Early CAR-T Therapies Produced Long Term Remission in Some Cases
Much of what we'd like to know about cancer therapies takes a long time to emerge. Only now is the long term data available for the first CAR-T immunotherapies aimed at forms of leukemia in which cancerous cells are clearly and distinctly marked by characteristic surface features. The field has long since expanded, and researchers are at present trying to adjust CAR-T in order to apply this form of treatment to solid cancers. Long term remission is not the same as a cure, as cancer is a disease in which it remains challenging to say whether or not a few remnant cancer cells await a return at some future time. If one can ma...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 10, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Are early detection and treatment always best?
Throughout my medical career, I’ve heard statements like these:
Early detection offers the best chance of cure.
If you wait for symptoms, you’ve waited too long.
Knowledge is power, and the sooner you have the information, the better.
Over time, I’ve realized they are often untrue. Many health conditions go away on their own. In such cases, early testing may amount to wasted effort, time, and medical cost. Some testing is invasive and has a significant risk of complications. And minor abnormalities may lead to more testing. There’s also the anxiety of waiting for results, or learning you have an abnormality of unce...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 28, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Back Pain Heart Health Managing your health care Prevention Screening Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
How can we stop the spread of coronavirus?
I have chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and I do not want anyone to infect me. Because of my leukemia, I have low immunoglobulin levels, so I am extremely cautious. If I were to become infected, it would mean that I did something to put myself in danger. We have been telling people for the last three […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 25, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/david-galinsky" rel="tag" > David Galinsky, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
We shouldn ’t be our own doctors, but we can’t forget what we know
Like a lot of doctors my age, I was too busy to have checkups, working 60 hours a week plus night and weekend call. But that all changed in 2013 when at age 67, my dentist felt a submental lymph node. A CBC had 35,000 white cells, and I had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. When I […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 3, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/david-galinsky" rel="tag" > David Galinsky, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Oncology/Hematology Source Type: blogs
EBV and myeloma stem cells. Chapter 3
This study tells us there are two ways in which a virus, nothing more than a “parasite,” can infect its host cell: 1. actively, by causing “a lytic infection characterized by the release of new progeny virus particles, often upon the lysis of the host cell,” (lysis refers to the destruction of a cell, the host cell in this case), or 2. inactively, which occurs when the virus just sleeps, without reproducing itself.
“Reactivation” occurs when a sleeping virus wakes up and reproduces, stimulated by internal or external factors…but that gets into too much detail, so let’s skip that part.
Here’s anot...
Source: Margaret's Corner - January 23, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll EBV Epstein-Barr myeloma Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 15th 2018
This study is the longest, prospective randomized controlled trial that has documented the physiological effects of supervised, structured exercise training in a group of sedentary but healthy middle-aged adults. The key finding is that 2 years of exercise training performed for at least 30 minutes, 4 to 5 days per week, and including at least 1 high-intensity interval session per week results in a significant reduction in LV chamber and myocardial stiffness. The use of high-resolution, invasively measured LV pressure-volume curves and comparison with an attention control group enhances the confidence in this conclusion. T...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 14, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
How to Plan and Carry Out a Simple Self-Experiment, a Single Person Trial of Chemotherapeutic Senolytic Drug Candidates
The objective here is a set of tests that anyone can run without the need to involve a physician, as that always adds significant time and expense. Since we are really only interested in the identification of large and reliable effects as the result of an intervention, we can plausibly expect a collection of cheaper and easier measures known to correlate with age to be useful. Once that hill has been climbed, then decide whether or not to go further - don't bite off more than is easy to chew for a first outing.
From an earlier exploration of likely tests, I picked the following items on the basis of a likely connect...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 12, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Self-Experimentation Source Type: blogs
The Latest on Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy for Leukemia
The use of chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) to create engineered T cells to attack specific varieties of cancer cell, identified by their surface chemistry, is so far proving to be effective for leukemia, a cancer of the immune system. Researchers are also making inroads in adapting the therapy for use in solid tumors. While an initial group of patients treated several years ago with the first pass at CAR T cell therapy remain in remission, the news here focuses on the results from a more recent trial:
The 24 patients had undergone most standard therapies available to them and yet their chronic lymphocytic leukemi...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 6, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
New study: early-stage MGUS/SMM/CLL patients test arabinoxylan rice bran and curcumin
This study was carried out on cells, though, not human beings.
