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[10:08 PM
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This is really a good news for cancer patients ...
source : Bloomberg : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9X3jOZqvDgs&refer=home
By Tom Randall
May 31 (Bloomberg) -- An experimental cancer drug made by Sanofi-Aventis SA helped patients with advanced breast tumors live more than 60 percent longer using a new method that stops diseased cells from healing themselves, a new study found.
The treatment, called BSI-201, shrank tumors and slowed new growth in a study of 116 patients with so-called triple- negative breast cancer, an aggressive disease that doesn’t respond to many treatments. Results were presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando, Florida.
BSI-201 leads an emerging class of treatments known as PARP inhibitors. Most cancer treatments work by blasting DNA with chemotherapy or radiation. Cancer can fight back by using PARP enzymes to fix damaged strands of DNA. The new medicines are designed to block the enzymes and kill the cancer.
“These PARP inhibitors are the biggest story in breast cancer, by far, and it’s going to be a huge bombshell” at the cancer conference, said Powel Brown, director of cancer prevention at the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, in an interview before the meeting. “This mechanism is so hugely positive that this will be FDA approved within probably a year or two.”
There were no significant side effects from the BSI-201 treatment, which was added to standard chemotherapy in the research. A separate study presented at the conference showed a similar drug, called olaparib and made by London-based AstraZeneca Plc, shrank tumors even when administered without chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Other Cancers
The tests, the second of three stages typically required for regulatory approval, focused on breast cancer. However, the PARP inhibitor method of blocking DNA repair may also work against other cancers and might reduce the amount of chemotherapy needed to treat a variety of patients, said Paul Chew, chief medical officer for Paris-based Sanofi, in an interview at the conference yesterday.
“It’s a portal to other tumors,” said Chew, who was appointed to his job in March. “This opens up a new era of cancer treatment.”
A month after Chew’s appointment, Sanofi agreed to purchase BiPar Sciences Inc. to gain BSI-201. The company will pay as much as $500 million, based on the success of the drug.
Sanofi will begin enrolling 400 patients in the next two months for an expanded trial to confirm the results. That could take as little as a year to complete before submitting to regulators for marketing approval, Chew said.
The drugmaker believes the new trial “will be sufficient” for approval, he said.
Fixing DNA
Healthy human cells have six different mechanisms to repair DNA. As cancer develops, many of those mechanisms break down, leaving the cell reliant on PARP to fix genetic damage from cancer treatments. Researchers have found that severe forms of cancer in the ovaries, uterus, lungs and pancreas all have unusually high PARP enzyme activity, meaning they could make good targets for the new therapies, according to Barry Sherman, BiPar’s chief medical officer.
In Sanofi’s study, half of patients were given BSI-201 and a combination of chemotherapies, carboplatin and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Gemzar, and half were given chemo and a placebo. About 60 percent of patients who took BSI-201 saw their tumors shrink and cancer slow, almost three times as many as those who took only chemotherapy. The median lifespan after treatment with BSI-201 was 9.2 months, compared with 5.7 months in the control group.
15 Percent of Breast Cancer
The cancer in the study is called triple negative breast cancer because it lacks the three genetic targets needed for the most effective medicines. It is responsible for about 15 percent of all breast cancers and sickens younger women more than other forms. If the cancer is detected early enough, treatment with a PARP inhibitor may be able to permanently destroy the tumors, Sherman said in an interview at the conference yesterday.
“There is an opportunity here to actually use the term ‘cure’ when it’s applied to early-stage disease,” Sherman said. “That is perhaps one of the most exciting notions to come out of this. This is the forefront of a field that is about to open up, about DNA repair.”
Abbott Laboratories and Pfizer Inc. are also investigating PARP inhibitors in early-stage human trials. Abbott’s version, called ABT-888, is being examined in 10 clinical trials to determine which treatments it works best with, said Vincent Giranda, director of PARP research at Abbott Park, Illinois- based company.
Other Disease Hints
There are “hints” that PARP inhibitors may show benefits in diseases other than cancer and may one day be used to limit damage after a heart attack or stroke, Giranda said. For now, companies are focusing on oncology, where the most dramatic results may come, he said in an interview last week.
The AstraZeneca trial focused on breast cancer patients with a mutation in a gene called BRCA, another severe disease form affecting about 5 percent of breast cancer patients. The mutation hampers other mechanisms to repair DNA, making the cancer especially reliant on PARP enzymes. The trial of 54 patients showed olaparib was safe and shrank tumors. It wasn’t designed to measure the drug’s ability to slow the disease.
