Time to splash Blue all over!

Today is the first day of March and the first day of Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

March is full of Blue Awareness, nationally and locally. Spread the message that colorectal cancer is preventable, treatable, and beatable.

Don’t hide your story! Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your coworkers. Get them screened, teach them the symptoms. Get them involved. Read the rest of this entry »

Four members of Congress want their colleagues to wear blue on March 7 to welcome Fight Colorectal Cancer advocates who will be on Capitol Hill that day.

In a Dear Colleagues letter, Charles Dent, Betty McCollum, Michael G. Fitzpatrick, and James P. McGovern asked other members to GO BLUE on March 7 to show their support for the advocates and draw national attention to colorectal cancer.

Their letter emphasized the importance of screening for prevention and early detection of colorectal cancer — the second leading cause of cancer death for men and women in the United States. They said that if everyone age 50 and over were screened for colorectal cancer, the death rate could drop by 50 percent.

The members wrote,

Together, we have the ability to reach thousands of Americans with the message that early detection of colorectal cancer saves lives. Please take a moment in March to help spread the word — give a floor speech, write an op-ed or put out a press release. And remember to “GO BLUE” on March 7.

The counterfeit drug trade has reached global proportions, and solving the problem needs a global approach.

So says an editorial in this week’s The Lancet.

While the Avastin announcement last week raised lots of concern and media attention, the issue of counterfeit drugs isn’t new. In 2009, the European Union seized 34 million fake pills in just two months, including antibiotics, cancer drugs, and sildenafil (Viagra). Counterfeit medicines are a problem for both low and high income countries and can seriously hurt patients.

In January the FDA warned healthcare providers not to buy injectable cancer medications from “direct-to-clinic” promotions or non-verified sources. Such drugs, says the FDA, put patients at risk. Read the rest of this entry »

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg announced yesterday during a teleconference that the FDA has arranged to meet critical needs for methotrexate and Doxil® (doxorubicin).

FDA has approved temporarily importing Lipodox, which has the same active ingredient — doxorubicin — and the same concentration as Doxil. There should be enough to meet needs for Doxil treatment.  FDA has inspected and approved the foreign plants that manufacture Lipodox.

APP Pharmaceuticals and Hospira both have ramped up production of methotrexate. Together they expect to be able to ship the drug immediately and have enough to meet future needs.  Methotrexate is especially needed by children with leukemia where it can produce remissions rapidly and cure most children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Unfortunately, fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin are still in shortage. Read the rest of this entry »

Would you like to know what top colon cancer experts recommend for diagnosing, treating, and following up colon cancer?

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network has just published NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Colon Cancer in an online version.

It’s simple to read. Just turn the pages like a book.

You can also download a PDF copy with an easy to use, clickable table of contents.

There is also more patient-focused information on a NCCN.com, a website for patients, caregivers, and families.

The Guidelines for Patients are based on NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology.  Updated frequently, the NCCN Guidelines are widely used by doctors to help them with making treatment decisions based on the latest evidence. Panels of oncologists, other health professionals, and advocates meet regularly to review new research and revise the guidelines to reflect it. Read the rest of this entry »