Esophageal Cancer

LOS ANGELES - Zapping away abnormal, precancerous cells in the throat may lower the risk of later developing esophageal cancer, the first major study to test this technique finds. In a study of 127 people suffering from a heartburn-related problem known as Barrett's esophagus, only about 1 percent who had a procedure that uses heat to burn off precancerous spots went on to develop cancer over the next year. That's compared with more than 9 percent of those who got a fake treatment in which no cells were destroyed.

AMSTERDAM - Nicol Williamson, the British actor best known for his role as the wizard Merlin in the 1981 film "Excalibur," has died of esophageal cancer, his son said Wednesday. He was 75. His son Luke said the actor died Dec. 16 in Amsterdam, where he had lived two decades. Mr. Williamson had dozens of film credits to his name, but won more plaudits for his stage acting. Playwright John Osborne once described him as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando. " He was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence" in 1966 and again in...

LONDON — People who take many bone-strengthening drugs for several years may have a slightly higher risk of esophageal cancer, a new study says. Researchers analyzed the records of nearly 3,000 people with esophageal cancer and compared each case to five other similar people who didn’t have the disease. Researchers also looked at about 10,000 people with bowel cancer and about 2,000 people with stomach cancer. The study included more than 90,000 people who were followed for about 8 years.

Nicol Williamson, the British actor best known for his role as the wizard Merlin in the 1981 film "Excalibur," has died of esophageal cancer, his son said Wednesday. He was 75. His son Luke said the actor died Dec. 16 in Amsterdam, where he had lived for more than two decades. Williamson had dozens of film credits to his name but won more plaudits for his stage acting. Playwright John Osborne once described him as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando. " He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1966 for his role in Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence" and again in 1974 for Anton...

LOS ANGELES -- Bruce Malmuth, who directed such films as "Nighthawks" and "Hard to Kill" and had small acting parts in "The Karate Kid" and other films, has died at age 71. Mr. Malmuth died Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of esophageal cancer, said his brother Daniel. Mr. Malmuth was best known for directing Sylvester Stallone in the 1981 thriller "Nighthawks" and Steven Seagal in the 1990 political action film "Hard to Kill," as well as "Where Are All the Children," with Jill Clayburgh.

A utility spokesman says the former chief of Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has cancer but doctors do not believe it is related to radioactive exposure. Masao Yoshida, who led the onsite effort to stabilize the plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, stepped down from his post on Dec. 1, citing health reasons. His employer, Tokyo Electric Power Co., kept the details of his illness under wraps until Friday, when it confirmed he has esophageal cancer.

AMSTERDAM - Nicol Williamson, the British actor best known for his role as the wizard Merlin in the 1981 film "Excalibur," has died of esophageal cancer, his son said Wednesday. He was 75. His son Luke said the actor died Dec. 16 in Amsterdam, where he had lived two decades. Mr. Williamson had dozens of film credits to his name, but won more plaudits for his stage acting. Playwright John Osborne once described him as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando. " He was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence" in...

CARNEGIE, Pa. - Bruce Dal Canton, a former high school teacher who turned a good showing at a tryout camp into a lengthy career as a major league pitcher and coach, died Tuesday of esophageal cancer. He was 66. Mr. Dal Canton worked until mid-May as the pitching coach at Class A Myrtle Beach, Atlanta's affiliate in the Carolina League. Mr. Dal Canton went 51-49 with a 3.67 ERA from 1967 to 1977 with Pittsburgh, the Kansas City Royals, Atlanta, and the Chicago White Sox. The right-hander was used as both a starter and reliever and found his...

MINNEAPOLIS — Harmon Killebrew announced yesterday that he no longer plans to fight his esophageal cancer and has settled in for the final days of his life, saddening friends and fans of the 74-year-old Hall of Fame slugger. In a statement released jointly by the Minnesota Twins and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Killebrew said “it is with profound sadness’’ that he will no longer receive treatment for the “awful disease.’’ He said the cancer has been deemed incurable by his doctors and he will enter hospice care.

