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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Drug combo helps slow lung cancer: study

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 31-May-2009 03:43 hrs

Doctors inspect a lung X-ray. The combination of two anti-cancer treatments following standard chemotherapy can slow advanced non-small cell lung cancer, according to a study unveiled Saturday.

The combination of two anti-cancer treatments following standard chemotherapy can slow advanced non-small cell lung cancer, according to a study unveiled Saturday.

Patients treated with a combination of Tarceva, sold by the Swiss drugmaker Roche, and Avastin, a drug by Roche's Genentech unit, saw their cancer growth slow more than a control group treated with Avastin.

More than 750 patients were randomized to receive Avastin and a placebo, or Avastin and Tarceva. Those in the Tarceva group survived an average of 4.8 months before the cancer started growing again, compared to 3.7 months for the control group, said Vincent Miller, the study's main author.

The numbers translated to a 29 percent reduced risk of disease progression for patients who took a combination of Tarceva and Avastin.

All of the patients in the double-blind, Phase 3 trial received four cycles of chemotherapy and Avastin as initial treatment.

Miller, of the Memorial Sloan-Ketterin Cancer Center in New York, presented his findings at the 45th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Orlando, Florida this weekend, the biggest global cancer conference.

Non-small cell lung cancer, often linked to smoking, is the most common lung cancer and the most prevalent cancer, accounting for 14 percent of all cases in the United States.

It is also the deadliest, accounting for 23.3 percent of US cancer deaths, well ahead of colorectal (8.9 percent) and breast (7.2 percent) cancer.

"This is the first study to show that adding erlotinib (Tarceva) to maintenance therapy with bevacizumab (Avastin) delays disease progression in patients who have already received bevacizumab as part of their initial chemotherapy," said Miller.

"We've shown here we can delay progression with the addition of a targeted agent, erlotinib (Tarceva). Critical future work will try to determine which patients will get the greatest benefit from this combination, based in large part on the identification of genetic biomarkers." — AFP

From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.

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Would you have taken RESERVE if you knew about it?

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Budget would boost flu preparations, food safety

English: Logo of the . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AP - Friday, May 8

WASHINGTON - With the swine flu still claiming victims, President Barack Obama's 2010 budget would devote an additional $584 million to pandemic flu preparation efforts.

That's on top of $1.5 billion Obama requested from Congress for this year when the flu first emerged. The House Appropriations Committee approved that request Thursday and added an additional $550 million to help state and local governments and support global flu-stopping efforts.

Also on public health, the administration is asking for a nearly 20 percent increase _ the biggest boost ever _ in the budget of the Food and Drug Administration, partly to put 222 more food inspectors in the field, for a total of 1,022.

That proposal comes in the wake of a series of salmonella and other food safety scares that have led to criticism of FDA.

The administration is seeking to finance the increase partly with a new user fee on food facilities.

(This version CORRECTS number of new food inspectors to 222, not 325 as initially reported by FDA.)

From Yahoo! News; source article is here.

H1N1 flu covered under most health plans

English: 2,500 people line up in a mall in Texas City, Texas to receive a dose of the H1N1/Swine Flu vaccine from the Galveston County Health Department (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

05:55 AM May 09, 2009

Medical costs related to pandemic flu are covered by most health insurance policies in Singapore, the Life Insurance Association (LIA) said yesterday.

“Coverage of Influenza A (H1N1) applies to Medical Expense (or Hospital and Surgical) policies including Integrated Shield Plans. As such, hospital and medication costs incurred as a consequence of H1N1 flu will be covered, up to the limits, sub-limits as well as any applicable terms and conditions stated in the policy.”

The LIA’s statement comes after Raffles Medical Group and its insurance arm, International Medical Insurers, launched last week the Raffles FluProtect plan at a cost of $36 for six months of coverage, or $60 for a year.

The LIA, which comprises the major life insurers in Singapore, nonetheless advises policyholders to review the coverage in their plans to make sure they are adequately protected. While most health policies cover medical costs related to pandemic flu, policyholders should note that clauses in some plans can exclude H1N1, pandemic conditions, as well as impose geographical restrictions, the LIA said.

From TODAY, Home – Weekend, 09/10-May-2009

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Swine flu goes person-to-pig; What's next?

English: Main symptoms of swine flu. (See Wikipedia:Swine influenza#Swine flu in Humans). Model: Mikael Häggström. To discuss image, please see Template talk:Häggström diagrams References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention > Key Facts about Swine Influenza (Swine Flu) Retrieved on April 27, 2009 Joint pain added from general influenza: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention > Influenza Symptoms Page last updated November 16, 2007. Retrieved April 28, 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By MARGIE MASON,AP Medical Writer AP - 2 hours 44 minutes ago

MEXICO CITY - Now that the swine flu virus has passed from a farmworker to pigs, could it jump back to people? The question is important, because crossing species again could make it more deadly.

The never-before-seen virus was created when genes from pig, bird and human viruses mixed together inside a pig. Experts fear the virus that has gone from humans back into pigs in at least one case could mutate further before crossing back into humans again. But no one can predict what will happen.

