CHECKUP MAN-MADE VIRUS DETECTS CANCER.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Reports

Using an engineered virus and a substance that makes fireflies glow, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center have developed a high-tech imaging system to detect metastasizing prostate cancer cells.

In laboratory models, researchers engineered a virus that identifies prostate cancer cells and makes them appear as ``hot spots,'' not only in tumors but in metastasizing cells that were still too small to cause symptoms or show up on conventional detection scans.

The discovery could lead to safer and more effective gene-based treatments for advanced prostate cancer. Researchers said the next step is to attach gene-based therapies to the virus, which would deliver a toxic treatment to the prostate cancer cells. The gene-based delivery system could be tested in humans within three to five years, said Lily Wu, assistant professor of urology and pediatrics and lead author of an article outlining the discovery published in the journal Nature Medicine.

HEPATITIS B DECLINES: In the 20 years since a vaccine against hepatitis B was introduced, new infections in the United States have dropped to 80,000 a year from more than 200,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The number of children infected each year has dropped even more sharply, according to an article in the agency's journal, The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In 1986, nine children out of every 10,000 between the ages of 1 and 9 were newly infected; in 2000, that figure dropped to one per 10,000.

The article called the reduction in the incidence of hepatitis B a significant public health achievement, though not one that came without controversy.

Hepatitis B can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer.

The initial vaccination recommendation, in June 1982, had been limited to three groups considered at high risk for exposure: men who have sex with men, intravenous drug users and heterosexuals with multiple sex partners.

But relatively few of them received the shots.

So in 1991, the guidelines were expanded to cover all children; in 1995, vaccinations were also recommended for all 11- or 12-year-olds who had not received shots. With new programs to screen pregnant women, the rate of transmission to newborns fell 75 percent from 1987 to 2000.