10 May, 2016

Tata Memorial docs test low-dose chemo

Doctors at Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, are testing a low-cost, low-dose daily chemotherapy for patients whose ovarian cancer has recurred more than twice.

As cancer medicines are expensive, the idea was not only reduce the costs substantially, but to reduce the toxicity and sideeffects usually associated with cancer treatment. "If one considers that the cost of conventional chemotherapy is Rs 50,000 for a cycle, the low-dose alternative would work out to barely Rs 2,000 a month. It is also one twentieth the dosage of the conventional drugs," said Dr Gautam Goyal from Tata Memorial Hospital. He was presenting his study at the ongoing Fifth Biennial International Metronomic and Anti-Angiogenic Meeting held in the hospital's Parel campus on Saturday.

This mode of low-dose daily chemotherapy , better known in cancer circles as metronomics, works out easier on the pocket because most drugs used here are out-of-patent regime. "We have a study in which breast cancer patients are being given diabetes drug metformin, which costs less than Rs 50 for a month," said Dr Sripad Banavali, who heads the medical oncology department of Tata Memorial Hospital. The metronomics school of treatment emerged around 15 years ago, but no largescale studies--especially phase three clinical trials needed for drugs to be accepted as standard treatment--have been done. "It's a therapy we turned to when we realized that many of our patients come from outside the state and live in near-poverty conditions," said Dr Banavali.

Many of the patients barely get to have a square meal a day .So, instead of asking them to uproot themselves from their small towns or villages, these metronomic doses--called maintenance therapy--were tried out.Many metronomic therapies are targeted at patients who have failed to benefit from regular chemotherapy. Dr Banavali will soon start a metronomic dosage study for breast cancer patients.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

10.05.2016

Shallow men believe in luck, strong men believe in cause and effect

Ralph Waldo Emerson