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Do we error in avoiding trial?
August 2006
BALTIMORE - HealthDay News asked: What if you set up an important cancer clinical trial and nobody came?
That scenario could become a reality for oncology researchers, research shows.
Some experts are advocating the small pool of informed, willing participants be rationed to only the most important cancer trials, leaving other studies to languish or close.
It's a notion that saddens 38-year-old cancer survivor Rod Quiros, who had a potentially deadly lymphoma when he was 23 but made the decision to enroll in an experimental drug trial.
"I don't think I'd be here to tell my story if I hadn’t participated then," he said.
"We really can't do enough to stress how important trials are," said Quiros, a business analyst from Suffern, NY.
"We may have a wonder drug sitting in a dark freezer somewhere, but if you can't get enough people to participate in the trials and help advance that, we'll never find out if it works."
TORONTO - The Associated Press reported scientists eased paralysis of rats with spinal cord injury, transplanting cells from adult mice brains, encouraging development of a human treatment, scientists said. Such cells might be taken from brains of patients for treatment, said Dr. Michael Fehlings. Similar cells are in the spinal cord, so researchers may activate them to improve a person's mobility, he said. Dr. Fehlings, of the Toronto Western Research Institute, and colleagues reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. Spinal injuries were created in the lab, and the mouse brain cells were implanted two weeks or eight weeks later. While the animals didn't start walking normally, those treated at the two-week mark gained coordination and ability to bear weight on their hind limbs. Those treated eight weeks after SCI weren't helped, which Dr. Fehlings and other experts said illustrated a hurdle in treating patients long after their injury.
U.S. News and World Report‘s 2006 list of best hospitals has Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in the top spot. Here's the list: Johns Hopkins; Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN); Cleveland Clinic; Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston); UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles); New York-Presbyterian Hospital, University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell (New York City); Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC); Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University (St. Louis); University of California/San Francisco Medical Center; University of Washington Medical Center (Seattle); Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston); University of Michigan Hospitals and Health System (Ann Arbor); Stanford Hospital & Clinics (Stanford, CA), and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The list is based on factors including: reputation among board-certified physicians; quality-of-care measures such as ratio of nurses to patients; and in-hospital death rates for Medicare patients after considering severity of the patients' illness. Here are the top three for cancer, heart and heart surgery, and pediatrics. Cancer: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York), University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston); Johns Hopkins. Heart/Heart Surgery: Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins. Pediatrics: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Children's Hospital Boston, Johns Hopkins.
ROCHESTER, MN - Mayo Clinic researchers identified and characterized an important signal used by the human immune system to help destroy tumors, Newswise reported. When this signal is generated inside cells called natural killer (NK) cells, materials are released that induce death in cancer cells. New strategies can be generated for enhancing the ability of the immune system to kill tumor cells in patients with cancer. The report was online at Nature Immunology. NK cells are blood cells with an innate ability to kill tumor cells and virus-infected cells. While scientists have known NK cells play key roles in fighting cancer, no one has known precisely how. The Mayo work identified the biochemical players and their role in activating the toxic response against tumor cells and viruses.
NEW YORK - Newswise noted eye imaging technologies pioneered at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, joined to advanced medical treatments, are changing the outlook for many Macular Degeneration (MD) patients. The retinal disease at its worst is a major cause of blindness in the U.S. “OCT-SLO is an imaging technology that vastly improves our ability to manage the care of patients with ‘wet’ [MD], the worst form of the disease,” said Dr. Richard Rosen, a retina specialist at the Infirmary. “This leap in diagnostic capabilities, combined with the recent success of anti-angiogenic drugs, such as Avastin, which halt the progression of ‘wet’ [MD], and in many cases improve eyesight, heralds new [ways] for treating a devastating disease.” Dr. Rosen, who developed the combination technology over the past five years with its maker, Ophthalmic Technologies Inc., uses it on all of his MD and diabetic retinopathy patients to detect the smallest defects in the retina, to localize them, and to treat them at their earliest stages with appropriate drugs or surgery. The OCT-SLO (Optical Coherence Tomography - Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope) test takes only a few minutes and is painless. It is only now becoming available on the commercial market.
TORONTO - The Associated Press reported scientists eased paralysis of rats with spinal cord injury, transplanting cells from adult mice brains, encouraging development of a human treatment, scientists said. Such cells might be taken from brains of patients for treatment, said Dr. Michael Fehlings. Similar cells are in the spinal cord, so researchers may activate them to improve a person's mobility, he said. Dr. Fehlings, of the Toronto Western Research Institute, and colleagues reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. Spinal injuries were created in the lab, and the mouse brain cells were implanted two weeks or eight weeks later. While the animals didn't start walking normally, those treated at the two-week mark gained coordination and ability to bear weight on their hind limbs. Those treated eight weeks after SCI weren't helped, which Dr. Fehlings and other experts said illustrated a hurdle in treating patients long after their injury.
U.S. News and World Report‘s 2006 list of best hospitals has Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in the top spot. Here's the list: Johns Hopkins; Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN); Cleveland Clinic; Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston); UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles); New York-Presbyterian Hospital, University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell (New York City); Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC); Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University (St. Louis); University of California/San Francisco Medical Center; University of Washington Medical Center (Seattle); Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston); University of Michigan Hospitals and Health System (Ann Arbor); Stanford Hospital & Clinics (Stanford, CA), and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The list is based on factors including: reputation among board-certified physicians; quality-of-care measures such as ratio of nurses to patients; and in-hospital death rates for Medicare patients after considering severity of the patients' illness. Here are the top three for cancer, heart and heart surgery, and pediatrics. Cancer: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York), University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston); Johns Hopkins. Heart/Heart Surgery: Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins. Pediatrics: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Children's Hospital Boston, Johns Hopkins.
ROCHESTER, MN - Mayo Clinic researchers identified and characterized an important signal used by the human immune system to help destroy tumors, Newswise reported. When this signal is generated inside cells called natural killer (NK) cells, materials are released that induce death in cancer cells. New strategies can be generated for enhancing the ability of the immune system to kill tumor cells in patients with cancer. The report was online at Nature Immunology. NK cells are blood cells with an innate ability to kill tumor cells and virus-infected cells. While scientists have known NK cells play key roles in fighting cancer, no one has known precisely how. The Mayo work identified the biochemical players and their role in activating the toxic response against tumor cells and viruses.
NEW YORK - Newswise noted eye imaging technologies pioneered at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, joined to advanced medical treatments, are changing the outlook for many Macular Degeneration (MD) patients. The retinal disease at its worst is a major cause of blindness in the U.S. “OCT-SLO is an imaging technology that vastly improves our ability to manage the care of patients with ‘wet’ [MD], the worst form of the disease,” said Dr. Richard Rosen, a retina specialist at the Infirmary. “This leap in diagnostic capabilities, combined with the recent success of anti-angiogenic drugs, such as Avastin, which halt the progression of ‘wet’ [MD], and in many cases improve eyesight, heralds new [ways] for treating a devastating disease.” Dr. Rosen, who developed the combination technology over the past five years with its maker, Ophthalmic Technologies Inc., uses it on all of his MD and diabetic retinopathy patients to detect the smallest defects in the retina, to localize them, and to treat them at their earliest stages with appropriate drugs or surgery. The OCT-SLO (Optical Coherence Tomography - Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope) test takes only a few minutes and is painless. It is only now becoming available on the commercial market.