A Call For More Research On Cancer’s Environmental Triggers
No question about cancer is more contentious than its causes.
writer, health care advocate, physician
No question about cancer is more contentious than its causes.
By speaking up, advocates at the meeting have shifted the direction of breast cancer research. Some are alive, improbably, as a consequence of new treatments enabled and promoted by their advocacy.
These results have the potential to reduce overtreatment of breast cancer—stopping patients’ unnecessary exposure to chemotherapy—in a large fraction of cases.
What’s at issue is the right of all cancer patients—regardless of wealth—to obtain high-quality information about their conditions.
A new type of cancer medication, called PARP inhibitors, is gaining traction in clinical practice.
Who should decide when evidence for a drug sufficient to support a patient’s decision to give it a try?
“Medicine is rapidly falling behind business in the accrual of high-quality evidence,” Califf said.
“This tool brings us closer to the country doctor model,” Basch said. “I never thought that survival would be impacted.”
The key to the positive results is molecular matching. Patients received larotrectinib, a TRK inhibitor, only if their cancers were marked by a switch…It’s a perfect example of how precision medicine can benefit patients with rare conditions.
It’s possible that tumor mutation burden (TMB) predicts if cancer―of any type―will respond to treatment with immune drugs, but this remains to be tested.
Lynparza—a PARP inhibitor taken as an oral tablet, daily— keeps qualified cases of advanced ovarian cancer in check for two years, as compared to placebo.
Are unbridled profits necessary to drive medical innovation and progress?
The new agent, a monoclonal antibody to CD22 with a toxin attached, is manufactured by Pfizer. It’s called inotuzumab ozogamicin.
Prior to the program’s start, maternal mortality for women with sickle cell disease exceeded 9% at the teaching hospital. With team-based care, the death rate fell to 1%.
Ribociclib is one of several CDK inhibitors being tried in breast cancer and other malignancies.
It was a seemingly innocuous change in the protocol that may have caused this experimental tragedy. Which is all the more reason to be careful, and mind the details.
If these data pan out, this first-in-class antibody might be likened to Herceptin, or Rituxan… a precise treatment that works on malignant cells that have tested positive for the relevant molecule.
“If we had a drug that caused this level of survival benefit, wouldn’t we want to go out and use it?” said Dr. Patricia Ganz.
Avoiding recurrence is a legitimate goal, but there’s a trade-off.
This paper offers the clearest demonstration, yet, of the value – to patients – of precision medicine in oncology.
Online communities can be terrific. But in person, patients hug one another, and develop trust, bonds that last, hopefully, from one year’s meeting to the next.
Evaluation of circulating tumor cells enables monitoring of some cancers from blood samples. This form of liquid biopsy offers…
With exception, surgeons at The Knick are brilliant, driven, caring and flawed individuals. They examine their patients constantly, and improvise.
Blood specialists reported on practice-changing studies for sickle cell disease, including a large study of bone marrow transplant from matched sibling donors. A preliminary report looked at effects of GBT440, a novel oral agent that augments hemoglobin’s binding to oxygen.
The benefits of Prolia appear to exceed those reported for a competing class of drugs, bisphosphonates. It’s well-tolerated and comparatively easy to take…
Venetoclax is a powerful new kind of oral medication. It enables leukemia cells to die by interfering with Bcl-2, a survival signal.
A common misconception is that precision medicine is about one drug for one disease. But for most cancer types, it will involve combining medications in effective cocktails.
Taken together, the findings raise many possibilities – and questions about strategy, and expense – for testing and prescribing new small drugs and immune-targeting antibodies to patients with kidney and, potentially, other advanced cancer forms.
A striking 50% of those surveyed said they’d be more likely to vote for a Presidential candidate who supports sustained increases in federal funding for cancer research over the next decade, and 10% indicated they’d be less likely to do so.
One problem is that prospective, randomized clinical trials comparing treatments for conditions like “Stage 3 ovarian cancer” fall behind the pace of advances in science and drug development.
In the 1980s, doctors linked H. pylori infection to stomach cancer. In infected adults, a brief course of antibiotics lessens cancer risk.
If confirmed, this method of liquid biopsy would enable monitoring and genetic evaluation of pancreatic cancer from blood.
In a prospective randomized trial, adding a “shave” to the lumpectomy site reduced positive margins and halved re-operations.
So far, the studies demonstrate that Lynparza has activity in cancer patients with and without inherited BRCA mutations.
There is no good trial of mammography using current radiology systems in the context of modern pathology and minimalist treatment approaches. And there is none underway. As seen in Forbes.
A low Oncotype DCIS score predicts a low chance that non-invasive breast cancer will recur. The study supports that many women with DCIS can safely forgo radiation.