Tag: Cancer

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Respiration Machine Recall Over Potential Most cancers Threat Leaves Thousands and thousands Scrambling for Substitutes

Breathing Machine Recall Over Possible Cancer Risk Leaves Millions Scrambling for Substitutes

Jayme Rubenstein, a spokesperson for ResMed, said the company is prioritizing the manufacture of devices for patients with immediate ventilation needs, including Covid patients, followed by machines for those with central and obstructive sleep apnea.

In a survey of home medical device providers conducted in April 2020, more than half reported interruptions in the supply chain for CPAP devices and 62 percent reported delays of up to 60 days. The Philips recall “certainly exacerbated the situation,” said Thomas Ryan, chairman of the American Association for Homecare, which commissioned the study and represents the suppliers. (Philips is on his board.)

“Given the shortage of materials to make these devices, such as resins and computer chip modules, and transportation bottlenecks, I expect supply will continue to lag behind demand through 2022,” he said. “It will be a crisis”

Amy Sloane, who learned she had sleep apnea in 2017, began using a DreamStation BiPAP Auto SV device the following year. Overall, she said, her sleep improved. However, after reading about the recall, she became concerned to learn that the sonic cleaning device she was using could break the foam barrier.

“Even more annoying,” she said, “when I manually wiped my DreamStation water tank, there were black particles on the wipe.”

Ms. Sloane, 57, a Baltimore-based attorney, early registered her device with Philips for recall. But she said the company’s only response was to tell her to consult her doctor, who advised her to stop using it immediately. Within a few days, her doctor was able to prescribe a self-adjusting CPAP device from another manufacturer.

As of June, around 40 lawsuits have been filed against Philips on behalf of patients in more than 20 states. Steven Bloch, an attorney for Silver Golub & Teitell in Stamford, Connecticut, said his law firm has filed four lawsuits in Massachusetts, where Philips’ US headquarters are located.

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This Breast Most cancers Gene Is Much less Effectively Recognized, however Almost as Harmful

This Breast Cancer Gene Is Less Well Known, but Nearly as Dangerous

Heidi Marsh, 46, of Seattle, tested positive for the PALB2 mutation after her mother – a patient with breast and pancreatic cancer – was found to have it. She said her own doctor was unaware of the gene.

“My obstetrician was aware of my mother’s history and never suggested a genetic test,” Ms. Marsh said. “She’s never heard of it. I raised them. The oncologist she sent me to didn’t suggest an operation. “

But the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a partner at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where Ms. Marsh’s mother was an oncology nurse, knew about the gene mutation. The group immediately put together a team that consisted of a surgical oncologist, a pancreatic cancer specialist, a geneticist, a nutritionist, and a social worker.

“It changed life,” said Ms. Marsh, who had fallopian tubes removed in April. (She was told that most ovarian cancer occurs in the fallopian tubes first. She plans to have her ovaries removed after menopause.)

She will have breast monitoring with alternating mammograms and breast MRIs every six months. She already had an endoscopic ultrasound to examine her pancreas.

She found a Facebook group, PALB2 Warriors, to be helpful. Having a healthcare background – she was a phlebotomist – she says she looks beyond individual posts, to studies that are placebo-controlled and peer-reviewed to get information. But when it comes to personal testimonials with prophylactic mastectomies and reconstructions, this is invaluable.

“That wasn’t remotely on my radar screen,” she said. “In a way, I feel empowered. But I also have the feeling that I am waiting for the other shoe to fall, that cancer will be inevitable. “

But above all, she is grateful that she knows about PALB2 and the associated risks.

“It’s an alarm clock and a wake-up call,” she said. “You can do something about it if you want.”

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Novartis CEO says Covid-related physician go to delays seemingly impacting most cancers analysis charges

Novartis CEO says Covid-related doctor visit delays likely impacting cancer diagnosis rates

The health-care system is still seeing lower rates of diagnoses for certain conditions after the coronavirus pandemic kept non-Covid patients away from the hospital early on, Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan told CNBC on Wednesday.

