Ayurvedic Medicines

After the news yesterday about Bayer’s sorafenib being rejected by NICE in liver cancer comes another oncology decision, this time a positive one, and good news for AstraZeneca and gefitinib (Iressa).

Whew, that headline caught my attention just now on the Nationwide Children's Hospital site while searching for information on medulloblastoma, a form of brain cancer that tends to affect children. After all the recent brouhaha in the UK over Andrew Wakefield being struck off for professional misconduct relating to his role in the MMR vaccination scandal, tensions may be raised at the idea of using a modified form of the measles virus to treat a childhood brain cancer. According to the hospital's press release : Vaccine strains of measles virus have been used to kill tumor cells in a number of tumor types including one type of adult brain tumor

I just read an interesting piece on Sustainablog titled “Why I Decided to Keep Honeybees” and it was such a thought-provoking read for me I thought I’d share some of it here. I never would have considered keeping bees (I don’t think) but I have been concerned about the rapid decline of bees in recent years [ Have You Considered Keeping Bees

“The drug, also known as sorafenib, extended lives by an average of 2.8 months at a cost of 27,000 pounds ($38,853) for each patient, NICE said. The Leverkusen, Germany-based company had offered to pay for every fourth pack of Nexavar when used to treat hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of cancer that starts in the liver. Few patients with the disease are able to undergo the surgery that could potentially cure them, NICE said.”   Source: Bloomberg No surprises there really and consistent with the approach the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has taken over the last few years.

On Friday, I’m heading off to the annual American Urology Association (AUA) meeting in San Francisco and looking forward to catching up on the hot topics in prostate and renal cancers.   It promises to be a good meeting this year with lots of new data expected from a number of marketed products, newly approved products and of course, products in development

The Obama administration has already proved to be quite nimble – despite a locked-down Senate that is wading through molasses due to the Republican filibuster – in devising ways within its power to green the US grid. An Executive Order last year now compels all federal agencies to reduce greenhouse gases 30% [ USGBC Locates $72 Billion Potential to Power Down American Buildings from Green Living Ideas ]

Recently, I’ve been observing and watching a number of interactions that I’ve been part of, from friends, acquaintances, clients and physicians and healthcare practitioners.  It dawned on me that no matter what we do, our satisfaction with the result of those interactions is directly tied to the involvement we go through

WBZ Boston News consulted Dr. Catherine Ulbricht, co-founder of Natural Standard and Senior Attending Pharmacist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to learn about relaxation drinks. These new drinks often contain herbal extracts or natural hormones and are designed to help reduce stress and anxiety and improve sleep.

Tonight at 6pm, the ASCO abstracts of live online with the exception of the plenaries, late breakers and clinical review abstracts, which will published at the meeting.  7 policy exceptions were granted under SEC guidelines, meaning that limited information to be made publicly available in advance of the meeting: Abstract 8010 : Lenalidomide maintenance after transplantation for myeloma.  Abstract LBA4007 : The AVAGAST trial: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter phase III study of capecitabine and cisplatin plus bevacizumab or placebo as first-line therapy in patients with advanced gastric cancer.  Abstract LBA4507 : Denosumab versus zoledronic acid for treatment of bone metastases in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer.  Abstract LBA1 : Phase III trial of bevacizumab (BEV) in the primary treatment of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), primary peritoneal cancer (PPC), or fallopian tube cancer (FTC): A Gynecologic Oncology Group study.  Abstract LBA4511 : A randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled phase III trial comparing docetaxel, prednisone, and placebo with docetaxel, prednisone, and bevacizumab in men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (metCRPC): Survival results of CALGB 90401.  Abstract LBA750 2: Results from ARQ 197-209: a global randomized placebo-controlled phase 2 clinical trial of erlotinib plus ARQ 197 versus erlotinib plus placebo in previously treated EGPR-inhibitor naive patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).  Abstract LBA8512 : A phase III random assignment trial comparing percutaneous hepatic perfusion with melphalan (PHP-mel) to standard of care for patients with hepatic metastases from metastatic ocular or cutaneous melanoma

One of the cool things about using social media sites such as Twitter is the myriad of interesting links on science and cancer related topics that fly by my stream every day.  Clearly, the sheer volume means that you can’t track them all or even read half of them, but maybe you can capture and search them later.