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Colon Cancer Facts

May 20, 2016 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

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Micrograph of colon cancer

STATES CHRONICLE – A new study reveals that the chances of survival, when diagnosed with colon cancer, depend on the location the deadly cell disease strikes.

A study led by Dr. Alan P. Venook of UC San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center has uncovered the remarkable fact that patients with metastatic colon cancer developed on the left side of the colon survive longer than those having the disease on the other side of the colon.

“All colon cancer is not created equally,” said the oncologist Alan P. Venook. For the doctor, it is evident that the two sides of the colon are affected differently by the disease. The study also found that a standard drug treatment used for colon cancer offers, in fact, little benefit to those diseases striking on the right side.

Additionally, the federally-funded study showed that the colon cancer is not just one disease, but a number of different conditions. Scientists suggest that until they learn more about these findings, cancer should be treated differently according to its location.

The study began in 2004 having 293 patients with right-sided colon cancer and 732 patients with left-sided tumors. In 2014, the clinical trial reached a new benchmark in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer patients, setting new expectations for their time with the lethal disease.

The life expectancy stretched 10 percent more than two decades earlier, going up to more than five years. Patients with left-sided primary tumors typically lived for almost 33.3 months, while patients with right-sided primary tumors usually lived for about 19.4 months.

Treated with the same cetuximab drug, patients with cancer on the left side survived on average for 36 months and those with cancer on the right side survived on average 16.7 months.

These differences are truly significant. Doctor Venook says that the two sides of the colon come from different tissue in the embryo which makes them biologically different. Patients with right-sided colon cancer have greater tumor damage because their symptoms arise later than symptoms of the same disease on the other side of the colon.

The oncologist concludes that the side of the colon is “undoubtedly a surrogate marker for biological characteristics of the cancers” and until they learn more about this biology, colon cancer should be approached differently according to its location.

Image source: Wikimedia

World Drug Bill Will Reach $1.3 Trillion By 2018

November 20, 2014 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

The world spends most of its money on medicine. New study reveals that by the year 2018 the world drug bill will reach approximately $1.3 trillion. The new treatments for cancer and hepatitis C contribute to the rise. Another factor for this increase are the people that buy pharmaceuticals using their rising incomes.

The new drug against hepatitis C called Gilead costs $1,000 per pill, and this will help the increase in spending more on drugs by 30% compared to 2013. The new study was made by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, which track down the prescriptions for drugs and sell the data.

As the world drug bill continues to rise, the health system will have to decide on how to give out the budgets. Murray Aitken, IMS executive directors said:

“The focus now is, how do we get value from the trillion dollars we’re spending?”

According to the new study, the United States spends the most on drugs per capital in 2018. The IMS Institute forecasts that the Americans will pay an average of approximately $1,409 per person in 2018. This is actually up from last year’s $1,075. The rate grew faster than the expansion of the American population.

China is the second-biggest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the world and it is forecast to spend approximately $124 per person in 2108, which is an increase from last year, when it was $72.
The new study on the world drug bill also reveals that the new high prices on medicines will increase the spending in developed countries and will also raise it in countries like Africa.

The new study showed that other types of health spending won’t rise in the next year, like doctor visits, or hospital care. In some cases, the drugs lower the total spending by keeping the people out of the doctor’s office or the hospitals.

The new drugs for Hepatitis C, like Sovaldi and Harvoni by Gilead and Olysio by Johnson & Johnson, are pushing the world drug bill higher. The study shows that the world will spend more than $100 billion on the new drugs from 2014 until 2018.

Marriage linked to higher rate of cancer survival

September 24, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

A new study suggests that married couples are more likely to survive cancer than those who are not.

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital carried a study on married people and found those who are married when diagnosed with cancer live longer than those who are not.

The principal reason behind the higher rate of survival was also because in married patients cancers were found to be diagnosed at an earlier stage when it is often more successfully treated.

Ayal Aizer, chief resident of the Harvard Radiation Oncology Programme and the paper’s first author, said, “Our data suggests that marriage can have a significant health impact for patients with cancer, and this was consistent among every cancer that we reviewed.”

“We suspect that social support from spouses is what’s driving the striking improvement in survival. Spouses often accompany patients on their visits and make sure they understand the recommendations and complete all their treatments,” Aizer said.

Study

The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of 734,889 people, who were diagnosed with cancer between 2004 and 2008, utilizing the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Programme.

They focused on the 10 leading causes of cancer deaths in the United States: lung, colorectal, breast, pancreatic, prostate, liver/bile duct, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, head and neck, ovarian, and esophageal cancer.

The researchers found that in comparison with married patients, unmarried cancer patients, including those who were widowed, were 17 percent more likely to have metastatic cancer (cancer that spread beyond its original site) and were 53 percent less likely to receive the appropriate therapy.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

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