“I think the signals that were sent that ultimately asked patients to stay away from the emergency room, stay away from hospitals, sent a very powerful message to patients not to get the care that they needed,” Narasimhan said on “Closing Bell.” “It may have been appropriate given the public health emergency, but over time what that does is it creates a significant need for better treatments for these patients.”

Narasimhan, who joined Novartis in 2005, said that while trends are positive, lower rates of diagnoses in areas such as cardiovascular disease and oncology remain. For the latter, he said diagnoses are still 30% to 40% lower than pre-Covid-19 levels. Novartis makes cancer treatments.

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans between the ages of 50 and 80 delayed an in-person medical visit last year due to worries about exposure to Covid, according to a poll from the National Poll on Healthy Aging based at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. The poll, taken in January, found that 24% of people with cancer and 30% of people with heart conditions had delayed at least one in-person visit.

“Cancer patients that are diagnosed later tend to have worse outcomes, similarly for cardiovascular disease patients that don’t get the therapies that they need,” Narasimhan said. “That in turn creates more burden on the health-care systems over time.”

As Covid cases increase in the U.S. and around the world due to the highly transmissible delta variant, Narasimhan hopes lessons from the early stages of the health crisis have been learned. “I think it’s critical now, this time around, we ensure patients can maintain their care even as the pandemic ebbs and flows over the coming months,” he said.

“We remain optimistic that even as we go through various waves of Covid that the health-care systems have learned that we need to maintain care for noncommunicable diseases, other chronic diseases,” he added.” “Otherwise in effect we create another epidemic, a syndemic so to speak, of these other diseases.”

On Wednesday, Novartis beat analyst expectations for second-quarter revenue and earnings. Narasimhan said the Swiss drugmaker witnessed a resurgence in demand across many therapeutic areas, and noted the company had 9% growth in sales and 13% growth in operating income. 

Novartis is currently involved in manufacturing the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccines, and is assisting CureVac in making vaccines, as well. Novartis also produces monoclonal antibodies to treat Covid for partner companies,” Narasimhan said. “We’re doing a lot, but also ready to do more if needed.”

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Coronary heart Failure Tied to Elevated Most cancers Threat, Examine Finds

Heart Failure Tied to Increased Cancer Risk, Study Finds

People with heart failure can be at increased risk of cancer.

Cancer patients are usually monitored for heart failure because some cancer drugs can damage the heart. Now, a new study suggests that heart failure patients who can live with the disease for many years could benefit from being monitored for cancer.

The researchers used a German health database to track 100,124 heart failure patients and compare them to the same number of controls who did not have heart failure. All were initially cancer-free, and the scientists tracked their cancer incidence over the next 10 years. The study is in the journal ESC Heart Failure.

The two groups were matched for age, gender, age, obesity, and diabetes incidence, although researchers lacked data on socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity, all of which are known to affect cancer risk.

Nevertheless, the differences in cancer incidence between the two groups were significant. Overall, 25.7 percent of patients with heart failure were diagnosed with some form of cancer compared with 16.2 percent in those without.

The increased rate of cancer in heart patients has been noted in other studies, but the large sample size in this analysis allowed researchers to identify differences between the cancers. Heart failure patients were more than twice as likely to develop cancer of the lip, oral cavity, and throat. The risk of lung cancer and other cancers of the respiratory tract was 91 percent higher, female genital cancer 86 percent, and skin cancer 83 percent higher. People with heart failure were 75 percent more likely to develop colon cancer, stomach cancer, and other cancers of the digestive system. Women with heart failure were 67 percent more likely to develop breast cancer and men were 52 percent more likely to develop cancer of the genital organs.

