Approximately 80 more participants are needed for a multisite, Phase 3 clinical trial comparing laparoscopic-assisted versus conventional surgery in patients with stage IIA, Stage IIIA or stage IIIB rectal cancer.
Eligible participants must have completed their pre-surgery chemotherapy (Xelox™ or fluorouracil-based) and/or pre-surgery radiation therapy within the previous 4 weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Photo credit: Bayer Pharmaceuticals
The FDA today approved the use of the drug regorafenib (brand name Stivarga) for patients whose metastatic colorectal cancer has progressed despite all currently approved treatment regimens.
This is the second new drug approved by the FDA recently after a drought of 5 years in approving new treatments for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). Regorafenib was placed into the FDA’s “fast-track” approval process after the international, multicenter Phase III CORRECT trial showed improved survival (from 5 to 6.4 months) in all mCRC patients, including those having both non-mutated and mutated KRAS types. Read the rest of this entry »
Fight Colorectal Cancer’s September 2012 patient webinar focused on issues that run rampant with misunderstanding and fear: palliative and hospice care.
Dr. Jim Meadows, Director of Palliative and Hospice Care at Tennessee Oncology, led the webinar. He spoke at length about palliative care, but not surprisingly, the majority of questions toward the end of the webinar focused on hospice care.
One listener had a good question that elicited a great response from Dr. Meadows. We wanted to share it with you.
Q: Isn’t hospice ‘end of life’ care? Why are you saying it prolongs life when I have heard of many people having to watch for days and even weeks while their loved one wastes away and dies? Why say it prolongs life, at what emotional cost to patient and family?
More than half of all cancers could be prevented, a researcher told the International Cancer Control (UICC) World Cancer Congress 2012 , if only people actually followed the lifestyle recommendations and screening or other interventions that we already know prevent cancer.
The challenge, world experts say, is to get people doing what we know works.
Speaking at the World Congress in Montreal in early September, Graham Colditz, PD, DrPH from the Washington University School of Medicine, noted that one third of cancer in high-income countries is caused by smoking, and being overweight causes another 20% of cancers. He also estimated that increased exercise could reduce cancer by as much as 85% in coming decades.
Dr. Colditz also sited studies having 20 years of follow-up showing that aspirin is associated with a 40% reduction in mortality from colon cancer; and screening also has been shown to reduce mortality by 30 to 40%. Read the rest of this entry »
Fewer people in the U.S. are getting colorectal cancer (CRC), but that progress is seen much more often in well-off and highly educated Americans. In fact, the gap is widening in rate of colorectal deaths in people with less education and/or who live in deeply disadvantaged communities.
Researchers now have shown that differences in weight, diet and physical activity play a huge role in the higher rates and deaths from CRC among people of lower socioeconomic status.
In a paper published in the Sept. 4 2012 Journal of the National Cancer Institute, a careful statistical analysis of a 10-year observational study of a half-million people indicated that helping people of lower education or income to change their diet, body weight, smoking and physical activity could be nearly as important as improved screening for reducing CRC deaths. Read the rest of this entry »
Together we are Strong
