$50 eye drug found equal to $2,000 dose
Study may alter patient choices
By Deborah Kotz
Boston Globe
April 29, 2011
An expensive eye injection that’s approved to treat macular degeneration — the most common cause of age-related blindness — works no better than a much cheaper drug at preventing vision loss. That’s the finding of a long-awaited study published online yesterday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study, involving more than 1,200 patients with the “wet’’ form of macular degeneration, found no difference between those who were randomly treated for one year with the more expensive drug Lucentis — which costs about $2,000 a dose — and the cheaper drug Avastin, which costs $50.
“Lucentis and Avastin were equivalent for visual acuity,’’ said study leader Dr. Daniel Martin, chair of ophthalmology at the Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute during a press conference. “When we looked at the number of letters gained or lost on an eye chart, the lost or gained lines of vision, the two drugs are virtually identical.’’
For about five years, doctors have been treating most macular degeneration patients “off-label’’ with Avastin (bevacizumab), which is primarily a cancer treatment, since it’s chemically similar to Lucentis (ranibizumab). (They use a fraction of the dose given cancer patients.) But there was always uncertainty as to whether it was just as safe and effective. Experts say the new study indicates that it is...
Friday, April 29, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
ACS President Resigns Over Controversial Editorial
ACS President Resigns Over Controversial Editorial
By Emily P. Walker
MedPage Today
April 18, 2011
The president-elect of the American College of Surgeons has resigned in light of backlash over an editorial he penned on the mood-enhancing effects semen has on women,
The ACS announced the resignation of Lazar Greenfield, MD, in an email sent to its members on Sunday.
In the article, Greenfield, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan, cited research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior and wrote, "Female college students having unprotected sex were significantly less depressed than were those whose partners used condoms."
The article offended many in the surgeons' group, and some said it was sexist and perpetuates the boys club mentality of surgery.
Greenfield expressed his "deep regret" and then his resignation to the group's Board of Regents, which met Sunday to consider the status of the 78-year-old surgeon.
Writing in the Valentine's Day editorial, which was published in Surgery News -- and has since been retracted -- Greenfield discussed research that suggests semen includes mood enhancers including oxytocin and serotonin (and a sleep enhancer, melatonin).
He concluded: "So there's a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there's a better gift for that day than chocolates."
The ACS received "numerous communications from the surgical community about the editorial," wrote the group's president, L. D. Britt, MD, along with Carlos Pellegrini, MD, chairman of the Board of Regents, and David Hoyt, MD, executive director.
At least one female ACS member, Colleen Brophy, MD, a professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University, resigned from the ACS over the editorial.
Writing in a letter to the Board, Brophy said the editorial is "just a symptom of a bigger issue," and that that college needs to be more transparent in choosing its leaders and conducting business.
"The fact that Dr. Greenfield apologized for me, for my 'taking offense' to his op ed without any insight into the implications that a physician leader advocated for unprotected sex, disturbs me," she wrote.
In a brief email to MedPage Today, Greenfield dismissed the claim that his editorial pointed to a larger sexist culture in surgery.
ACS officials acknowledged the contributions of Greenfield, including his invention of the "Greenfield Filter" a device placed in the inferior vena cava of patients who are particularly vulnerable to pulmonary embolism, to prevent venous emboli from entering the pulmonary circulation.
"We wish to honor Dr. Greenfield and celebrate his inestimable contributions to the College and the surgical community," the ACS officials wrote. "We also know that at this critical juncture for surgery and health care in America, it is important that the American College of Surgeons not be distracted by any issues that would diminish its focus on improving care of the surgical patient."
The group announced it would appoint a woman, Patricia Numann, MD, a retired surgeon from SUNY Upstate Medical Center, as the next president-elect...
By Emily P. Walker
MedPage Today
April 18, 2011
The president-elect of the American College of Surgeons has resigned in light of backlash over an editorial he penned on the mood-enhancing effects semen has on women,
The ACS announced the resignation of Lazar Greenfield, MD, in an email sent to its members on Sunday.
In the article, Greenfield, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan, cited research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior and wrote, "Female college students having unprotected sex were significantly less depressed than were those whose partners used condoms."
The article offended many in the surgeons' group, and some said it was sexist and perpetuates the boys club mentality of surgery.
Greenfield expressed his "deep regret" and then his resignation to the group's Board of Regents, which met Sunday to consider the status of the 78-year-old surgeon.
Writing in the Valentine's Day editorial, which was published in Surgery News -- and has since been retracted -- Greenfield discussed research that suggests semen includes mood enhancers including oxytocin and serotonin (and a sleep enhancer, melatonin).