“I think it’s an interesting retrospective cohort study,” said Dr. Girish L. Kalra, Senior Cardiology Fellow at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA who was not involved in the work. “The study’s main flaw is that the database did not allow researchers to control the greatest risk of developing cancer and heart disease: smoking. Smoking cigarettes could be the common thread in this study. “

Although the strong association with oropharyngeal and respiratory cancers suggests that smoking might be an explanation, the association remained robust for a wide range of cancers. The study also controlled other factors associated with different types of cancer, including obesity, diabetes, and increasing age, as well as the frequency of medical consultations that could lead to increased detection of cancer.

In addition to smoking, there are other possible mechanisms that could explain the link. For example, a previous study found that a well-known protein biomarker for heart disease that occurs before symptoms appear also correlates with an increased risk of cancer. It is also possible, the researchers write, that chronic inflammation can be implicated in both heart failure and cancer. Alcohol consumption has also been linked to a wide variety of cancers.

“There are more correlations between heart failure and cancer than just common risk factors,” says lead author Mark Luedde, a cardiologist at Kiel University. “Heart failure is not a heart disease. It is almost always a disease of the heart and other organs. The importance of comorbidities for the prognosis and quality of life of those affected cannot be overestimated. “

Dr. Kalra agreed. “Ultimately, the heart is a guarantee for all health,” he said. “This study supports the belief that people with heart failure are a high risk group and deserve our greatest attention. As doctors, we should ensure that our heart patients are screened for cancer at the recommended intervals. And we should continue to urge our smokers to quit. “

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New Remedy for Aggressive Prostate Most cancers Improves Survival

New Therapy for Aggressive Prostate Cancer Improves Survival

An experimental therapy has prolonged life in men with aggressive prostate cancer that has resisted other treatments, offering new hope to patients with advanced illness and opening the door to a promising new form of cancer therapy.

Among men who received the new therapy, there was a nearly 40 percent reduction in deaths over the course of the clinical trial, compared with similar patients who received only standard treatment, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among American men, after lung cancer; an estimated 34,130 men will die of prostate cancer this year. One in eight men will be diagnosed with the disease at some point in their lives. The risk increases with age, and the cancer is more common in Black men.

The new treatment relies on a radioactive molecule to target a protein found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. The study, which followed 831 patients with advanced disease in 10 countries for a median period of 20 months, was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

“This is something new — you’re driving radiation right to the cancer itself,” said Karen Knudsen, president and chief executive of the American Cancer Society. “It’s a much more sophisticated strategy for targeting the tumor.”

“You’re not just destroying the cancer cells — you’re smart-bombing the place that the tumor has found for itself to live.”

There is no definitive cure for metastatic prostate cancer, and there is an urgent need for new therapies, Dr. Knudsen said. Most life-extending treatments rely on suppressing or blocking androgens, the male hormones that fuel prostate cancer.

“This opens the door to precision radiotherapy targeted at other molecules that are on the surface of other cancer cells,” said Dr. Philip Kantoff, chairman of medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The investigational treatment, called lutetium-177-PSMA-617, combines a compound that targets a protein on the surface of prostate cancer cells, called prostate-specific membrane antigen, or P.S.M.A., with a radioactive particle that attacks the cells.

The P.S.M.A. protein, which can be detected by imaging scans, is almost exclusively on prostate cancer cells, and so the treatment causes less damage to surrounding tissue, said Dr. Oliver Sartor, the trial’s co-principal investigator and medical director of Tulane Cancer Center in New Orleans.

Though the protein is not ubiquitous in prostate tumors, it is found in more than 80 percent of cases. Among patients screened for the trial, 87 percent were P.S.M.A.-positive. Only those men who were positive for the marker were included in the trial.

The study enrolled men with a form of metastatic prostate cancer called castration-resistant prostate cancer. All the patients had disease that progressed despite treatments with chemotherapy and hormonal therapy to suppress and block androgens.

Participants were randomly assigned to receive the experimental treatment, given every six weeks in up to six doses along with standard treatment, or to continue standard care alone, but without chemotherapy or other isotopes.

