A. New Hope For Breast
Cancer Management
Narrator: This is Science Today. Improved
magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, may lead to
better breast cancer management. Dr. Laura Esserman,
director of the Breast Care Center at the University
of California, San Francisco, says MRI can provide
valuable information to both patients and their
doctors.
Esserman: I see it as perhaps having a role
in taking women who have had something that looks
abnormal on mammography and doing an MR at that
point to keep them from having to have a biopsy.
I see it also able to identify when therapy's aren't
working, you can change direction. And maybe help
introduce all the novel therapeutics that are in
development.
Narrator: MRI was also more precise in determining
the boundaries of tumor tissue. This can help preserve
healthy tissue more reliably.
Esserman: I think that MRI hold tremendous
promise but it is not yet ready to be used widely
because there's still a lot of work to be done.
It's something that I hope within two years will
be out in a more general way.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
B. The Facts About Cardiac Pacemakers
Narrator: This is Science Today. Although
cardiac pacemakers have been around for two decades
now, there's never been a complete evaluation between
the two types available - namely, single and dual
chamber pacemakers. Dr. Lee Goldman, a professor
of medicine at the University of California, San
Francisco, led a study comparing the functions of
both pacemakers and the overall outcome for patients.
Goldman: In all the patients who got pacemakers,
the pacemaker resulted in a tremendous improvement
in functional status and quality of life, compared
with where they were before the pacemaker.
Narrator: It's been widely thought that
dual chamber pacemakers, which mimic the heart closer,
were superior. But Goldman found only about 20 percent
of patients greatly improved with the dual chamber.
Goldman: The main finding in our study is
that compared to other things going on, the choice
of single versus dual chamber pacemakers is commonly
not the dominant issue. The two dominant issues
are do you need a pacemaker of any sort to protect
you from having an ineffective heartbeat? And in
that case, either kind of pacemaker will be a benefit.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
C. Steam cleaning: An Environmental
Breakthrough
Narrator: This is Science Today. Contaminants
such as gasoline and cleaning solvents can be removed
from the soil more efficiently using a new heat
and steam-cleaning method. Chemist Roger Aines at
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory says
the steam process is quicker, and therefore cheaper,
than the older method called pump entry.
Aines: The best analogy is a dirty sponge.
Imagine that you've got soap in a sponge. Well,
that's what contamination in the ground is like.
And you run some water over the sponge and it doesn't
take the contamination out of the inside, you squeeze
the sponge and something comes out you squeeze it
again, you squeeze it again, you squeeze it again
...let's say you may have to squeeze it twenty times,
fill it with clean water each time. That's what
pumping treat is like.
Narrator: And each squeeze takes a couple
of years. Instead, Aines and his colleagues knocked
off several years using steam to remove gas spills
and solvents from the soil.
Aines: By heating it up, you simply vaporize
most of the contaminant and you can move it out
very quickly then.
Narrator: Aines hopes to use this method
on the biggest and worst of the superfund sites.
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D. Working To Improve Airplane
Safety
Narrator: This is Science Today. Improving
flight safety is the goal of researchers at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The group,
along with three other companies, are working to
develop a new standard tool to assist the Federal
Aviation Administration in certifying the safety
of new aircraft engines. Richard Couch, a lab physicist
says this tool, a computer code program, would test
rare but potentially devastating events.
Couch: Essentially a loss of a blade - a
fan blade or a turbine blade or some sort of catastrophic
failure of the engine which might send projectiles
shooting off at the aircraft.
Narrator: Researchers are working to enhance
a well-known simulation tool developed at the Livermore
Lab, called the DYNA3-D.
Couch: What we're trying to provide a modeling
capability for is containment of fragments within
the engine. Or if fragments aren't contained, trying
to model the impact on fuselage and to damage that
might ensue from an individual event.
Narrator: It's hoped the tool will be available
nationwide by the year 2000. For Science Today,
I'm Larissa Branin.
E. The Risk Of Life In The Big
City
Narrator: This is Science Today. In studying
breast cancer rates, epidemiologists discovered
women living in urban areas have the highest rate
of breast cancer. But Virginia Ernster, a professor
of epidemiology at the University of California,
San Francisco says geography is not solely to blame
for the high rates of breast cancer.
Ernster: The reason we see the high rates
in those areas is because of the kind of women who
live in say, San Francisco. We tend to be, compared
to the rest of the U.S. population, more well educated,
to have the kinds of careers that mean that we're
postponing child bearing or choosing not to have
children. And those are two of the risk factors
for breast cancer.
Narrator: Ernster says breast cancer is
one of the few diseases that is positively associated
with higher socioeconomic status.
Ernster: So unfortunately it's women who
are of higher education, who have more childbearing
choice and longer life expectancy that are at higher
risk to breast cancer.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
