By Mercola
Avastin, which costs about $8,000 a month and is one of the best-selling cancer drugs in the world, is now being phased out in the US due to lack of effectiveness and dangerous side effects.
As reported by CNN, the FDA has deemed the drug to be more harmful than beneficial based on recent studies, and recommends phasing it out as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer.
The drug will still maintain its status as an approved therapy for lung-, kidney-, colorectal- and brain cancer, however.
The European Medicines Agency is also altering its recommendation, but rather than withdrawing approval entirely, Avastin will now only be prescribed in combination with the drug Paclitaxel for the treatment of breast cancer in the EU.
"Along with the initial approval, the FDA required Genentech, Avastin's maker, to complete larger studies. The results of those studies were a bitter pill for patients thriving on Avastin and researchers excited by the promise of the early data.The E2100 study found that for women taking Avastin plus Paclitaxel, the cancer stopped spreading for an average of five-and-a-half months more, compared to those just taking standard chemotherapy.In the subsequent three larger studies, the benefit was much smaller, ranging from just 24 days to about two months.None of the studies, including the E2100 study, showed that patients getting Avastin lived longer than patients on standard chemotherapies. "We now have four studies that show no survival benefit," Woodcock said."
Serious side effects from the drug have also become apparent, including:
- High blood pressure
- Internal bleeding
- Perforated internal organs
- Heart failure
- Heart attacks
- Swelling of the brain
Avastin isn't the only popular cancer drug that's come on the chopping block in recent years.
For example, in 2009 it was determined that long-term use of the common breast cancer drug Tamoxifen could increase your risk of developing a deadly second tumor.
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