Gilroy, CA : Skin Cancer & Lung Cancer Drugs Using Personalized Treatments Show Promise
Article by Richard Kuehn
Gilroy, CA : Skin Cancer & Lung Cancer Drugs Using Personalized Treatments Show Promise : View From A Private Duty Caregiver Serving, Carmel, Carmel Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gilroy, Gonzalez, Greenfield, Hollister, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, San Juan Bautista, Seaside & Soledad California
A new skin-cancer treatment with a particular genetic mutation won quick approval from regulators who are said to be excited about using more targeted therapies. This so called personalized medicine approach can be significantly more effective than traditional treatments because they would only be carried out on those patients showing they have a particular mutation. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday approved a drug called vemurafenib which was only submitted in May for approval. The FDA has historically been criticized for being slow to approve promising new drugs, and this latest action shows that our government agencies can move quickly when under pressure. The FDA is said to be ready to approve another personalized medicine drug for lung-cancer, critzotinib. “If there is a group that a drug works really well in and there is some urgency getting it to them,” said Robert Temple, a senior FDA official, clinical trials can be smaller to provide efficacy in order to get the drug to market quickly. The skin cancer drug, which will be sold under the brand name Zelboraf, stops a mutated gene from driving the proliferation of cancer cells but the exciting thing is that about 40% of metastatic melanoma patients have the mutation so the new drug will be useful for a large swath of patients. In clinical trials, this subset of patients saw their risk of death decrease 64% compared with those using chemotherapy. About 50% of those taking the pills saw their tumors shrink, compared with only 5.5% of those using chemo. The result “takes your breath away if you’re a melanoma Doc,” Anna Pavlick, director of the melanoma program at the New York University Cancer Institute told the WSH. I think it’s particularly promising for the elderly. Chemotherapy can be draining and seniors can’t weather the side effects of some of these brutal treatments like someone younger could. The new treatment only calls for four pills in the morning and four in the evening. Side effects so far have been minimal, and when they have occurred, Doctors have been able to reduce the dosage which in many cases reduced the side effects significantly. Stay tuned for more drugs which are likely to be approved using personalized medicine. http://inagist.com/WSJHealthBlog/104233361119260673/Guided_by_genes,_shrinking_cancer%3A_story_by_WSJs_@jonathanrockoff_on_FDA_approva
About the Author
About Richard Kuehn & Family inHome Caregiving of Monterey:After more than a decade of caregiving, both in a professional environment and for a 97 year old family member I was dissatisfied with service from local caregiving agencies. I became convinced of the need for a service which provides very personal assistance to the elderly and founded Family inHome Caregiving serving the Monterey Peninsula. Please visit my blog where I talk about important senior issues at:http://www.familyinhomecaregiving.com/Blog