GLG News by Radiation Oncologists

VMAT is the answer to Tomotherapy and more. This new VMAT technology improves on current IMRT and Tomotherapy.

This article reports on Varian's answer to Tomotherapy which has been gaining some market share in the Radiation Oncology linear accelerator arena. Tomotherapy has a good product but requires a shift in treatment planning technique and complete replacement of hardware. There have been reports about...

This is a big hit for Pfizer - a costly product they licensed due to lack of good pipeline products.   Unfortunatley, I don't think they anticipated the issues surrounding the complexity of inhaled insulin, properly marketed the product, or did enough research on the patient side (ie compliane,...

Cardiovascular disease in breast cancer is a real risk.   As our population is aging, and breast cancer is one of the most comon cancers, it is up to us to minimize risks of treatment related morbidity.

While the data between avastin and lucentis is pending, it's interesting to see Genetch trying to defending profits at the expense of patients.   Genetech has impeded this trial, so that they could defend sales of Lucentis. Before lucentis was approved, avastin was used for macular degeneration...

Glioblastoma multiforme are one of the worst tumors one can have - period.   Even with aggressive surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, most of these patients succumb to their disease within 1 year.   Initial results of Avastin + Irinotecan look promising as a second line regimen.  ...

There were certain unresolved issues before the clinical usage of fentanyl in cancer patients. There are interesting metabolic features of this potent drug. First of all, its LD50 (the dosage causing the %50 death to applied laboratory animals) value is 100 times lower in primates than rodents (mice,...

Differentiation-inducing liposoluble vitamins are being used for about 20 years in hematological oncology, after the finding that all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) differentiates promyelocytic leukemia clones leading clinical benefits. With this discovery, interest into retinoids (Vitamin A derivatives)...

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...