“These two studies, taken together, show that PARP is a very promising drug target,” said Richard Schilsky, president of ASCO and associate dean for clinical research at University of Chicago, in an interview before the meeting. “You’re going to hear a lot more about PARP inhibitors as time goes by.”
‘Biggest Story’
Breast cancer is the second most common malignancy in women, after skin tumors, according to the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 187,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 41,000 women died from it in 2005, the most recent year for which CDC data are available.
“The biggest story in breast cancer right now is the PARP inhibitors,” said Clifford Hudis, chief of breast cancer medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, in a telephone interview last week. “Any time you open up a new target, that’s an exciting moment. These drugs may potentially be active not just to treat metastatic disease but to prevent recurrence.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net.
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[7:04 PM
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[7:05 PM
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To add or not to add, this is a question.
Do you think/believe that readers would willing to support you by donation?
Anyone has gone through this with experience to share? I hope you can share your experience with me.
I think if my blog does share valuable information, i would get some donation to keep me up?
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[12:02 PM
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(source: Email circulation)
Please open the windows after you enter your car and do not turn ON the
air-conditioning immediately. According to a research done, the car dashboard, sofa, air freshener emits Benzene, a Cancer causing toxin (carcinogen- take note of the heated plastic smell in your car). In addition to causing cancer, it poisons your bones, causes anemia, and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure will cause Leukemia, increasing the risk of cancer may also cause miscarriage.
Acceptable Benzene level indoors is 50 mg per sq. ft. A car parked indoors with the windows closed will contain 400-800 mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors under the sun at a temperature above 60 degrees F, the Benzene level goes up to 2000-4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level... & the people inside the car will inevitably inhale an excess amount of the toxins.
It is recommended that you open the windows and door to give time for
the interior to air out before you enter. Benzene is a toxin that affects your
kidney and liver, and is very difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.
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[4:19 PM
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If you guys got this email, please dont forward it. Hoax should end in your hand.
This is an email chain letter, email hoax and has been circulating since 2000 ?
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Dear All,
Have great opportunity to get the Sony Ericsson laptop.
Please try on as like me.
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[12:07 AM
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[11:11 PM
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Hongkies, Singaporeans, Indonesians and Malaysians (source: Internet Email)
Being Hongkies is good because...
1. We are Hongkies and not Chinese.
2. We can talk and shout and nobody gives a damn.
3. Jackie Chan is our icon.
4. We can live in a 5' x 5' cubicle and call it luxury apartment. We even need to pay $10,000 a month for this cubicle.
5. Our children can speak Cantonese at a young age.
6. We get to blame everything on Feng Shui or Tung Chee Hwa or the mainland communists.
7. Gambling is more interesting than sex. Macau is the place to go for thrills!
8. We produce a lot of Miss Hong Kong to the enjoyment of the rich and famous.
We love being Singaporean because..
1. We are not Malaysians.
2. Everyone (especially the Malaysian) hates us, except ourselves.
3. Famous for Orchard Road and we love Geylang. Geylang is the place to go for thrills!
4. We have our own island.
5. We will never ever have yucky chewing gum stuck under our shoes.
6. We know how to enjoy our vacation in Malaysia - keep a few RM50 notes before you enter the highway: You can throw anything, anytime, anywhere and always wash our cars at the resort.
7. We can speed up to 180 kilometers per hour and not ending up with a summon as long as we have RM50 with us to spare.
8. The men are always concerned, first question to ask a girl 'Do you have CPF?'
9. Never fear of getting lost in our country - S$20 taxi ride will get you into the sea. Hahaha!
10. We'll never have to worry about finding Mr or Ms right because the government will find one for us.
11. 1 Singapore dollar = 2.5 Ringgit... nyek nyek nyek.
12. It's OK to be Kiasu. It's part of our culture.
Top reasons for being Indonesian are as follow...
1. We are not Australian.
2. We live in the biggest country in South East Asia .
3. No pirates in Indonesia water if you exclude the Navy and Coast guards.
4. Everything is cheap, even our salaries...
5. We can blame everything to Suharto or BJ Habibie or Gus Dur or Megawati or who's next?
6. Only in Indonesia you can get involved in real demonstrations daily for different causes and see no results.
7. Our Rupiah is like a Yo Yo, it can go up and down just because IMF say so...
8. We burn everything and nobody gives a damn. We cause haze all over the South East Asia and nobody can do a thing... nyek nyek nyek.
9. We don't need fire fighters as our neighbours will provide...
Being a Malaysian is the best because...