After a median follow-up period of 20.9 months, patients given the experimental treatment survived for a median of 15.3 months, compared with 11.3 months for those who received only standard care, a reduction of 38 percent.

Their tumors were more likely to shrink, their prostate-specific antigen levels were more likely to fall, and the risk of their cancer progressing was reduced by 60 percent.

Side effects — most commonly fatigue, dry mouth and nausea — were more prevalent among those receiving the compound than among those who did not, but did not appear to significantly affect quality of life, the researchers said.

The study had some limitations. It was a randomized trial, but because of the difficulties of running a double-blinded trial with a radioactive treatment, the trial was open-label: Both patients and physicians knew whether or not they were getting the treatment. That caused some problems early on, as patients who were disappointed by their assignment withdrew from the trial.

The investigational drug worked where other approaches had failed, Dr. Sartor emphasized. “These patients had received essentially all the available therapies,” he said. “This is the first drug targeted to the tumor that actually results in overall survival benefit among incredibly, heavily pretreated patients.”

Dr. Sartor was a co-principal investigator of the trial, along with Dr. Bernd Krause, of Rostock University Medical Center in Germany. The trial was sponsored by Endocyte Inc. and Advanced Accelerator Applications, which are Novartis companies; Dr. Sartor is a paid consultant to the company. The data were analyzed by the sponsor and provided confidentially to the authors.

Officials with Novartis said the company will apply to the Food and Drug Administration for approval of the new treatment later this year.

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Jessica Morris, Whose Mind Most cancers Was Her Trigger, Dies at 57

Jessica Morris, Whose Brain Cancer Was Her Cause, Dies at 57

Through the nonprofit Our Brain Bank she founded, Ms. Morris encouraged more than just treating the tumor.

“If you are suddenly told that you have a disease that is considered incurable,” she said in the Human Guinea Pig Project podcast in 2019, “the only thing you urgently need is psychological support, and it’s not there.”

She also wanted to make sure patients had access to second opinions and funding so that those who were told by a doctor “nothing can be done” could take a more aggressive approach if they so wished. She herself took several novel approaches, her husband said, including an experimental therapy suggested by one of her doctors that injects herpes virus into the tumor in hopes of stimulating an immune response.

“Even if I don’t know exactly how certain treatments might work – and nobody really knows – it makes sense to block as many routes to cancer as possible,” Ms. Morris said on the podcast.

Another goal was to make it easier for glioblastoma patients to participate in clinical trials with drugs and therapies. Access to such studies can be tedious and frustrating for patients with limited life expectancy. And since glioblastoma is a complex disease in which each tumor has different characteristics, Ms. Morris and her organization have developed an app that patients can use to report symptoms and share information with each other and with medical professionals – to better understand the disease.

“Patient symptom data is a largely untapped pool of information that can inform researchers so they can better develop treatments,” Ms. Morris said during a 2019 panel discussion on patient-centered treatments. “Involving patients in this process has the added benefit of making people with the disease feel like they are dealing with the disease, and not the other way around.”

Jessica Jane Morris was born on July 22nd, 1963 in Greenwich near London. Her father Bill was an architect and her mother Elizabeth (Villar) Morris is an artist.

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On-the-Job Train Could Assist Shield In opposition to Coronary heart Illness and Most cancers

On-the-Job Exercise May Help Protect Against Heart Disease and Cancer

For the new study, published in The Lancet Public Health in April, researchers from the Norwegian School of Sports Science in Oslo and other institutions decided to dig as deep as possible into lifestyle, work in the workplace, and lifespan.

They started with data already collected by Norwegian health authorities, which have been conducting studies to measure the health of hundreds of thousands of Norwegians for decades. These data included detailed information about their work and movement history, education, income, and other aspects of their life.

The researchers now compiled data sets for 437,378 of the participants in these studies and categorized them by occupation type. Some, like clerks or inspectors, would walk and lift at work; others did heavy manual labor; and the others sat more or less at their desks all day. The researchers then compared people’s records to decades-long databases tracking diseases and deaths in Norway.

