CANCER DRUGS SPAWN DELUGE OF INQUIRIES.

Byline: Ian Fisher The New York Times

Dr. Larry Norton, a prominent oncologist in New York City, received a telephone call at his home at 7:30 a.m. Monday from a rich and very sick man.

``Would a large infusion of cash,'' the patient asked, ``be able to get me the drug any quicker?''

The patient was referring not to one but two drugs - angiostatin and endostatin - that have long stirred cautious excitement in the world of cancer research. Now that excitement - less cautious and steeped in the hope of the sick and dying - appears to be flooding out of the laboratory after reports that the earliest tests involving the drugs have eradicated tumors in mice with no side effects.

On Monday, the stock price of Entremed, the small Maryland biotech company formed to make and market the drugs, rose $39.75 to $51.81 - and was trading briefly at over $80 a share. The price climbed by a factor of six in the first two minutes after the market opened at 9:30 a.m., and it continued throughout the day, making it perhaps the most chaotic day for any stock in years. Nor was the interest in biotechnology companies limited to Entremed, as many small companies shared in the surge of interest about promising cancer treatments.

Many, but by no means all, cancer institutes, doctors and support groups for cancer patients reported a surge of phone calls from people desperate to merely curious. Chat rooms on the Internet were filled with heartbreaking talk: ``If this proves to be the thing that could have cured my baby,'' wrote one man whose daughter has cancer, ``it will be devastating to me.''

For Norton, the New York oncologist, the interest is double-edged. On one hand, he said, it is good that cancer patients and the public learn about the research, which has been carried out for several years.

But on the other, he worries that cancer patients will put too much stock in a treatment that has not been proved on anything but mice, and often medicines that work on mice do not help humans. Just Monday, he said a patient who had been operated on for breast cancer asked why she should go through post-operative chemotherapy that would help her when the new drug - she was certain - would be on the market within a few years.

``This happens every time there is a scientific report about something that has to do with cancer,'' said Norton, head of the division of medical oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in Manhattan. ``People's expectations get really inflated.

``You have to understand,'' Norton added. ``I am hopeful this is going to turn out to be justified. This is a very exciting idea. Nevertheless we don't have any hard data.''

The spike in interest came after an article in The New York Times on Sunday - followed by other newspaper and television reports - on the history and progress of the drugs as they are being prepared to go into clinical trials on humans.

Entremed, the company that will produce the drugs, released a statement Monday that it will take between 12 and 18 months before the first stages of the trials begins. With evaluation and further rounds of testing, it could take several years before the drugs are available on the market - if they become available at all.

Several cancer experts said Monday that the trials could be especially complicated given that the new drugs work on a principle unlike other treatments, like chemotherapy, which attack the tumors themselves and are often accompanied with side effects. Angiostatin and endostatin attack the blood vessels that feed tumors, starving them of the blood they need to grow, and in mice, have done so without the side effects.

The drugs were discovered by Dr. Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston, and even he has urged caution about its promise. But for all the qualifications and warnings about possible failure, hope is rising among cancer patients.

``I'm getting faxes and e-mails,'' said Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, who called putting the drugs into clinical trials his highest priority. ``People want the drug. They're asking me, Couldn't we just compassionately release it? I have to tell them, It doesn't exist.''

``It's such a roller coaster for people whose relatives are dying,'' he added.

In Los Angeles, Dr. Derek Raghavan, chief of medical oncology at the University of Southern California and associate director of the Norris Cancer Research Center, said several of his patients asked about the new cancer drugs during examinations Monday.

``They did not ask for them by name, but expressed interest in whether they would be useful in their situation, whether they are safe and whether they are cancer killers or cancer stoppers,'' he said. ``Patients are interested and they are very educated these days.''