1. World tallest twin towers, Best F1 circuit, largest roti canai, most expensive toll rates, .because Malaysia Boleh!
2. We can be driving, picking our nose, cursing another driver, talking on the handphone, adjusting the radio and bribing the traffic police at the same time.
3. We divorce by sending SMS.
4. Traffic summon can be settled on the spot with the traffic police.
5. We have Teh Tarik & Roti Canai on the Russian space ship.
6. We can save a lot of electricity b'coz our TV shows are so crappy.
7. We can blame everything on the haze or George Soros or government or opposition parties or...
8. Resourceful City Council, one person to drive the van, one to carry the ladder, one to change a street's bulb and three others watching...
9. We make 2 lane trunk roads into 3 lane highway and back to 2 lane when police are sighted
10. There's always something for the JKR/TNB/TALIKOM/SYABAS to do. They dig, resurface the road, dig and resurface...and blame each other for bad co-ordination.
11. All main roads are designated highway because it gives Velooo a reason to collect toll.
12. Our government can never be wrong or dishonest.
13. Our badminton players win already only need to pay them RM35,000 very cheap compare to David Beckham.
14. You can divorce for as little as RM 10 million ringgit and marry a young singer you like, how nice is life.
15. We can even use C4 bomb to bombard Gengkis Khan or Kublai Khan grandchildren.
16. We have more water than Singapore .... nyek nyek nyek.
17. If you got no monies you can always snatch other peoples monies since police can't do much to help.
18. If you are a police, doesn't matter about the traffic rules, its for citizens only
19. If you are a policeman rider you can kick and bang people car like nobody business
20. If you drive a police car, you can speed cause speed limit only apply to citizens
21. All motor rider can join the recognized & supported Mat Rempit club for free and can beat up anybody in their way and can even
throw stones at the police station anytime they like.
21. If you got nothing to do join the rela and go to the kongsi gelap and extort monies from all over.
22. You can rape people and blame them for wearing very little.
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[11:45 PM
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2 days ago my blog was classified by Google bot as a potential spam blog. According to the email, if i did not take action to request for a review, my blog will be removed in 20 days.
This message terrified me, wondering what had gone wrong. Without hesitant, i follow the instruction to request for a review. During that period, any changes to my blog or content requires me to input the security code.
Today when i log into blogger, i found that the message was gone. I am pondering, how these bots do the classification?
If you received the message, dont worry, you are not the only one.
Check this out. You are not alone, if your blog is marked as spam.
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[11:58 PM
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I was panicking few minutes ago after getting error of bX-r1ezpk when i tried to access my blogs. Well they are my income generator, how could blogger gave me this?
Immediately i google around for solution and i found none. The nearest was posted by a blogger saying that he reverted to original template and it works fine then.
Something strike through my head, it is related to template change: some code is not right! What was the changes i made today?
I made one changes today - to link my adsense to google analytics. I added a few lines of codes provided by Google analytics and paste it under my html "head" section.
Without any hesitant, i login blogger and remove the codes and guess what? My blogs resume business.
So if you had link your Google Adsense to Google analytics, remove to code for the time being and it will be alright.
The worst case scenario would be: go to your layout -> Edit html and revert back to classic template, which i dont really recommend you to do at the moment.
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[11:37 AM
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If you have been to any of my blogs (http://todayfinancialworld.blogspot.com,http://itblood.blogspot.com, http://jason-beautiful-scenery.blogspot.com), you will notice a small changes - an additional 336x280 Adsense advertisement above the fist post and below the menu bar.
Why do i do this, even if i know readers are critizing on pages that full of advertisement and tend to avoid them?
1. You must use a good template, which can properly position your contents and advertisement to strike a good balance between them. Better arrangement of each module really helps to increase the clicks.
2. Be efficient. Placing your advertisement at the bottom of your page does not attract readers' eyeballs. Location, location, location is the key!
3. My readers' encourage me to do it: i should optimize my page to get more clicks.
4. I read an article somewhere in the net. A blogger said eventhough readers' might have small complains but they will still visit your website and you should capitalise on that as early as possible, since you will do it sooner or later anyway.
So what is the effect after the implementation?
From USD0.10 average grows to USD1 average, that is a significant 1000% grow, seeing that my traffic is on average 80-150 per site. Number of clicks from 0-1 click per day increase 4 fold to at least 4 clicks a day. I strongly believe that if the traffic increase (which i think it has been increasing) will pull in more clicks.
The key is to attract your readers' eyeballs before they read your content and the location of the advertisement determines that.
Lastly, you need to understand how readers behave and be gratitude to your readers for supporting you. You need to constantly test out the best arrangement to win more clicks from your readers.
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