
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994                   TAG: 9404070329
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Orange County Register
DATELINE: IRVINE, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Short

PRECANCERS OF CERVIX CAN BE REVERSED

A drug similar to vitamin A can reverse precancers of the cervix, a finding that could help prevent the leading killer of Hispanic women.

The finding helps ``establish a whole new field of medicine,'' said Dr. Frank Meyskens, director of University of California Irvine Medical Center's Clinic Cancer Center and principal author of the study.

The new field is chemoprevention, which literally means using chemicals to prevent cancer. Chemoprevention drugs are the opposite of carcinogens - chemicals that promote the growth of cancers. Chemoprevention drugs appear able to reverse abnormal properties of cells before they become cancerous, Meyskens said.

In Tuesday's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Meyskens reports that trans-retinoic acid caused abnormal cells to disappear in more than 40 percent of women treated.

by CNB