Hey Everyone! This week we learned about the different layers of skin and how we can get skin cancer so when I found this article about a new drug that the FDA had approved for advanced skin cancer I was interested. This article from the New York Times described the drug called Erivedge that is made by the Genentech drug company and was approved for patients with skin cancer of at least the basal cell which as we learned is the lowest layer of the epidermis. The positive thing about this form of skin cancer as we learned in class is that it is very easy to have removed most of the time and will very rarely spread to different parts of the body. In some cases the tumors can not simply be treated in the way of removal and small doses of radiation, so this new drug would come in handy in this situation. There was a clinical study performed were 96 patients were involved, 30 percent of the patients experienced a partial tumor shrinkage while on the new drug, while 43 percent of those in the trial study had a complete shrinkage of the tumors or a partial shrinkage of the tumors. After reviewing the results of the study, it looks as if the new FDA approved drug works well with this form of skin cancer.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/f-d-a-approves-drug-for-an-advanced-skin-cancer/?scp=2&sq=skin%20cancer%20&st=cse
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