Today’s New York Times ran a heartbreaking story by Amy Harmon about two cousins who developed melanoma. One was entered into a cancer clinical trial and received the investigational drug PLX4032. The other was ineligible for the trial, and therefore unable to access the experimental drug. Guess which cousin died? The article is one in… Continue reading Are Trials Necessary?
Tag: breast cancer
Testing Testing…: Personal Medicine, Breast Cancer, and Policy
Personalized medicine is supposed to usher an era in which treatments are tailored to individuals. And HER2 testing has long been seen as heralding the promise of personalized medicine: tumors that test positive for an amplified HER2 gene are more likely to be responsive to drugs, like trastuzumab, that block the HER2 receptor. Some may… Continue reading Testing Testing…: Personal Medicine, Breast Cancer, and Policy