Posts Tagged ‘Cancer’

jseng
John
Seng

In Memoriam: Dr. Bruce Dan, Medical Newsmaker and Friend

Monday, September 12th, 2011

This past Tuesday evening, my friend Bruce Dan passed away after a lengthy battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a fairly rare blood and bone marrow cancer. He had been receiving treatment at Johns Hopkins over the past year-and-a-half. During this last journey, he persisted in his passion: story-telling in health care. Except this time, he was the subject. I was introduced to Dr. Bruce B. Dan in the mid-1990s by another friend and former boss, Ken Rabin.

At the time, Ken knew Bruce to be an outstanding media trainer, and it was Bruce’s unique brand of health care media counseling skills that I relied upon over a stretch of more than 15 years. For real “heavy lifting,” in other words, when we figured we would need a double shot of TLC to render articulate the driest medical expert or bombastic pharmaceutical company executive, we called in Bruce.

During any session, Bruce kicked things off with his characteristic big smile, and quiet, engaging style that within minutes put everyone in the room at ease. The man would roll onward, keeping one step ahead with anecdotes, witticisms or piercing questions as he led captive audiences through his training sessions, usually flanked by a medium-sized stack of VHS tapes he used to depict horrific and then good examples of television interview behavior. (Clients always got to keep their own tapes.)

Anytime I called on Bruce, I always tried to carve out extra time with him, to learn from his experiences and get his feedback on my business situations or ideas. Bruce was generous.

Not only did he sincerely care about your point of view, and in his patient style give you all the time you needed, he demonstrated the very best in teaching skills: You learned without even realizing it, Bruce was knowledgeable, interesting and persuasive.

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Posted in Awards, Cancer
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Ricki McCarroll
Ricki
McCarroll

FDA beats out European Counterpart in Oncology Drug Approval

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

The FDA is proving to be a top contender in the international space in its efforts to fight the battle on the Big C, yes we’re talking cancer.

Source: Friends of Cancer Research Study

A new study released online today by Friends of Cancer Research in Health Affairs reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a faster approval rate for oncology drugs than their European counterpart agency, the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The study was held over a seven year period beginning 2003 through 2010. Authors Samantha A. Roberts, Jeff D. Allen, and Ellen V. Sigal investigated 35 drugs going through approval process in both markets and compiled their results in an eight-page report complete with graphics and pull quotes.

FDA v. EMA Stats

  • 35 drugs were investigated
  • FDA approved 32 oncology drugs while the EMA approved only 26
  • In addition, FDA’s approval for said drugs was over 31 percent more time efficient that the EMA

Statistically speaking, the approval ratio is less than one.

Finding the data

Authors of the study utilized public data bases on the FDA and EMA websites to conduct their research. Drugs used in the study are direct oncology treatments, drugs related to “supportive care” such as pain relievers and anti-nausea medications were omitted in their findings.

Check it Out

The Friends of Cancer Research study is currently available online and will be available in the July issue of Health Affairs.

What’s the spark under the FDA?

Posted in Cancer, Health Policy, Research
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jseng
John
Seng

A Never-Smoker With Lung Cancer, And The Point Is…?

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

The next time you hear that a friend of a friend was just diagnosed with lung cancer, you’re bound to wonder privately or out loud: Was he a smoker or not?

It’s only natural. We’re terrified of cancer, and especially, cancers such as lung cancer which are diagnosed usually in late stage, and oftentimes too late to really do much about it. So we all must hear what we need to hear that, yes, this person was or still is a smoker. Phew! We can again comfortably assign blame to some poor soul who should have known better or couldn’t muster the willpower to quit in time. And we think, I don’t smoke, so I’m innocent.

