The National Cancer Institute set out to answer this question last year and published results of their investigation in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study’s authors point to flaws in previous cancer cost estimates, many of which did little more than take figures from 15 years ago and adjust them for inflation.
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APP Pharmaceuticals has issued a voluntary recall of 5 lots of irinotecan hydrochloride injection (Camptosar) as a precautionary measure. No adverse events related to the recalled products have been reported. The following lots have been recalled:
Despite aggressive campaigns to educate Americans on the lifethreatening risks of smoking, nearly 500,000 people die each year in the United States from smoking-related illness, according to a recent study in Epidemiology. Even patients with smoking- related cancers have trouble quitting, with about two-thirds of patients with lung cancer continuing to smoke.
The “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer,” emerging from a collaboration of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society, shows declines in cancer rates and improved survival. It helps reassure us that the resources invested to fight cancer have not been misplaced.
Drug shortages continue to plague the United States, compromising patient safety and placing additional strain on healthcare resources. The shortages encompass common drugs used to treat a range of conditions, from everyday infections to heart attacks.
Using dose-painted intensitymodulated radiation therapy (DP-IMRT) to treat cancer in the anal canal reduces the risk of serious adverse events associated with standard radiation therapy without compromising survival according to data presented by Lisa Kachnic, MD, chief of radiation oncology at Boston Medical Center and an associate professor with Boston University School of Medicine, Massachusetts. She reported results from the phase 2 Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG)-0529 trial at a press briefing.
For patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), advances in molecular profiling have led to an explosion in novel agents specific for targets above and beyond the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Joseph Tabernero, MD, director of clinical research at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain, previewed the future of treatment for CRC.
In a study funded by Pathwork Diagnostics, Inc., researchers found that using the company’s tissue of origin test for patients with hard-toidentify primary cancers enabled accurate diagnosis of the tumor in several cases and led to changes in treatment. Patients whose diagnosis was confirmed appeared less anxious.
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