New Page 1
February
06, 2009
News
Headlines
US Experts Foresee More Effective Cancer
Radiation
Celiac Disease Linked to High Risk of Lymphoma
Older Cancer Patients Want Empathy
from Providers
Thalidomide May
Improve Progression-Free Survival in Prostate Cancer
Cancer Survivors Often Forgo Needed Care Due
to Cost Concerns
Bevacizumab Plus
Erlotinib Promising in Liver Cancer
Adding Cetuximab to Standard Therapy Worsens
Outcomes in Colorectal Cancer
Sequential and Alternating Chemoradiotherapy
Comparable for Laryngeal Cancer
Pfizer Pancreatic Cancer Drug Fails, Trial
Halted
Cancerpage news is updated daily, Monday
through Friday, and on the weekends as
warranted. More than 24 new
articles have been added to cancerpage news since the last newsletter.
To see ALL the latest stories, go to the
cancerpage.com search page and click on Submit (but
leave search field black.)
Green Tea - A Dark
Side
Lab tests suggest a chemical in green tea makes the cancer drug Velcade
(bortezomib) ineffective. That's scarey! A researcher at the University of
Southern California, Axel H. Schönthal, PhD, associate professor in the
Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC,
has been studying green tea extract in mice with tumors. A compound in the
green tea binds with the Velcade, preventing it from doing its anti-cancer
job. Read moe about the study here on the Science
Blog. Velcade is used to treat multiple myeloma. "The most immediate conclusion from our study is the strong advice that patients
undergoing cancer therapy with Velcade must avoid green tea, and in particular
all of its concentrated products that are freely available from health food
stores," says Schönthal. "It is important to spread this message to health care
providers who administer Velcade to patients."
New Rules
A series of commentaries in this week's British Medical Journal conclude it's
time to end the "free" perks doctors get from drug companies - perks
that seem innocent enough and may even appear to benefit patients but in fact may
have a detremental effect. Those free samples the doctor gives you could be having an insidious effect on you.
Read about
the BMJ article here.
New Tobacco
Tax
President Barak Obama signed a bill extending health
insurance to more than 4 million uninsured children Wednesday night.
At the White House bill signing ceremony, the president said "...providing
coverage to 11 million children through CHIP [Children's Health Insurance
Program ] is a down payment on my commitment to cover every single
American."
The bill also raises the tax on
cigarettes to more than a dollar a pack; it's the largest
jump in tobacco taxes ever. The tax hike was praised in a release from the
American Cancer Society becasue it will "prevent more than 900,000
smoking-related deaths, deter nearly 1.9 million children from smoking, and
encourage 1.4 million adults to quit." Sentiments echoed across
Washington throughout the health advocacy community.
Read
about it and some reader reactions in the Richmond (Va.)
Times-Dispatch
.
Cancer Researcher Takes the Helm at
FDA
Frank Torti was named
acting commissioner of the FDA, ending months of speculation about
who would take the top FDA post in the Obama Administration.Torti is a cancer
researcher.
Cancer Drug
Costs
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine, this week, laments the
apparent inability of any private or public force to moderate the ever
increasing rise in the cost of cancer drugs. The author, Peter Bach, MD,
of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, writes that health economists are concerned that
costs continue to rise even faster than the associated health benefits. In many
cases families coping with a cancer diagnosis also face
a financial threat from the treatments themselves. Dr. Bach says creation
of a Center for Comparative Effectiveness to help the Medicare
program decide how to reimburse for cancer drugs might be the answer. Or
perhaps drugs should only be reimbursed after they've worked for a patient, a "payment
for results" reimbursement system as has been instituted for some drugs in
Britain.
In the Lab/In the
Clinic
Exercise does the body good. New study
by doctors at the Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelhpia) found that 3 of 4
early-stage lung cancer patients who "met physical activity guidelines, which
call for about 60 minutes each week of strenuous activity, such as jogging, or 150 minutes of moderate exercise,
such as walking briskly" had a better quality of
life, less depression, more vitality, and less shortness of breath than those who didn't. We aren't
talking marathons, the lead researcher said, but we find most lung cancer survivors don't meet guidelines for physical activity.
|
![[cancerpage is a service of Alere]](../../images/aleretopbanner500x75.jpg)
![[close window]](/images/buttons/close.gif){kind=small}