He concluded: "So there's a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there's a better gift for that day than chocolates."
The ACS received "numerous communications from the surgical community about the editorial," wrote the group's president, L. D. Britt, MD, along with Carlos Pellegrini, MD, chairman of the Board of Regents, and David Hoyt, MD, executive director.
At least one female ACS member, Colleen Brophy, MD, a professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University, resigned from the ACS over the editorial.
Writing in a letter to the Board, Brophy said the editorial is "just a symptom of a bigger issue," and that that college needs to be more transparent in choosing its leaders and conducting business.
"The fact that Dr. Greenfield apologized for me, for my 'taking offense' to his op ed without any insight into the implications that a physician leader advocated for unprotected sex, disturbs me," she wrote.
In a brief email to MedPage Today, Greenfield dismissed the claim that his editorial pointed to a larger sexist culture in surgery.
ACS officials acknowledged the contributions of Greenfield, including his invention of the "Greenfield Filter" a device placed in the inferior vena cava of patients who are particularly vulnerable to pulmonary embolism, to prevent venous emboli from entering the pulmonary circulation.
"We wish to honor Dr. Greenfield and celebrate his inestimable contributions to the College and the surgical community," the ACS officials wrote. "We also know that at this critical juncture for surgery and health care in America, it is important that the American College of Surgeons not be distracted by any issues that would diminish its focus on improving care of the surgical patient."
The group announced it would appoint a woman, Patricia Numann, MD, a retired surgeon from SUNY Upstate Medical Center, as the next president-elect...
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
U.S. researchers develop new drug shrinking cancer in animals
U.S. researchers develop new drug shrinking cancer in animals
2011 April 07
xinhuanet.com
A study led by researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) showed in animal studies that new cancer drug compounds they developed shrank tumors, with few side effects.
The study, done in two mouse models of human cancer, looked at two compounds designed to activate a protein that kills cancer cells. The protein, p53, is inactivated in a significant number of human cancers. In some cases, it is because another protein, MDM2, binds to p53 and blocks its tumor suppresser function. This allows the tumor to grow unchecked. The new compounds block MDM2 from binding to p53, consequently activating p53.
"For the first time, we showed that activation of p53 by our highly potent and optimized MDM2 inhibitors can achieve complete tumor regression in a mouse model of human cancer," says lead study author Shaomeng Wang, director of the Cancer Drug Discovery Program at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Wang presented the study Wednesday at the American Association for Cancer Research 102nd annual meeting.
Many traditional cancer drugs also activate p53 but they do so by causing DNA damage in both tumor cells and normal cells, causing side effects. These new MDM2 inhibitors activate p53 while avoiding the DNA damage common with other drugs. In this study, which was done in collaboration with Ascenta Therapeutics and Sanonfi-Aventis, researchers showed that these new drugs shrank tumors without significant side effects.
Because p53 is involved in all types of human cancer, the new drug has potential to be used in multiple types of cancer. Further, the researchers also identified certain markers in tumors that predict which ones will be particularly sensitive to the MDM2 inhibitor, which would allow physicians to target the drug only to patients most likely to benefit.
2011 April 07
xinhuanet.com
A study led by researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) showed in animal studies that new cancer drug compounds they developed shrank tumors, with few side effects.
The study, done in two mouse models of human cancer, looked at two compounds designed to activate a protein that kills cancer cells. The protein, p53, is inactivated in a significant number of human cancers. In some cases, it is because another protein, MDM2, binds to p53 and blocks its tumor suppresser function. This allows the tumor to grow unchecked. The new compounds block MDM2 from binding to p53, consequently activating p53.
"For the first time, we showed that activation of p53 by our highly potent and optimized MDM2 inhibitors can achieve complete tumor regression in a mouse model of human cancer," says lead study author Shaomeng Wang, director of the Cancer Drug Discovery Program at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Wang presented the study Wednesday at the American Association for Cancer Research 102nd annual meeting.
Many traditional cancer drugs also activate p53 but they do so by causing DNA damage in both tumor cells and normal cells, causing side effects. These new MDM2 inhibitors activate p53 while avoiding the DNA damage common with other drugs. In this study, which was done in collaboration with Ascenta Therapeutics and Sanonfi-Aventis, researchers showed that these new drugs shrank tumors without significant side effects.
Because p53 is involved in all types of human cancer, the new drug has potential to be used in multiple types of cancer. Further, the researchers also identified certain markers in tumors that predict which ones will be particularly sensitive to the MDM2 inhibitor, which would allow physicians to target the drug only to patients most likely to benefit.
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