springstone (no, not Springsteen) band; and a 30-second instrumental. The music was recorded in 1982 for Clean Cuts Records (now distributed by Rhino); Jack Heyrman was producer and Craig Hankin the arranger." Hankin is director of the Homewood Art Workshops.

Go to Gazette Homepage