FDA approves Prostate Cancer Treatment

U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new prostate cancer treatment. The treatment is called Provenge and helps in making body’s immune system strong which cancer cells cannot invade.

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Researchers have spent 18 years and around $750 million in making this novel treatment.

The FDA approved this treatment after a trial clinical test done on 500 men with advanced prostate cancer The results showed that nearly one third of men who had been given Provenge were still alive compared to those who took other treatment.

The working of this new treatment is a bit different. In this treatment the patient’s blood is taken as a sample and sent to a lab where technicians extract immune cells known as antigen presenting cells (APCs) from the sample. Then they are combined with the immune cells with proteins that are prevalent on the surface of prostate cancer cells along with an immune boosting substance. Exposure to the cancer proteins and immune booster spurs the APCs into action—and the prostate cancer proteins move to the surface of the "activated" cells. At this point, the activated APCs are pumped back into the patient's blood stream

The Provenge treatment will cost between $50,000 to $75,000 a high price to pay. But if the treatment works well it can save numerous lives.

Swine Flu Vaccine Boon For GlaxoSmithKline

The swine flu vaccination made by GlaxoSmithKline saved a lot of lives and was a boon for the entire pharmaceutical industry. Apart from earning goodwill and a high place in the hearts of swine flu patients GlaxoSmithKline managed to earn high profits.

Pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline posted soaring profits for the first quarter this was purely because of high sales of H1N1 treatments during last year’s swine flu crisis. GSK’s net profits jumped by18.5% ie by £1.34 billion in the three months to the end of March. These figures were much higher than the first quarter of 2009.

The Turnover this year has jumped to 7.36 billion out of which £698 million came from swine flu vaccination alone. These figures exclude the sales of flu products like masks etc. GSK forecasts another £200m in flu related sales in the remaining nine months of the year as the chances of catching the disease still exist.

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The GSK executives feel that they are doing a good job of delivering quality products and that is why their profits are soaring. The group is working on cost saving pharmaceuticals and not compromising on the quality factor. They are planning further simplifications and cost containment initiatives. The group aims at reaching a cumulative cost savings of £2.2bn by 2012 of which £1.5 billion is expected to be achieved by the end of this year.

2010 has started on a good note for GSK and the coming months can be even more rosy.

Love For Curries Needs To Be Toned Down

Curries are on every foodie’s favorite items list. The spicy, tangy and rich aroma of any curry can spoil anybody’s mind. No wonder the curry is one of the favorite dishes of UK people and you can grab one at any corner. But doctors are highly worried about the rising popularity of this dish of Indian origin.

A recent study was conducted by Doctors on UK’s favorite dishes including curries and chicken tikkas. The results showed the amount of salt used in the preparation of these dishes was very high. This has raised a lot of health concerns. The high amount of salt can lead to hyper tension, strokes, heart attacks and heart failure.

The worrying part is most of the people are unaware of the high salt percentage added in food and they are so much lost in the taste that they tend to forget about the health risks it contains. Not just the salt but dishes like curries etc are oily too which further increase heart disease risks.

Currently there are around 18 million people in the UK alone suffering from high blood pressure. The love for curries will increase the numbers for sure. Doctors are worried about these rising figures and are advising people to limit their curry consumptions. A research has proved that people who have high salt intake double their risks of getting stomach cancer.

People cannot measure the amount of salt they are taking with their food but they can find other food alternatives which have low salt and are cooked in less oil. While going for canned food also they should remember that salt is a natural preservative and is used in high amounts in pickles and chutneys

If people want to live longer they need to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Prevention is better than cure after all.