Between 2003 and 2007, there were 32,000 fewer deaths from colorectal cancer in the United States. At least half of the drop was due to improved colorectal cancer screening rates according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In addition, to fewer deaths, 66,000 people didn’t get colorectal cancer at all during the same four years.

The good news is that the percentage of Americans who are up-to-date with colorectal cancer screening is rising steadily. About two-thirds now report an FOBT in the last year or a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy in the past 10 years.

The bad news is that 1 out of 3 people aged 50 to 75 hasn’t been screened. Read the rest of this entry »

Even in colorectal cancer patients with wild-type KRAS mutations, there was no increase in overall survival time or in the time it took before cancer progressed when Erbitux® (cetuximab) was added to FOLFOX or CAPOX chemotherapy.

More tumors got smaller with Erbitux treatment, but there was an increase in both serious gastrointestinal toxicity and severe skin rash when the drug was added.

Patients with tumor mutations in any of three genes — KRAS, BRAF, or NRAS — had poorer survival. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday’s recommendation by the FDA’s Oncology Drug Advisory Committee (ODAC) that approval of Avastin for breast cancer be withdrawn will not affect colorectal cancer treatment.

Avastin® (bevacizumab) remains on the market in the US and is FDA-approved  for advanced colon and rectal cancer in combination with chemotherapy, both as first-line and second-line therapy.

The public hearing held on June 28 and 29 reviewed the process began  in December, 2010 to withdraw the FDA provisional approval of Avastin for metastatic, HER-2 negative breast cancer.  It did not consider or change other label indications for colorectal, kidney, or small cell lung cancers or glioblastoma.

A final decision on breast cancer will be made by the FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, MD.  Until then the indication for breast cancer will remain on the FDA-approved label. Read the rest of this entry »

Walter Pincus’s latest article published by the Washington Post criticizes the health research funding in the defense appropriations bill as both earmarked funding and unneeded duplicative funding. He is wrong.
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A drug that has been used for years to kill tapeworms blocks a gene that promotes the spread of colon cancer, at least in cancer cells and mice.

Colon cancer is most serious when it spreads outside the colon to other organs, like the liver or lungs. It is this spread or metastasis that causes death.

Now German scientists have found a gene that begins the process of colon cancer metastasis. What’s more they’ve discovered that niclosamide, a medicine for tapeworms, blocks expression of that gene. Read the rest of this entry »