New Drugs

Temodar for Kidney Cancer

Personalized medicine approach tests individual cancers and chooses treatments based on this testing. Temodar is one of the drugs that is usually included in chemosensitivity panels. Sometimes, it is recommended to renal cell cancer patients based on such testing. Unfortunately, this new paradigm does not "fit" well with the existing approaches and methods for weighing and evaluating evidence supporting cancer treatments, and new approaches to do

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Irinotecan for brain metastases of lung and breast cancer

Because irinotecan penetrates the brain-blood barrier and has an effect in primary brain cancer, there is some interest in using it for brain metastasis, especially for lung cancer and breast cancer. Most studies of irinotecan had been for brain mets of small(SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer(NSMCLC) and not breast cancer and have had mixed results. One study enrolled several different cancer types and reported complete responses with irinotecan-based

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Axitinib and sorafenib for thyroid cancer

Medullary and papillary thyroid carcinoma (MTC and PTC) are two types of thyroid cancer that can originate from activating mutations or rearrangements in the RET gene. Axitinib has been studied for thyroid cancer. Two phase II studies were reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology evaluating different axitinib and sorafenib therapies in patients with advanced thyroid cancer have special significance. Eligible patients in both studies included

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SAMSA – A New Drug for Low Sodium

SAMSCA(tolvaptan) is indicated for the treatment of clinically significant hypervolemic and euvolemic hyponatremia (low blood serum sodium <125 mEq/L or less marked hyponatremia that is symptomatic and has resisted correction with fluid restriction), including patients with heart failure, cirrhosis, and Syndrome of Inappropriate Antidiuretic Hormone (SIADH). The latter condition occurs with lung cancer, especially small lung cancer, and less commonly

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