Today has been lovely and sunny
This is our lane and after all the rain we have had it looks so dry. how amazing
Thats how it has looked all day as the sun went in and out.
But it has been a good day.
Im trying hard to keep the drawers and cupboards tidy but dont know how long that will last.
My order came for magnesium and cherry concentrate.
The magnesium will build up my cells and the cherry concentrate will give me 5 fruits a day. Going vegetarian I don’t want my body to be short of anything.
I haven’t eaten meat for over 2 weeks and Im not missing it. My swallowing is better but my throat hurts bad by the evening. My coughing is kept at bay by throat sweets. The mesothelioma has a cough to it. That is how many people start the journey by realising they have a cough. It is a dry one and doesn’t really cause to much discomfort. Mesothelioma does cause a thick mucus it was seen when I had my bi-op at Honnington the surgeon mentioned it at the time. So as long as you keep taking cough medicine it keeps it clear.
My leg got washed today. The fluid is still running out though how weird, That is what is in my swollen legs. Maybe I should keep it draining out like this. The whole has filled in but hasn’t healed at all. I will see what the nurse says tomorrow.
My friends daughter went today to see how her Meso was doing and she has the news that it is stable. That is so good. She is being offered the Command Trial which is a coincidence as I have the head of the Pharmaceutical company that is in charged of the trial. It is a multinational trial so we need to reach out to newly diagnosed patients or those that have had 4 cycles or less of alimta cisplatin. He wants to introduce his Company and he wants to get the word out regarding a new drug . The command trial.
Im always willing to help but I want to know if I could scrape into it. This where Lord Saatchis Bill would help if it would get past. Im willing to have a trial so why cant I ??
Her is all the details so if you be interested talk to your Oncologist.
Professor Dean Fennell, of the University of Leicester’s Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine, is leading two groundbreaking trials into mesothelioma – a form of lung cancer strongly linked with exposure to asbestos.
Mesothelioma most commonly starts in the inner lining of the chest wall, causing it to thicken, reducing lung capacity – which in turn puts a strain on other organs including the heart. Since the 1960s, it has been known that the disease can be triggered by the inhalation of asbestos fibres. Despite the UK’s ban on asbestos issued in 1985, the number of deaths caused by the disease each year has grown from 153 in 1968 to 2,321 in 2009 – the highest incidence in the world. This number is set to continue to rise sharply over the next 20 years, with a peak coming in 2020.
Two studies involving the University of Leicester aim to test new potential treatments which could improve survival and quality of life for mesothelioma patients. Meso2, a study funded by Synta Pharmaceuticals, aims to test the effectiveness of a drug called ganetespib in preventing mesothelioma tumours.
Ganetespib inhibits the action of a protein in cells called heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) – which is required for the stabilization and proper functioning of many proteins required for tumour growth. The trial will involve around 140 patients across the UK, and is being led by Professor Fennell.
Professor Fennell said, “We think this is a new way of being able to target mesothelioma. Laboratory tests show ganetespib is extremely active in mesothelioma – and combined with chemotherapy, this treatment could shrink cancers down and improve symptoms for patients.”
The second trial is part of a global trial named COMMAND (Control of Mesothelioma with MAintenance Defactinib) sponsored by pharmaceutical company Verastem, which will investigate a new drug called defactinib. The researchers believe the drug could help to inhibit focal adhesion kinase (FAK), which is critical for the cancer stem cells’ development into tumours. The drug could potentially reduce the need for repeated chemotherapy treatment by killing cancer stem cells remaining following front-line therapy.
The trial will involve around 350 – 400 mesothelioma patients worldwide and the University of Leicester is leading the study for the UK, which was the first country to open the trial worldwide.
Professor Fennell, who sits on the steering committee for the trial, said, “Cancer stem cells can cause cancer to return after chemotherapy, and the FAK protein seems to be something that cancer stem cells require. If you inhibit FAK protein, you may be able to target the cancer more effectively. We hope that both of these trials will be positive studies for mesothelioma patients.”
http://www.junehancockfund.org/tag/command/
This study is currently recruiting participants.
This study is a Phase 2, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study of defactinib (VS-6063) in subjects with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) who have not progressed (confirmed partial response or stable disease) following ≥ 4 cycles of treatment with pemetrexed/cisplatin or pemetrexed/carboplatin. Prior to entry and randomization to the study, each subject must have tumor Merlin status(high or low) established by immunohistochemistry performed at a central laboratory. Subjects will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive oral VS-6063 400 mg twice per day, or matched placebo. Randomization will be stratified by tumor Merlin status (high versus low). Progression will be assessed both locally and by central review using the Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors (RECIST) Version 1.1. Subjects will continue to receive treatment until disease progression or other discontinuation criteria are met. Following documentation of nonfatal disease progression, all subjects will be followed for overall survival by telephone contact every 2 months until end of life or the close of the study.
http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01870609
Hate the Placebo bit but I know they have to do that.Not only do unproven treatments need to be tested, but the tests also need to be fair.
Not only do unproven treatments need to be tested but the tests also need to be fair
Without a fair test, the findings from any research may not mean much. Even worse, an unfair test could give healthcare professionals the wrong idea and people may be given treatment that does not work, or they may not be given treatment that could be helpful.
Making comparisons
If someone who is ill takes a treatment and then gets better, it could be due to a natural recovery that would have happened anyway.