But today, about five years later, we have the results of a small study carried out on 20 curcumin-taking human beings with stable, early-stage MGUS, SMM, and CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia).
And it’s a Terry Golombick (et al) study, to boot.
Here’s the link to the full study, which is available for free online (love that!): http://goo.gl/6n2X3U
The Golombick team tested Ribraxx, a combination of a rice bran and shiitake mushroom extract (too bad it isn’t chocolate with almonds!!!), together with a form of C3 Complex curcumin called Cur...
Source: Margaret's Corner - May 24, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll Golombick Source Type: blogs
The Need For Publicly Funded Trials To Get Unbiased Comparative Effectiveness Data
Comparative effectiveness research was one of the hotly debated components of the Affordable Care Act. The pharmaceutical industry is marketing driven, with pharmaceutical companies spending more on marketing than they do on research and development. The need for a marketing edge can also drive drug development.
As illustrated by the discussion below of Gazyva and Nexium, drugs can be developed at higher doses than the drugs they are intended to replace. When the newer, higher-dose drugs are tested against the older, lower-dose drugs, the trials are intended to show that the newer, higher dose drugs are superior to the old...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 20, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Robert Bohrer Tags: All Categories Business of Health Care Comparative Effectiveness Innovation Pharma Policy Research Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, November 12, 2014
From MedPage Today:
Ebola: ‘True Heroes’ in West Africa. Hailed as a hero after recovering from Ebola, Craig Spencer, MD, said the true heroes are those still on the front lines of the epidemic in West Africa.
Closing the Cardiac Care Gender Gap. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the U.S. In fact, more women than men die from heart disease every year.
Changing Treatment Landscape in CLL. Therapeutic developments in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have given rise to new strategies that will continue to evolve with agents in the pipeline.
New HCV Drugs Pass Muster in Real World. Clinical trials f...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 12, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Cancer GI Heart Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, June 16, 2014
From MedPage Today:
The Hobby Lobby Case: The Stakes for Birth Control. One of the most watched issues before the Supreme Court this term may turn on the question of religious freedom. But it will also likely determine how women will be able to access a key provision of the Affordable Care Act — one seeking to guarantee no-cost prescription contraception in most health insurance plans.
Risk Factors ID’d for Stroke Readmits. Among patients with stroke, those with a more severe event and those with more hospitalizations leading up to the stroke were most likely to be readmitted within 30 days.
Combo Therapy Boo...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 16, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Cancer Heart Rheumatology Source Type: blogs
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a neoplatic disease
Pathophysiology
1) chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a neoplastic disorder with clonal proliferation of lymphocytes
2) 95% of cases are B cell in origin
3) primary site of involvement is the bone marrow (eventually bone marrow becomes completely replaced) with release into bloodstream of neoplastic lymphocytes
4) spleen, liver, and lymph nodes may become enlarged
5) 10 % of patients convert to prolymphocytic leukemia (most with more aggressive course)
6) 5% of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia convert to Richter’s syndrome
Signs and Symptoms of Chronic Lymph...
Source: Inside Surgery - November 18, 2013 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Oncology chronic lymphocytic leukemia CLL prolymphocytic Richter's smudge cell Source Type: blogs
NIH and Other Public Private Partnerships to Research Treatments for Multiple Diseases
Over the past few weeks, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made a number of important announcements regarding collaborations with industry as well as the funding of several new research initiatives. Below is a summary of these stories.
NIH Partners With Eli Lilly and Others on Rare Diseases
FierceBiotechResearch reported that NIH selected four (4) new preclinical drug development studies to uncover new therapies for rare diseases. The projects will be funded through the Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program under NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NCATS, whic...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 4, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Celgene Halts Revlimid Trial Over Patient Deaths, Prompting Investor Anxiety
In a setback to expanding the market for its flagship drug, Celgene has ended a Phase III trial of Revlimid, which was being tested in elderly patients with a type of blood cancer known as B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, because there were a larger number of deaths than among those given a rival treatment. The FDA called for an end to the study on July 12, according to a company statement.
Specifically, there were 34 deaths out of 210 patients who were given Revlimid compared to 18 deaths out of 211 patients given Leukeran, which is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline. The study enrolled people who were 65 years or older, suf...
Source: Pharmalot - July 18, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