But increasingly we hear from multiple quarters that non-smokers and never-smokers also get lung cancer. In fact, approximately 10 percent of all lung cancer is diagnosed in persons who never smoked. That inconvenient reality surprises a lot of people. In other words, someone who didn’t have it coming to them just got really bad news, despite his or her good behavior, unlike those weak and irresponsible smokers. Some lung cancer advocates report this aberrance, in an attempt to add accurate perspective on the disease. Even more important, researchers are now investigating the differences between tumor types in never-smokers vs. smokers, and why women never-smokers bear a greater burden of disease.

But here’s a radical notion for you, one that I recently suggested to a group of lung cancer advocates gathered in Denver by the National Lung Cancer Partnership: Lung cancer is 100 percent a disease of innocents. I repeat, innocents.

I put forth the proposition that the lifelong female smoker diagnosed with lung cancer is no more “to blame” for her disease than another woman diagnosed with breast cancer. Here’s why. Tobacco use most often begins in our teen years. Raise your hand if you never did anything stupid as a 14-year old. The Army and Navy once distributed cigarettes free to hundreds of thousands of men to help them cope with battle stress. Tobacco companies handed out free samples on college campuses. I once found a copy of an ad for Lucky Strikes that depicts a doctor extolling the virtues of smoking. The best part is, the ad ran in a 1940s edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association. I framed the ad for my office.

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Posted in Cancer, Public Health, Research
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Spectrum

Spectrum Infection Thursday: April Marks STD Awareness Month in the United States

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

stdawarelogo2April doesn’t just mark the beginning of allergy season.  In fact, April also marks STD Awareness Month in the United States, an annual observance designed to raise awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and the importance of testing and prevention for long-term health.  There is perhaps no better time to begin discussions of developments in sexual wellness and care, especially concerning HPV-one of the most widespread sexually transmitted infections out there.  To give you some sense of the urgency surrounding the relative ubiquity of HPV, I want to give you a quantitative view of the problem: between 50 and 70 percent of sexually active adults will contract some strain of the HPV virus in their lifetime.

In light of these statistics, last year Merck sought FDA approval to market and administer the HPV vaccine Gardasil to boys and men, ages 9 to 26.  The FDA approved the use of the vaccine, and now questions have begun to arise as to whether boys and men should indeed receive the vaccine on a large scale.  Moreover, according to the CDC’s Web site, there is currently no test to screen for HPV in males, so preventive measures become even more valuable-for a variety of reasons. 

While women can be tested for HPV infections as part of a routine screening for cervical cancer, men face a greater challenge detecting and receiving pre-malignant treatment for the disease.  HPV undeniably causes a high incidence of cervical cancer if left untreated-which has been well-documented by both health professionals and the media-but it can also spur the growth of invasive forms of anal and penile cancers, which are often deadly if not treated early.  Lower incidence of undetectable HPV infection in males curtailed by vaccination therefore translates into a lower transmission rate to sexual partners, as well as a lower incidence of aggressive cancers in males later in life. (more…)

Posted in Disease Awareness, Infectious Disease
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Spectrum

Championing for a Good Cause

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Between tracking the latest swine flu outbreak, crunching numbers for taxes and following the latest health care reform efforts, there are a lot of things for people to spend their time thinking about…and this is all outside the burdens of our everyday lives. Especially if you have a “9 to 5″ job (which more often than not probably seems like an 8 to 8 job), then your mind is probably overrun with things to think about and finding the time or mental capacity to stand up for a global cause can be daunting.

So what gets people involved in championing a good cause?

On a daily basis, more and more celebrities are becoming active in standing up for global health initiatives and using their celebrity status to drive attention, as well as recruit support and money for their chosen causes. But how are the Hollywood elite connecting themselves with everyone else to accomplish their goals? Online, of course.

In preparation for World Malaria Day on April 25, it was recently announced that the Special Envoy for Malaria at the United Nations will incorporate a social media component to their efforts for the next year and has named a special envoy of journalists, digital experts, business executives and celebrities to lead the charge to use online tools to build a following with the hopes of making a difference. The idea is that a little action every month from these public figures can yield a big impact for global health. (more…)

Posted in Infectious Disease, Social Media, Technology, Tweets
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