Word: tumors
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FASTPACK As if undergoing treatment for prostate cancer weren't bad enough, men usually have to wait up to a week for results of tests to determine whether or not their tumor has returned. In June the FDA approved FastPack, an automated blood analyzer designed by Qualigen of Carlsbad, Calif., that measures in as little as 15 minutes the level of prostate-specific antigen found in a blood sample. The FDA concluded, however, that there weren't enough data to approve FastPack as a screening tool for the general population...
...Brain tumors have long presented a major challenge to drug delivery because of the especially leakproof blood-vessel walls in the brain, which make it difficult to administer conventional chemotherapy there. Drug-bearing wafers may be one answer. After the brain surgeon removes as much of the tumor as possible, small drug wafers are inserted at the tumor sites. Over time the wafers slowly release a chemical that prevents the recurrence of new tumors. The technique seems to work. A 1997 clinical trial showed that after two years, 31% of glioblastoma patients with implanted wafers were still alive, compared with...
...most famous of these are Wyeth-Ayerst's Enbrel, and Remicade, made by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which have been in use for roughly two years. Both inhibit a messenger in the inflammatory cascade known as the tumor necrosis factor (TNF). The drugs are more effective than traditional medications, and more likely to retard joint degradation. "The idea that biologics could prove effective against autoimmune disease has been firmly established by the TNF story," says Dr. H. Michael Belmont of the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City...
Other antibodies carry tiny payloads of radioactive isotopes or poisons, which kill the tumor cell without affecting surrounding tissue. IDEC Pharmaceuticals in San Diego has just completed final rounds of testing on Zevalin, an antibody that is hooked to the radioactive isotope yttrium-90. Last month IDEC reported that the tumors in about one-third of 73 late-stage non-Hodgkins lymphoma patients were undetectable after being treated with Zevalin...
...speak, is biotechnology. Researchers like NCI's Dr. Steven Rosenberg have been able to isolate fragments from the surface of melanoma cells. Injected into the body, these antigens trick the immune system into producing a flood of killer T cells, which then go after the tumor cells containing the telltale fragments...