On an initial run, their results reinforced the idea that active jobs shorten life. Over the course of approximately 30 years, sedentary men outlived those who frequently walked or otherwise exerted themselves at work. (There was still no significant correlation between women’s occupations and their longevity.)

But when scientists scrupulously checked everyone’s education, income, smoking, exercise habits, and weight, the associations turned around. In this more in-depth analysis, men who were professionally active were less likely to develop heart disease and cancer than men who were confined to desks. Regardless of whether they walked a fair bit to get to work or did other, more strenuous work, active men lived on average about a year longer.

In essence, the study shows that “every movement counts, regardless of whether you are active at work or in your free time,” says Ulf Ekelund, professor at the Norwegian School of Sports Science, who oversaw the new study. Conversely, the results also remind us that sitting, even at comfortable desks or on comfortable sofas, is unhealthy.

What this study does not tell us is what aspects of our lives apart from work could most affect our health and longevity, or why women’s lifespans in general seem unaffected by the exertion of work hours. Dr. Ekelund and colleagues hope to examine some of these questions in future research. But for the time being, he says, assume “that any physical activity is beneficial, whether it’s in your free time, at work, at home or during transport.”

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A ‘Recreation Changer’ for Sufferers With Esophageal Most cancers

A ‘Game Changer’ for Patients With Esophageal Cancer

Chemotherapy has difficult side effects, and the radiation causes a burning sensation that makes it difficult to swallow. “The food won’t go down,” said Ms. Mordecai. “You just feel lazy.”

The next step is major surgery. A doctor removes most of the patient’s esophagus, with the tract going from the mouth to the stomach. He then grabs the stomach, pulls it up, and attaches it to a leftover esophageal stump.

The result is a stomach that is vertical rather than horizontal and that lacks the sphincter muscle that normally prevents stomach acid from leaking out. For the rest of their lives, patients can never lie flat – when they do, the contents of their stomach, including acid, flow down their throats. They can choke, cough, and aspirate.

Recovery is difficult and morbidity and mortality are high. But most patients do the surgery once they have weighed their options. Refusing treatment means giving up and letting the cancer close the esophagus so much that some cannot even swallow their own saliva, said Dr. Paul Helft, professor of surgery and ethicist at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The treatment is so long and harrowing that Dr. Often used to help educate medical students and other trainees about informed consent – how patients need to be fully informed before starting any given treatment. In particular, patients with esophageal cancer should be warned that they are likely to recur within the first year.

Ms. Mordecai said that her husband had an operation in late September 2008. By December 6th, he had untreatable metastases in his liver. Now, she said, the patients might have a glimmer of hope.

Dr. Ilson, who has spent his career developing therapies to help patients with esophageal cancer, said he did not expect this treatment to be successful: “We all become nihilistic after years of negative study.”

“This is really a milestone,” he added, and the drug “will set a new standard for care.”

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Covid was third main reason for dying in U.S. in 2020, behind coronary heart illness and most cancers, CDC says

Covid was third leading cause of death in U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, CDC says

The body of a deceased patient is considered a health care worker treating individuals infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on December 30, 2020 at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, United States.

Callaghan O’Hare | Reuters

Coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2020, after heart disease and cancer, according to a new study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 3.3 million deaths were reported in the US last year, up 16% from 2019. This is according to early data released Wednesday by the National Vital Statistics System, which provides annual mortality statistics based on death certificates investigates and reports.

The deadliest weeks of last year were at the start of the pandemic and then in the middle of the holiday flood in the weeks leading up to April 11, with 78,917 deaths, and December 26, when 80,656 people died, the CDC found.

According to the study published on Wednesday, Covid-19 was listed as the root cause of 345,323 deaths. More Americans died in the process than accidental injuries, strokes, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease.

Only heart disease and cancer killed more people than Covid-19 in the US in 2020 – heart disease killed 690,882 people and cancer killed 598,932.