"Could it gain virulence? Yes," Juan Lubroth, an animal health expert at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, said Sunday. "It could also become milder. It could go in both directions."

Canadian officials announced Saturday that the virus had infected about 200 pigs on a farm _ the first evidence that it had jumped to another species. It was linked to a farmworker who recently returned from Mexico, where 19 people have died from the virus. The farmworker has recovered, and the mildly infected pigs have been quarantined.

Agriculture officials believe the worker may have sneezed or coughed near the pigs, possibly in a barn. About 10 percent of the herd experienced loss of appetite and fever, but all are recovering.

Experts say pork _ even from infected pigs _ is safe to eat.

Lubroth stressed that sick people should avoid contact with swine, but said healthy farmworkers don't need to take any extra precautions because the chance of catching flu from a pig is small.

Unlike the H5N1 bird flu virus, which infects the blood, organs and tissue of poultry, most swine flus are confined to the respiratory tract, meaning the risk of a human getting infected by a pig is "probably 10 or a 1,000 times less," Lubroth said.

But pigs are of special concern because they share some basic biological similarities with humans, and they have served as "mixing vessels" in which various flu strains have swapped genetic material. That's what happened to create the current swine flu strain.

Scientists are unsure when the virus leaped from pigs to humans _ possibly months or even a year ago _ but it was identified as a new strain about a week and a half ago. Since then, nearly 800 cases have been confirmed worldwide. The only death outside Mexico occurred when a Mexican toddler died in a Texas hospital.

There have been sporadic cases of pigs infecting humans with influenza in the past. Most cases resulted in mild symptoms, typically among people who were in close contact with sick pigs. A few deaths have been recorded, and limited human-to-human transmission also has been documented, but nothing sustained.

Dr. Tim Uyeki, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has worked on SARS and bird flu outbreaks, said there may be more pig-to-human cases that have gone unnoticed because surveillance among swine populations tends to be weaker than among poultry stocks.

Given that the past three flu pandemics _ the 1918 Spanish flu, the 1957-58 Asian flu and the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 _ were all linked to birds, much of the global pandemic preparedness has focused on avian flus.

"The world has been watching and preparing and trying to prevent a pandemic from an avian influenza reservoir," he said. "The focus has been on birds, and here is a virus that's coming from a swine reservoir. Now it's a human virus."

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From Yahoo! News; source article is here.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Asia is better prepared: WHO

A map showing Hong Kong's location in Asia, in China and on China's south coast. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some things are worth mentioning…
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SWINE FLU
Experience with bird flu and Sars ensures Asia remains vigilant

HONG KONG — Asia is better equipped to deal with an outbreak of swine flu because of its experience with bird flu and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), experts say, with Hong Kong providing the gold standard in taking on the virus.

The authorities across the region have moved quickly to try to prevent the spread of the disease, which is suspected of killing more than 100 people in Mexico and may have spread to Europe, the Middle East and New Zealand.

Airport checks across the region have been stepped up, China has banned pork imports, and medical facilities have been put on high alert for any patient showing flu-like symptoms.

Many of the measures being activated were set up during the outbreak of Sars in 2003, which killed some 800 people, mainly in Hong Kong and China.

The epidemic gave Asia “a badly needed lesson for surveillance and the right infection control mechanisms,” said Mr Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific office in Manila. “Asia is better prepared and in a better position than others (as a result).”

In addition, the ongoing battle with bird flu, which has killed some 250 people worldwide, has also ensured Asia remains vigilant against infectious diseases.
“ASEAN (Association of South-east Asian Nations) member states are better prepared now following the experience from recent Sars and avian influenza outbreaks,” the ASEAN said in a statement.

The regional bloc has existing stockpiles of antiviral drugs which could be used to deal with the swine flu. “ASEAN has 500,000 courses of antivirals stockpiled in Singapore and an additional 500,000 courses have been distributed to ASEAN-member states,” it said.

Hong Kong — home to both the world’s first reported major outbreak of bird flu among humans in 1997 and a major centre of the Sars outbreak — has established international standards in terms of biosecurity.

Yesterday, a 27-year-old woman became the third person to be cleared of swine flu in the territory since it was put on the alert for the disease. The woman, who had returned from San Francisco, underwent tests after showing flu-like symptoms.

Every passenger arriving by plane or ferry into Hong Kong now passes through an infrared temperature check for signs of fever. The city has also stockpiled around 20 million doses of Tamiflu, an anti-flu medicine.

X-ray machines and scanners, and often sniffer dogs, are used on the border-crossing with mainland China to try to catch illegally smuggled poultry.

Mr Paul Chan, a microbiologist at Chinese University of Hong Kong, said he believed the city’s systems provided an example for others. “Hong Kong has a very sophisticated system in identifying and isolating infected cases,” he said.
Despite these measures, Mr Cordingley warned against complacency, saying “every country in the world is at risk”. AGENCIES

From TODAY, World – Tuesday, 28-April-2009