Residency Drug News

• DDW Oral Methylnaltrexone for Opioid-Induced Constipation DDW 2012: Half the patients responded to daily dosing.
  Medscape Medical News, May 2012
• ESTRO Genetic Markers Linked to Prostate Radiation Toxicity Identifying susceptibility markers could guide therapy in the future.
  Medscape Medical News, May 2012
• Ambrisentan Not Tied to Liver Damage A letter in J Am Coll Cardiol presents the data behind health regulators' decision to no longer require monthly liver function tests for patients receiving the endothelin A selective antagonist ambrisentan.
  Reuters Health Information, May 2012
• French Drugmaker Servier Trial Delayed Over Appeal The trial of Servier over allegations of misleading patients about the side effects of a diabetes drug prescribed for weight loss has been delayed so a higher court can consider an appeal by defendants.
  Reuters Health Information, May 2012
• Lack of Awareness of Late Drug Effects in Cancer Survivors Very few primary care physicians are aware of all the main long-term complications from 4 commonly used chemotherapies.
  Medscape Medical News, May 2012
• 'One-Two Punch' for Advanced Melanoma Is Less Toxic Skin toxicities are a concern with new treatments for metastatic melanoma.
  Medscape Medical News, May 2012
• Alert FDA to Review CV Risk With Azithromycin
  News Alerts, May 2012
• Azithromycin May up Chance of Sudden Cardiac Death In an observational study, during a five-day course of azithromycin therapy, patients had a small, increased chance of dying from sudden cardiac death compared with patients taking amoxicillin. The risk of death was higher among patients with the most baseline cardiovascular risk factors.
  Heartwire, May 2012
• ESTRO Are Calcium Channel Blockers Radioprotective? Antihypertensive medications might block late radiotherapy toxicity, but there are still many questions.
  Medscape Medical News, May 2012
• Alert FDA Updates Safety Information for Lenalidomide In an update to their ongoing review, the FDA has added safety information to lenalidomide's labeling to inform patients and physicians of an increased risk for secondary cancers.
  News Alerts, May 2012
• Alert FDA Announces Safety Label Changes to Finasteride Updated labels for finasteride (1 mg and 5 mg) will warn that some sexual adverse effects may linger after the drugs are discontinued.
  News Alerts, April 2012
• Alert FDA Adds VTE Risk to Drospirenone Label
  News Alerts, April 2012
• 'Safe' Obesity Drugs Need to Prove Absence of CV Risk If the FDA follows the recommendations, drug companies will have to either conduct phase 2 to 3 trials or do meta-analyses that rule out excess cardiovascular risk for new obesity drugs that do not have a signal for cardiovascular risk. Advisors voted 17 to 6 in favor of a cardiovascular-safety benchmark that equals the one for diabetes drugs.
  Heartwire, March 2012
• FDA Committee Grapples With CV Risks in Obesity Drugs In day one of a two-day meeting, members of the FDA Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee heard from experts in obesity, diabetes, cardiology, and statistics. Later today, the panel will vote on whether obesity drugs with no cardiovascular risk signal still need to rule out excess cardiovascular risk.
  Heartwire, March 2012
• EBCC Treatment-Induced Menopause Helped by Nondrug Therapies Treatment-induced menopausal symptoms in breast cancer patients can be considerably ameliorated with cognitive behavioral therapy and physical exercise.
  Medscape Medical News, March 2012
• AAD Levamisole-Laced Cocaine May Unmask Autoimmune Process A hallmark of the toxic effects seems to be cutaneous necrosis on the ears and the appearance of autoantibodies.
  Medscape Medical News, March 2012
• AADR Added Complications With More Dental Sedatives for Children A study shows that using more dental sedatives increases the rate of complications in pediatric dental patients.
  Medscape Medical News, March 2012
• Alert EMA Recommends New Warnings on Osteoporosis Drug The CHMP has confirmed a positive benefit-risk balance for strontium ranelate, but recommends new contraindications and revised warnings.
  News Alerts, March 2012
• New Report: Cancer and CVD After Radiation Therapy Radiation therapy saves lives but might induce diseases that threaten once again to take them away.
  Medscape Medical News, March 2012
• New Option for Common Capecitabine Adverse Effect? Hand-foot syndrome occurs in many colorectal cancer patients treated with this chemotherapy. Can an anti-inflammatory help?
  Medscape Medical News, March 2012