Cancer costs: Marketing and myth busting
More than half of cancer drugs approved in recent years may not be helping patients to live longer. Meanwhile, the average price of cancer drugs has been increasing by 10 percent annually for more...
Tag: Gleevec
Acclaim for a precision oncology pioneer in Oregon
Like few other drugs in the history of oncology, Gleevec transformed the outlook for patients: a disease with a life expectancy of less than five years – chronic myeloid leukemia – became a...
Riveting survival stories from the early clinical trials of Gleevec
Medicine had never seen anything like it before, Brian Druker, M.D., recalled. "These are people who’d been told to get their affairs in order. And now their blood counts are normal," the...
The cancer drug that “changed everything”
Understanding the earliest drivers of cancer formation can lead to less toxic and more effective treatments. It transformed the outlook for people diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. A...
When it’s time to stop a lifesaving cancer drug to find out if you are cured
The depth of remission achieved with the targeted therapy imatinib (Gleevec) raises a tough new question for some leukemia patients: is it ever safe to stop taking the breakthrough drug developed at...
Improving survival for patients with GIST
Average life expectancy had been no better than 18 months for people diagnosed with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors, or GISTs. The outlook changed dramatically in 2001 with the arrival...
This is what a ‘game changing’ cancer therapy looks like
Life expectancy in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia has soared to a level almost equal to that of the general population, according to a Swedish study quantifying the life-saving impact of...