GLG News by Physicians who Perform Procedures using MammoSite

Fentora is a great, but potentially dangerous product. With it's significant narcotic effect, it should only be prescirbed to appropriate patients by those with experience. The recent deaths were likely due to poor patient selection and lack of experience by the providers.  

The STAR trial was a follow-up to the P1 trial, evaluating whether raloxifene (Evista) could be used as a preventive agent. The results were supportive of this agent in this role, and hence the FDA has approved it. There is a black box warning on stroke risk, though the results did not show a significantly...

Given the recent data on erythropoietin, this study further demonstrates the significant potential adverse events seen. Expect sales to continue to decrease, as erythropoietin drugs in the future will be used in renal failure and oncology patients to keep hematocrits in a reasonable range.

Previous data on Iressa has shown no survival benefit.   This phase III trial comparing Iressa to Taxotere in locally advanced phase III NSCLC seems to show equivalence.   And, clearly the Iressa was more favorable than taxotere. If the data is true, this will reignite the question...

I've previously posted on the early news of this data.     We now have more information, including the response rate and median survival in this trial - and the good news is that it parallels the prior phase II data. This is promising information, but we'll still need to see the...

Financing of health care by physicians is a relatively new phenomenon.   While this practice is most aggressively being used in the arena of non-covered services (plastic surgery, Lasik, etc), it has some relevance to general medicine as well. In the covered services arena, it's pretty simple...

Nimotuzumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody against EGFR. Initial results showed some response in patients with GBM and recurrent pediatric gliomas (ASCO 2007).  High grade gliomas have many genetic aberrations including amplification of EGFR, loss of the tumor-suppressor protein PTEN, overexpression...

Varian's new Smart Segmentation Tool is an addition to their Eclipse planning system which aims to shorten planning time in intesity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) cases.    Typically, IMRT cases require the planning physician to spend several hourse identifying target structures...

ALS-357 has shown pre-clinical success both in-vitro and in-vivo, and is now slated for phase I/II trials. Unfotunately this drug is targeting metastitic melanoma using a topical delivery vehicle.   While this has worked in a mouse, I'm not sure this will really work effectively in humans...

Vaccines are an interesting concept in cancer therapeutics.   However, other than Guardasil, which prevents HPV infection and subsequent risk of cervical cancer, NO other vaccine has shown a true benefit in patients with active cancers.   Look at all the data in melanoma, which has...