Nicol Williamson, the British actor best known for his role as the wizard Merlin in the 1981 film "Excalibur," has died of esophageal cancer, his son said Wednesday. He was 75. His son Luke said the actor died Dec. 16 in Amsterdam, where he had lived for more than two decades. Williamson had dozens of film credits to his name but won more plaudits for his stage acting. Playwright John Osborne once described him as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando. " He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1966 for his role in Osborne's "Inadmissible...

WASHINGTON - Christopher Hitchens, the author, essayist, and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes left and right and wrote the provocative best-seller "God is Not Great," died last night after a long battle with cancer. He was 62. Conde Nast, publisher of Vanity Fair magazine, said he died at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer A most engaged, prolific, and public intellectual who enjoyed his drink (enough "to kill or stun the average mule")

Cancer weakened but did not soften Christopher Hitchens. He did not repent or forgive or ask for pity. As if granted diplomatic immunity, his mind's eye looked plainly upon the attack and counterattack of disease and treatments that robbed him of his hair, his stamina, his speaking voice and eventually his life. "I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered...

A utility spokesman says the former chief of Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has cancer but doctors do not believe it is related to radioactive exposure. Masao Yoshida, who led the onsite effort to stabilize the plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, stepped down from his post on Dec. 1, citing health reasons. His employer, Tokyo Electric Power Co., kept the details of his illness under wraps until Friday, when it confirmed he has esophageal cancer.

"The Marriage Plot," by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 416 pp., $28) Ah, the '80s! Brown University! Semiotics! Eugenides's first book since Pulitzer-winner "Middlesex" mixes Gen-X nostalgia with questions of love, art, and spirituality. Readers follow idealistic, literature-besotted Madeleine into post-college (and post-modern) life, with its inevitable compromises. "Salvage the Bones," by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury, 272 pp. , $24) Winner of this year's National Book Award, Ward's second book tells of an approaching hurricane, a...

DRIVING HOME from Boston on the afternoon of May 5, Ron and Cindy didn't talk much. There wasn't much to say. A team of doctors had just told them that Ron's esophageal cancer - diagnosed only days before - was inoperable. No cure. No hope of long-term survival. With radiation and chemo, Ron might have nine months to a year. They'd been together since high school. He was only 60. They'd been looking forward to retirement, maybe to traveling a little, to the birth of their second grandchild.

Former Marine sergeant Jessica Colleen Shepherd possessed a strength that went beyond her military training, her family said. The Lexington native with a wide smile and a soft laugh was extraordinarily resilient, her family said, no matter if she was overseeing machine guns on Marine airplanes in Iraq during her two tours of duty there, or earning her master's degree while pregnant and working full time as a career counselor while her husband was...

Former Marine sergeant Jessica Colleen Shepherd possessed a strength that went beyond her military training, her family said. The Lexington native with a wide smile and a soft laugh was extraordinarily resilient, her family said, no matter if she was overseeing machine guns on Marine airplanes in Iraq during her two tours of duty there, or earning her master's degree while pregnant and working full time as a career counselor while her husband was...

Cancer weakened but did not soften Christopher Hitchens. He did not repent or forgive or ask for pity. As if granted diplomatic immunity, his mind's eye looked plainly upon the attack and counterattack of disease and treatments that robbed him of his hair, his stamina, his speaking voice and eventually his life. "I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered...

MINNEAPOLIS — Harmon Killebrew announced yesterday that he no longer plans to fight his esophageal cancer and has settled in for the final days of his life, saddening friends and fans of the 74-year-old Hall of Fame slugger. In a statement released jointly by the Minnesota Twins and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Killebrew said “it is with profound sadness’’ that he will no longer receive treatment for the “awful disease.’’ He said the cancer has been deemed incurable by his doctors and he will enter hospice care.

LONDON — People who take many bone-strengthening drugs for several years may have a slightly higher risk of esophageal cancer, a new study says. Researchers analyzed the records of nearly 3,000 people with esophageal cancer and compared each case to five other similar people who didn’t have the disease. Researchers also looked at about 10,000 people with bowel cancer and about 2,000 people with stomach cancer. The study included more than 90,000 people who were followed for about 8 years.