■ UNITED STATES
Cancer drug works: study
Eli Lilly and Co’s chemotherapy drug Gemzar more than doubled the overall survival for early stage pancreatic cancer patients five years after surgery to remove their tumors, results from a long-term study released on Saturday showed. Gemzar, or gemcitabine, is the standard treatment for patients whose pancreatic cancer is too advanced for surgery. Most pancreatic cancer is diagnosed at a late stage. Researchers at the Charite University Medical School in Berlin studied the drug in patients with early stage pancreatic cancer who had received surgery, concluding it should be the standard of care for those patients as well. The study was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
■GUATEMALA
Fires threaten Mayan site
Illegal settlers likely working for drug smugglers are starting fires to clear land in the jungle and threatening investigations into an ancient Mayan city. US and Guatemalan archeologists who trekked to the La Corona site in northern Guatemala to map dozens of ruins had to fight an encroaching blaze. They battled the fire for two weeks, helped by natural dirt barriers and rains that calmed the flames, but land invaders simply lit more fires, dangerously close to the more than 1,200-year-old Mayan site. The Peten region has become a favorite trafficking route for drug cartels. Smugglers clear jungle to build airstrips to land planes loaded with cocaine, which is then trucked over the porous border with Mexico and up to US consumers.
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