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 »

TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT…DURING CHEMOTHERAPY

To humbly paraphrase Shakespeare, the question is “whether ‘tis better to…ban sugar from your diet, or bulk up on high-protein meals…” The internet is full of raging debates, fervid testimonials and opinions about what you should or shouldn’t eat when you’re being treated for cancer.

 One of the most common chat topics is whether you should cut out ‘sugar’ to decrease the amount of “fuel” available for voracious cancer cells.

If only cancer, and nutrition, were so simple. But every kind of calorie is fuel, every cell uses fuel, and cells become cancerous in many different ways.  

But thankfully, scientists are working hard to shed more light (than heat) on the role that nutrients might play in cancer cells—and they’re coming up with some tantalizing clues, according to the most recent National Cancer Institute Cancer Bulletin (July 10 2012). Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday night, Dr. Lindsey Poppe, the Pharmacy Clinical Manager for Oncology for the University of North Carolina hospital system talked about the alternatives and options that patients have when directly faced with the current chemo drug shortage.

You can watch a recording of the webinar on our website, along with all of our past patient webinars.

Webinar: What to Do When Your Doc is Out of 5-FU from Fight Colorectal Cancer on Vimeo.

Dr. Edith Mitchell

Last night, Dr. Edith Mitchell of Thomas Jefferson University Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, updated colorectal cancer patients on the latest research and treatment news in an online webinar.

Dr. Mitchell highlighted the most important news for colon and rectal cancer patients to come from the 2011 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco last month. She answer such questions as…

“Can doctors determine the chances that my cancer may return?”

“Can my doctors determine if I need chemotherapy?”

“Does Avastin or Erbitux benefit my stage III cancer treatment?”

“Are there any promising new treatments on the horizon?”

Read the rest of this entry »

Very real.

Brain MRI’s before and chemotherapy found changes in brains of women being treated for breast cancer.

Women who had breast cancer surgery but didn’t have chemo had similar changes, but they were less severe. Brains of healthy women remained stable.

Changes were in gray matter in areas of the brain involving memory and the ability to process information.

A year later most– but not all — areas of the brain had returned to normal. Read the rest of this entry »