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Breast Cancer Drug
Breast cancer is now the world's most common carcinogenic disease, with the ailment likely to cause a million deaths a year by 2040, , a new Lancet commission has found. Around 7.8 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer in five years till the end of 2020 and about 685,000 women died from the disease the same year, it said. Globally, breast cancer cases will increase from 2.3 million in 2020 to more than 3 million by 2040, with low- and middle-income countries being "disproportionately affected", the commission estimated. By 2040, deaths due to the disease will be a million a year, it added. The Lancet report pointed to "glaring inequities" and suffering from symptoms, despair and financial burden due to breast cancer, which are often "hidden and inadequately addressed". Laying out recommendations for tackling these challenges in breast cancer, the commission suggested better communication between patients and health professionals as a crucial intervention that could impro
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's accelerated approval program is meant to give patients early access to promising drugs. But how often do these drugs actually improve or extend patients' lives? In a new study, researchers found that most cancer drugs granted accelerated approval do not demonstrate such benefits within five years. Five years after the initial accelerated approval, you should have a definitive answer, said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a cancer specialist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research. Thousands of people are getting those drugs. That seems a mistake if we don't know whether they work or not." The program was created in 1992 to speed access to HIV drugs. Today, 85% of accelerated approvals go to cancer drugs. It allows the FDA to grant early approval to drugs that show promising initial results for treating debilitating or fatal diseases. In exchange, drug companies are expected to do rigorous testing and produce