Many cancer drugs undergoing clinical trials kill malignant cells by acting on targets different from the one they were intended to hit. This surprising finding warns against poor preclinical characterization of targets and potential drugs [more]
Precision medicine was meant to see the end of ‘maximum tolerated dose’ as the standard for introducing new drugs. It hasn’t happened, and many patients continue to suffer unnecessary toxicity from overtreatment, with health services [more]
When we talk about advances in cancer care patient advocacy groups tend to focus on the development of new drugs, immunotherapy being the latest flavour. This is encouraged by the pharma industry, keen to gain [more]
The protest that brought many Romanians in the streets, ignited by a law proposal on corruption, soon touched other sensitive topics, including the dramatic state of public hospitals. A highly contested law proposed by the [more]
The counterfeit drugs trade, once largely confined to the developing world, is now firmly established in western countries. Greater vigilance from the cancer community is need. Download full article
Pat Price pioneered the use of PET imaging to investigate how cancer drugs move in the body and the effect they have. She worries that oncology has lost its way: translational research’ has become a [more]
Faced with escalating drug prices and rising patient expectations, Europe’s governments are anxious to ensure value for money from their overstretched health budgets. But how can one measure the value of a few extra precious [more]
Surgery still offers by far the best hope of a cure in solid tumours. Yet patients are being let down by too great a focus on drugs at the expense of investment in surgical equipment [more]
Silvio Garattini gave up a glittering academic career to found his own set-up where research could be carried out free from commercial or political agendas. Today, the Mario Negri Institute and its founder play a [more]
European countries struggle to fund new cancer drugs which bring benefits at a high price. Meanwhile billions of euros are wasted, say researchers, because doctors prescribe branded drugs when a generic equivalent is just as [more]
Selected press reports compiled by the ESO Download full article
Herceptin may turn out to be the biggest advance in treating breast cancer since tamoxifen. But if we are to prevent soaring drugs bills eating up our health budgets or barring Europe’s poorer patients from [more]
Cancer drugs often deliver less than they promise. The BDA believes the problem may lie not in the drugs themselves, but in the way they are targeted, tested and used. It organises regular get-togethers where [more]