Experimental Drug Shows Dramatic Prostate Cancer Benefit in 2 Patients
Medarex's experimental drug, ipilimumab, in combination with surgery and other therapies, has been shown to eliminate prostate cancer in two patients who had an inoperable form of the disease, Reuters reports. The dramatic effects, announced by the Mayo Clinic, appeared online in its research magazine and are part of a larger ongoing study of 108 patients, according to Reuters. Ipilimumab is an antibody that may magnify the cancer-killing action of hormone therapy, which helps shrink prostate cancer. The combination of treatments helped shrink the patients' tumors enough that they could have surgery. "This is one of the Holy Grails of prostate cancer research," clinical trial leader Eugene Kwon, a Mayo Clinic urologist, said in a news release about the findings.
Learn how to prevent prostate cancer by losing weight or with medication—or perhaps by drinking green tea. Last week, a study showed green tea may help slow the progression of prostate cancer. Dealing with a diagnosis of prostate cancer poses dilemmas for many men.
Why Doctors Take Issue With Obama's Health Reform Plan
When President Obama spoke about healthcare reform to the American Medical Association last week, doctors' overtreatment of patients was one of his big themes. The president pointed to wide differences in the cost of treating comparable Medicare patients around the country as evidence that doctors are "using more treatments—treatments that, in some cases, they don't really need; treatments that in some cases can actually do people harm." But his diagnosis that this happens when medicine is pursued as a business, not a calling, is too simplistic, U.S. News's Dr. Bernadine Healy reports.
While reducing costs in all regions of the country is the goal, forcing standardized cost expectations on different places without knowing the real reason behind cost variation may lead to undertreatment in areas with high populations of sick patients, Dr. Healy writes. Another contributing factor to the overtreatment problem is doctors' fear of being sued if they don't order additional tests or procedures. Unnecessary treatments increase the cost of medical care and insurance premiums for everyone, Dr. Healy writes.
Earlier this month, Dr. Healy wrote about 7 ways healthcare reform will affect you. In May, she voiced concern about how the proposed healthcare reform policies would be implemented. She discussed privacy issues surrounding electronic medical records, comparative-effectiveness studies, and the public insurance option that would compete with private insurance plans.
Do Vitamins and Supplements Work to Fight Off Chronic Disease?
According to media reports yesterday, the National Institutes of Health will fund a study to determine whether vitamin D and fish oil can work as weapons in fending off cancer, heart disease, and stroke. The study, to be led by Harvard researchers, will also examine whether those dietary supplements can help with memory loss and depression, among other chronic and age-related illnesses.
Last December, U.S. News's Katherine Hobson reported the latest research findings about vitamins and supplements. Studies suggest vitamin D, which promotes calcium uptake, may help fend off cancer and ward off infections. In May, researchers reported that low vitamin D levels may contribute to cancer development. Still, there isn't enough evidence to prove that is true. Findings showing the value of the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil, especially for heart-related conditions, continue to pile up. Last year, a study in the Lancet found a slightly lower rate of deaths and hospitalizations in heart-failure patients who took a daily 1,000-milligram fish oil supplement. Here's how to get your omega-3s from many sources, one of which is fish oil supplements.
—Megan Johnson
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