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
Progress against cancer? Let's think about it.
It is difficult to pick up a newspaper these days without reading an article proclaiming progress in the field of cancer research. Here is an example, taken from an article posted on the MedicineNet site (1). The lead-off text is: " Statistics (released in 1997) show that cancer patients are living longer and even " beating " the disease. Information released at an AMA sponsored conference for science writers, showed that the death rate from the dreaded disease has decreased by three percent in the last few years. In the 1940s only one patient in four survived on the average. By the 1960s, that figure was up to one i...
Source: Specified Life - March 25, 2016 Category: Information Technology Tags: cancer cancer cure cancer statistics cancer treatments orphan diseases progress in cancer research rare diseases Source Type: blogs
Progress against cancer? Let's think about it.
It is difficult to pick up a newspaper these days without reading an article proclaiming progress in the field of cancer research. Here is an example, taken from an article posted on the MedicineNet site (1). The lead-off text is: "Statistics (released in 1997) show that cancer patients are living longer and even "beating" the disease. Information released at an AMA sponsored conference for science writers, showed that the death rate from the dreaded disease has decreased by three percent in the last few years. In the 1940s only one patient in four survived on the average. By the 1960s, that figure was up to one in th...
Source: Specified Life - March 25, 2016 Category: Information Technology Tags: cancer cancer cure cancer statistics cancer treatments orphan diseases progress in cancer research rare diseases Source Type: blogs
Glyphosate: not JUST a carcinogen
One of the most potentially harmful aspects of genetically-modified crops, or GMOs, are that such crops are often engineered to be resistant to an herbicide. A farmer therefore can spray the herbicide to kill weeds, while the GM crop plant survives. But it means that the plant now has herbicide residues in it. So GMO crops pose a double-whammy: the crop itself with new genetically-programmed components, especially proteins, coupled with an herbicide.
Glyphosate is the most widely applied herbicide in the world, in part because GM corn and soy have been engineered to be glyphosate-resistant. So much glysphosate is being use...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - October 12, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle bowel flora gluten glyphosate gmo grains herbicide microbiota soy 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
Drug Shortages Update
Conclusion
The Brief concludes by noting economists have predicted over time, manufacturer-reported investments in facilities and increased generic drug approvals may result in a market-driven correction, reducing shortages that exist today. Additionally, in the meantime, although both major parties agree on the threat posed from drug shortages, there is not agreement on major policy steps to further address the problem. Some authorities granted to FDA may help the situation, but ultimately both private and public sector actions are necessary. We will continue to follow the drug shortage issue and the need for consumers an...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 23, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Delayed cardiac complications of radiotherapy
Radiation damages the vascular endothelium leading to accelerated coronary atherosclerosis. Due to improvement in radiotherapy techniques, radiation associated cardiac damage is lesser with modern techniques. Most cases occur in those who have undergone mediastinal radiation in a younger age for diseases like Hodgkins disease for which longer survival gives a chance for long term cardiac issue to manifest. Radiotherapy for breast cancer is another important cause of cardiac complications of radiotherapy. Radiation induced cardiac damage is enhanced with concomitant use of adriamycin based chemotherapy.
Important delayed c...
Source: Cardiophile MD - August 12, 2014 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis MD, DM, FACC, FRCP Edin, FRCP London Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
In Observance of Jessie Gruman
On July 14th, 2014 we lost a truly outstanding woman to her battle with a long time illness. Jessie Gruman was the president and founder of the Center for Advancing Health. A true patient advocate, she promoted not only patient engagement but the use of evidence-based medicine to support the adoption of healthy behavior. In addition to her professional career, Gruman defined herself as a musician, avid reader of poetry and interested in foreign policy, the media and global health. She was a true disruptive woman.
Gruman advocated for policies and practices to overcome the challenges we all face in finding good care and g...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - July 16, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: DW Staff Tags: Advocacy Caregiving Champions Chronic Conditions Consumer Health Care Patients' Rights Policy Source Type: blogs
More Sitting, More Cancer
One of the more interesting results from the study of health and lifestyle choices in recent years is the finding that time spent sitting correlates with increased mortality and a shorter life expectancy regardless of whether or not individuals also exercised. As for all such statistical investigations, there is a lot of room to speculate as to the web of related associations and which of them are actually contributing meaningfully to differences in health. This metastudy expands on the picture by looking specifically at cancer risk:
Sedentary behavior is emerging as an independent risk factor for chronic disease and mor...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 19, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Physicians Against Drug Shortages Challenge the Controlled Drug Market for Hospital
We have written previously about the shortage of lifesaving drugs in the United States. This crucial topic is addressed in a recent New York Times editorial by Margaret Clapp, former chief pharmacy officer at Massachusetts General Hospital, Michael A. Rie, associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and co-chairman of Physicians Against Drug Shortages, and Phillip L. Zweig, executive director of Physicians Against Drug Shortages. They note 302 drugs were in short supply as of July 31, up from 211 a year earlier.
The editorial asks: "Policy makers apparently failed to ask th...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
How long?
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, someone told me it is a year out of your life and then you get back to some sort of normal.Another blogger this morning announced that after two years of blogging about her Hodgkins Disease she is moving on to blog about social media and other things. Her cancer adventure has slid into the background of her life - right on schedule as she had been told when she was diagnosed.The wise people who tell us the deadlines on our diseases are not doctors or medical specialists but usually other patients reflecting on their experience and what they have been told by other patients.So how do...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - July 22, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: living with cancer schedules Source Type: blogs
GE Healthcare Introduces A New Tumor Typing Platform (VIDEO)
GE Healthcare has introduced MultiOmyx, a new platform for diagnostics in cancer biology. The system can analyze tumor samples on single cell level by studying the expression of more than 175 different proteins and disease markers per cell. Multiple stains can be added to a tumor slice and tumor antibodies directed to proteins of interest can be measured and quantified by fluorescence. Because multiple stains and markers can be measured in a single test, you don’t have to worry about the amount of provided sample tissue. Clarient Diagnostic Services, Inc, a laboratory of GE Healthcare, is planning diagnostic tests...
Source: Medgadget - June 5, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Jan Sinnige Tags: Diagnostics Pathology Source Type: blogs
Stem Cell Transplants for Leukemia Showing Improved Outcomes
Researchers recently published a set of encouraging data resulting from the use of stem cell transplants in the treatment of forms of leukemia. Once a particular new technique is adopted in medical practice, further progress is often a matter of steady incremental improvement. Here that improvement is quite considerable over the past decade, a reflection of the pace of medical science in general:
Survival rates have increased significantly among patients who received blood stem cell transplants from both related and unrelated donors. [The] study authors attribute the increase to several factors, including advances in HLA ...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 30, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Role of Excisional lymph node biopsy, Core needle biopsy and FNAC in Lymphoma diagnosis
The newly developed and more sophisticated techniques for analysis of lymphoma cells have provided us with the tools necessary for precise classification of non-Hodgkin ’s lymphoma. Nonetheless, routine histologic studies remain the gold standard for diagnosis. Excisional BiopsyA well-processed hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained section of an excised lymph node is the mainstay of pathologic diagnosis. Most often, the diagnosis of difficult lesions relies heavily on a careful assessment of the underlying architecture. Lymphoma diagnoses are much less about cytologic detail and far more about altered architecture...
Source: Oncopathology - January 29, 2013 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: core boiopsy. FNAC lymph node biopsy lymphoma Source Type: blogs