Covid-19 replaced suicide in the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States, the study found. Overall, the annual death rate rose nearly 16% year over year in 2020, the first time since 2017, according to the CDC.

The highest annual death rates were reported among men, people age 85 and over, and people who are not Hispanic Black and Native American and Alaskan native, according to the CDC.

However, if you just look at Covid-19, Hispanic and Native American and Alaskan Native Americans, as well as those aged 85 and over, were more likely to die of the disease compared to any other group. Men died more often from Covid-19 than women.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said after the study was published the results should “act as a catalyst” for Americans to reduce the spread of the virus and get vaccinated when it is their turn to get vaccinated.

“I know this is not easy and so many of us are frustrated with the disruption this pandemic has had in our daily lives, but we can do this as a nation that works together,” Walensky said during a White House press conference Covid-19

The agency’s first results were released months ahead of schedule as “freshness has improved and there is an urgent need for updated quality data during the global COVID-19 pandemic,” the researchers wrote.

Typically, it takes researchers 11 months after the end of the calendar year to “investigate specific causes of death and process and review data”. The daily Covid deaths reported by the CDC, while current, may underestimate the actual number of deaths due to “incomplete or late reports”.

“Preliminary death estimates provide an early indication of shifts in mortality trends and can guide public health policies and actions aimed at reducing the number of deaths directly or indirectly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic “write the researchers.

Some have tried to sow doubts about the real number of Covid-19 deaths, claiming they may have been overstated. However, in a separate CDC study released Wednesday, the agency found that the death certificates accurately reflected the number of reported coronavirus deaths.

The agency checked death certificates listing Covid-19 and at least one other concurrent illness. The CDC found that Covid-19 was reported in 97% of deaths alongside another condition that the virus might have caused, such as pneumonia or respiratory failure, or that contributed significantly to its severity, such as diabetes or high blood pressure.

A small fraction of them – 2.5% of the certificates – documented conditions not currently associated with Covid-19, the CDC noted.

“These results support the accuracy of COVID-19 mortality monitoring in the US using official death certificates,” the researchers said.

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José Baselga, Who Superior Breast Most cancers Therapies, Dies at 61

José Baselga, Who Advanced Breast Cancer Treatments, Dies at 61

José Baselga was born in Barcelona on July 3, 1959 and received his doctorate in medicine and doctorate from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He caught the attention of cancer researchers after completing a medical fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering, where he and Dr. John Mendelsohn studied the use of monoclonal antibodies in fighting certain proteins associated with aggressive cancers, including lung and breast cancers.

Dr. Larry Norton, Senior Vice President at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Medical Director of the hospital’s Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center, quickly became interested in Dr. Baselga and served as an early mentor. “He was an artist,” recalled Dr. Norton, adding that he “had a driving force within him and would focus all of his energies on achieving what is necessary to achieve that vision.”

Dr. Baselga returned to Spain in 1996 and founded the Vall d’Hebron Institute for Oncology at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona. Under his leadership, the center became an international powerhouse in cancer research, testing targeted cancer therapies in early clinical trials. Dr. Baselga became a well-known figure in Spain.

“Spain was not known in the world as a place for research on cancer,” said Dr. Antoni Ribas, the president of the American Association for Cancer Research, who completed his medical training in Vall d’Hebron just before Dr. Baselga took over his role there. said in a telephone interview. “He put Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona and Spain on the map of cancer research.”

After a period from 2010 to 2013 at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was director of the Department of Hematology and Oncology, Dr. Baselga returned to Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2013 to become chief physician and later chief physician.

He also held various leadership positions in the world of cancer research, including president of the American Association for Cancer Research and editor of Cancer Discovery and other medical journals.

Dr. Baselga resigned under pressure from Sloan Kettering in September 2018 after The Times and ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journalism outfit, reported that it failed to disclose millions of dollars in drug and health company payments in dozens of research articles in The New England Journal of Medicine and other publications.