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What We're Reading: WHO Recommends Delaying Pregnancy in Zika-Infected Areas
What we're reading, June 13, 2016: the World Health Organization is recommending women in Zika-infected areas delay pregnancy; one FDA regulator feels too many drug makers are chasing the same treatments in cancer care; and risky behaviors among American teenagers are down.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that women in areas of the world with the Zika virus should consider delaying pregnancy. While the health secretary of Puerto Rico has issued similar advice, the CDC has not made this recommendation, according to The New York Times. Currently, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and American Samoa remain the only parts of the United States with local transmission of the virus. With no vaccine and efforts unable to stem the spread of infection, delaying pregnancy may be the best way to avoid having children with brain damage, WHO has determined.
Are too many drug makers chasing the same treatments in cancer care? Already there are 3 treatments approved that target the PD-1 protein, and with 5 similar medicines in development, one FDA regulator feels resources might be better spent looking at more novel drugs, reported Reuters. However, drug companies argue that the future is in combinations, and that they aren’t just developing “me-too” drugs.
Risky behaviors among American youth are down significantly. According to AP, the CDC has found that teenagers are having less sex, aren’t smoking as much, and are drinking and using drugs less. Researchers are unsure what may have caused the drop in the number of teenagers who said they have had sex, but the decline may be due to more open discussions of sex and sexual orientation.
Standard Criteria for Loss of Ambulation Needed in DMD
April 19th 2024A recent study suggests the differences between ambulation definitions for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) can impact the identification of ambulant vs nonambulant individuals, and standard criteria across settings are needed.
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Government agencies have created an online portal for the public to report potential anticompetitive practices in health care; there are changes coming to the “boxed warning” section for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies (CAR T) to highlight T-cell blood cancer risk; questions about the safety of obesity medications during pregnancy have arisen in women on them who previously struggled with fertility issues.
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Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Penn Medicine's Dr Justin Bekelman
December 19th 2023Justin Bekelman, MD, director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, sat with our hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, for our final episode of 2023 to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.
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Gene, Light Therapy Combo Shows Promise Against Prostate Cancer Cells in Proof-of-Concept Study
April 18th 2024In their preclinical model, the researchers found efficacy both in vitro and in vivo by using CRISPR-Cas9 to mimic porphyria and combining the technology with light therapy.
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Pegcetacoplan for PNH More Cost-Effective Than Anti-C5 Monoclonal Antibodies
April 18th 2024A cost-utility analysis conducted from the perspective of the Italian health system found that pegcetacoplan was more effective and less costly than 2 complement 5 (C5) inhibitors for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH).
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