Popular drugs used for treating enlarged prostates associated with high-grade prostate cancer
If a man has an enlarged prostate, there’s a good chance he’ll be treated with a type of drug called a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor (5-ARI). These drugs shrink the gland to improve urinary flow, and the approved forms used for treating enlarged prostates come in two varieties: Proscar (finasteride) and Avodart (dutasteride).
However, a side effect of 5-ARI inhibitor treatment is that it suppresses blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) by about 50%. Doctors measure PSA during prostate cancer screening, and if a man on 5-ARI therapy winds up with results that are artificially low, then he might be falsely reassu...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - August 12, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: BPH Health Prostate Knowledge Screening HPK Source Type: blogs
Cases: Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH) as a hospice diagnosis?
Conclusion: In this case, a simple condition that is easily treatable in most men became one that we expected to lead to Mr. K’s death. However, the diagnosis that led it to become life-limiting was Mr. K’s dementia, and the heavy burden which BPH treatments would have placed on him. Mr. K’s daughter based her decision on Mr. K’s values, saying that if the father she was raised by was able to see himself in his current condition, he would have wanted both to stay in place and to be allowed to die with dignity. Forced catheterization and antipsychotic treatment might have prolonged his life by years but would have ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - January 6, 2015 Category: Palliative Carer Workers Tags: cases childers emergency care hospice medications POLST urology Source Type: blogs
Desperately hunting Madonna
Its ethics questioned, GSK to scrap individual sales targetsLONDON -- British drug company GlaxoSmithKline says it will stop paying doctors to promote its products at speaking engagements and scrap individual sales targets, months after its ethics were challenged by a bribery scandal in China.The group last week announced sweeping changes to its marketing practices, which also included a halt to direct financial support to health care professionals to attend medical conferences. But it left open the possibility of funding through grants."It is patients' interests that always come first," Andrew Witty, the company's chief e...
Source: PharmaGossip - December 22, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Paul Krugman: China’s economy has hit its Great Wall
China has a drug problem. While most Western countries spend 10-12% of their healthcare budget on medicines, in China it is well over 40%, a disparity that goes to the heart of Beijing’s crackdown on the industry.All economic data are best viewed as a peculiarly boring genre of science fiction, but Chinese data are even more fictional than most. Add a secretive government, a controlled press and the sheer size of the country, and it’s harder to figure out what’s really happening in China than it is in any other major economy.Yet the signs are now unmistakable: China is in big trouble. Read more.A promise this we...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 27, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
