| Gene Variations Point To Why Lung Cancer Drugs Work Better In ...
Last year, a groundbreaking international project found that a group of Japanese patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer survived longer - and had a higher rate of side effects - than U.S. patients with the same diagnosis, when both groups were given two well-known drugs for the disease.
Now, a follow-up study suggests the reasons appear to lie in subtle variations in certain genes that govern how the body metabolizes chemotherapy drugs. David Gandara, M.D., a University of California, Davis researcher who led the recent Southwest Oncology Group study, presented the results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.
The discovery that Japanese and U.S. patients, matched in age, gender and other respects, had differences in key metabolism-related genes is the latest result from a seven-year collaboration between the Southwest Oncology Group and two clinical trials groups in Japan.
Many families think hospice care was great, came too late
Brown University researchers report in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management that 11.4 percent of the more than 100,000 respondents thought their relatives received hospice care too late. In Massachusetts, the figure was 12.6 percent. Vermont had the lowest rate, at 7.8 percent, and South Carolina had the highest, 15 percent. Among people whose relatives had only two days of hospice care, only 24 percent said that was too late, lead author Dr. Joan M. Teno said. "I think this relates to how well hospice programs rally the troops to make everything happen," she said. "The entire hospice team mobilizes very quickly. They go in there and they do a very intensive intervention for the last 24 or 48 hours." Test subjects: Check the fine print before signing on Sometimes the arms-length distance between academic researchers and the pharmaceutical companies that provide drugs for their clinical trials can lead to problems, Harvard scientists wrote in last week's New England Journal of Medicine.
Standards of prostate cancer treatment
As someone who has lived for more than 12 years with prostate cancer, I welcome the publicity generated by Messrs Robson and Kelly (pictured) in today's issue. Awareness of the disease must continue to be raised and men given choice in their treatment so long as it is likely to benefit the fight against this male cancer. Each of us goes to a consultant to get the best advice, and in most cases that is what we get. The article makes it clear that the treatment is available in Scotland and consultants in the North of Scotland are aware of that. So, what's going on here? I understand that brachytherapy is not suitable for all cases and am aware that the oncologists who deliver the service have to take account of an individual's dianostic tests to determine eligibility.
|