To tell if the treatment has worked, it needs to be compared to another treatment or a placebo (see below). The two results have to be different enough to indicate a difference has not occurred by chance.
Comparing a treatment with a placebo
The treatment may be compared with a placebo (a dummy treatment), such as a sugar pill, that looks the same as the treatment.
If there are fewer symptoms or other problems after a treatment than after a placebo, this suggests that the treatment works.
Comparing a treatment with a standard treatment
Where a treatment is already known to be effective from previous research, it is usually not considered right (ethical) to compare the new treatment with a placebo. The new treatment usually needs to be compared with a standard treatment that is already known to be helpful.
This makes it possible to determine whether the new treatment works better than the treatment already being used. New treatments are as likely to be worse as they are to be better than existing treatments.
Placebo effect
The placebo effect is the phenomenon of someone’s symptoms improving when they have only been given a dummy treatment, or even after they have just seen a doctor.
Sometimes, a doctor’s or other healthcare professional’s reassurance and their confident way of communicating with people who are feeling ill helps some people to feel better. The placebo effect is a largely mysterious and fascinating effect that can be quite powerful.
If you think and believe you are going to get better, you’re much more likely to. However, this doesn’t work in all situations and for all conditions.
Dummy treatments may be given to people in clinical trials. A placebo medicine looks the same as the medicine being studied, so you don’t know which one you’re taking. Some people may feel better after taking the placebo medicine because they think they are being given real medication. This is the placebo effect.
Placebos are particularly powerful in conditions where symptoms are important. For example, people feel pain differently and respond better to treatments they think are going to work. In extreme circumstances, some people who are in severe pain respond to a placebo apparently as well as they would to a powerful painkiller.
Placebos do not work for all conditions. High blood pressurecan be lowered by active medicines, but placebos have no detectable effect. Similarly, placebo treatments do not lower blood cholesterol, but statin medicines do.
Sham treatments that work
Researchers have designed ways of creating placebos for complementary medicine treatments, such as acupuncture. It’s possible to carry out sham acupuncture where needles are inserted to a different depth and in different places than those used in real Chinese acupuncture. In recent trials, both types of acupuncture appeared to be better than doing nothing.
Studies have also carried out placebo surgery on people with knee pain. The placebo treatment often has good results.
Control groups
Participants in a clinical trial will usually be put into one of two groups:
- a group in which they are given the unevaluated treatment being assessed
- a group in which they are given an existing standard treatment or a placebo if no proven standard treatment exists (known as the control group)
The aim is to compare what happens in these groups. Participants are randomly assigned to one of these groups (see randomisation, below).
While treatments are different in the two groups, as many other conditions as possible stay the same. For example, both groups should have people of a similar age, with a similar proportion of men and women, who are in similar overall health.
Randomisation
The best way to get similar groups is to allocate individuals to one of the groups in the trial in an unpredictable, random way. This increases the likelihood that the two groups will be similar. This process is called randomisation.
In most trials, a computer rather than a doctor will randomly decide which group each patient will be allocated to. This allocation will be concealed until after each eligible patient has been accepted for the trial.
These precautions mean that people who decide whether a patient is eligible to participate in the trial cannot influence which treatment a patient is allocated to receive. This protects the study from conscious or unconscious bias, which would make the test unreliable.
Blinding
Many trials are set up so that no one knows who has been allocated to receive which treatment. This is known as blinding and helps reduce the effects of bias when comparing the outcomes of the treatments.
Many people feel better if they think they’re getting a better new treatment, even if the treatment is ineffective and their underlying health problem has not really changed at all.
When both the medical staff organising treatment and those taking part in the trial do not know who is receiving which treatment, it is called a double-blind trial.
Blinding is easier when testing medicines, but more difficult when testing other types of treatments or methods of caring for people. For example, it may be impossible to blind a trial that is comparing two types of surgery.
Why blinding is important
Some clinical trials measure hard outcomes such as survival, so outcome measurement is unlikely to be biased.
However, most trials measure outcomes that are more open to biased assessment. For example, patients and researchers may have to make some sort of judgement about how bad symptoms are.
If either researchers or participants know – or think they know – who is receiving which treatment (including placebos), that knowledge may influence what they report.
Participants who think that they are taking an active treatment may not want to let down the researcher, and may exaggerate benefits and minimise side effects. Researchers may allow their hopes about a new treatment to unconsciously influence their recording of symptoms.
The result of these biases is often to overestimate how effective a treatment is. To reduce these possible sources of bias, many trials are double-blind.
Size of trials
For a trial to be a fair test, the number of people taking part needs to be large enough.
For example, in a small trial of 20 people with 10 people taking each treatment, seven people may improve on the new treatment and five on the standard treatment.
Most of us would not think of that as a fair test because, while the new treatment may be better, the finding could easily have occurred by chance.
If the trial was bigger, with 700 out of 1,000 people improving on the new treatment and 500 out of 1,000 on the standard treatment, the result means researchers can be very confident that the new treatment was better.
The degree of this confidence can be estimated. Researchers can provide a range, called a confidence interval, to tell you how certain they are of the result.
Researchers can also test how “statistically significant” a result is. This can help identify where differences between treatments are unlikely to be due to chance.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Clinical-trials/Pages/fairtests.aspx
Rays Blog http://mesoandme.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/thursday-78/
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