Medical Debt on the Rise

The Commonwealth Fund reported that U.S. consumers are racking up increasing mounds  of medical debt.  Last year, nearly 2/3rds of adult Americans struggled to pay medical bills, delayed getting needed care,  went without insurance, or were underinsured for a period of time (which means they had insurance but were not protected against  high medical expenses from a disease such as cancer.)  More than a quarter of adult Americans say they're paying off medical debt. 

This - the experts insists - is a potent issue for this year's election cycle. The report finds a large constituency affected: "Insurance coverage deteriorated over the past six years, with declines in coverage most severe for moderate-income families."

You can read the whole report and see the stats to back it up here.

Tykerb Boxed Warning

The FDA added a boxed warning to the breast cancer drug TYKERB (lapatinib) in July after liver damage and deaths were reported in some patients taking the kinase inhibitor therapy. The boxed warning does not go so far as to blame the deaths on the drug however, saying what caused the deaths has not been determined.  TYKERB is given to women with advanced metastatic breast cancer whose cancer over-expresses the protein HER2 after their cancer has stopped responding to other treatments. 

Read more about the warning here.  Read the patient insert here.

In other lapatinib news - in the lab in mouse models anyway - lapatinib slows the spread of breast cancer cells to the brain by 50%. About a third of women with HER2 positive breast cancers develop metasteses to the brain so finding a drug that can cross the blood/brain barrier and  inhibit the spread is important.  Read more about the research here.