By: Fabio Bergamin From: medicalxpress.com T cells become active in the body only when they recognise a peptide located on one of the immune system’s sentinel cells. The ETH scientists repurposed sentinel cells in such a way that they indicate which peptides the T cells recognise. Medicine has great hopes for personalised cancer immunotherapy. The idea is to have a …
PBM Delays for Cancer Drugs May Risk Lives, Warn Oncologists
By: Alicia Ault From: medscape.com The patient had metastatic kidney cancer, and his oncologist was seeking to treat him with sunitinib malate (Sutent, Pfizer), a preferred first-line oral therapy. But the patient’s pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) refused to cover the cost of the medication. The PBM told the oncologist that the patient’s kidney must first be removed. However, the patient’s …
New Ariadne Labs study on Serious Illness Care Program underscores significant benefit of more, better, and earlier conversations between clinicians and patients
From: prnewwire.com Across the United States, millions of individuals face serious, life-limiting illness like cancer, heart disease and stroke, respiratory disease and diabetes. The final year of life with serious illness can be filled with emotional distress and uncertainty about treatment options. When people with serious illness have conversations with their doctors and nurses about their personal values, goals, and …
Leading Pharma Publication Spotlights Let Life Happen For Patient Advocacy Work
View PostFDA suggests letting more patients with viral infections into cancer clinical trials
By: Alaric DeArment From: medcitynews.com A draft guidance, not yet implemented, suggests allowing more patients with hepatitis B and C and HIV into oncology clinical trials from which they are currently excluded. On the pages of oncology clinical trials on the database ClinicalTrials.gov, the section listing the various criteria that patients must meet for enrollment commonly includes a line stating …
Patient Advocates Applaud Cancer Drug Parity Act filed in both the U.S. House and Senate
From: prnewswire.com Bipartisan, bicameral legislation will bring equality to insurance coverage of life-saving medicines The Coalition to Improve Access to Cancer Care (CIACC) and its members from across the cancer patient and provider community today applauded Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS), Tina Smith (D-MN), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) for introducing legislation to bring fairness to the way that cancer …
Strategies developed to include more racial and ethnic minorities in clinical trials
Source: Medical University of South Carolina From: eurekalert.org Not one size fits all, and nowhere does that show up more than in the recruitment of racial and ethnic minorities into clinical trials, says Hollings Cancer Center researcher Marvella Ford, Ph.D. This is critically important since this population has a high prevalence of certain cancers. Ford, who is associate director of …
CA Assembly Bill 1268 – Prior Treatment Authorization For Cancer Patients
View PostNew strategy to tackle “don’t eat me” signal on cancer cells
Source: Netherlands Cancer Institute Myeloid immune cells kill cancer cells by eating them but cancer cells prevent this from happening by giving out a ‘do not eat me’ signal. Led by immunologists Ton Schumacher (Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode) and Ferenc Scheeren (Leiden University Medical Center), researchers from various research institutes have discovered a new method to inhibit the ‘don’t …
Hospitals will be moving to digital pathology: Study
By:Tim Sandle From: digitaljournal.com The adoption of digital pathology technology is expected to increase during the next decade and the main adopters of this technology will be healthcare organizations, such as hospitals and diagnostic laboratories, according to a new report. As well as digital technologies in general, the healthcare sector will be enhancing digital images with artificial intelligence to help …