Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Attorney Blog

GlaxoSmithKline, headquartered in Philadelphia, is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the first drug specifically designed to treat lupus.

Lupus is a chronic disease that causes a person's immune system to attack the skin, joints, blood, kidneys, memory, and other parts of the body. There are a host of treatment options available to patients that control symptoms and side effects but no drug exists to combat the disease.

Doctors and researchers at GlaxoSmithKline have developed an intravenous medication, Benlysta, to specifically target the cause of lupus. Lupus is caused by harmful antibodies called B-cells and Benlysta treats lupus by inhibiting the stimulation of B-cells.

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Revolutionary drug to fight lupus

Doctors at the University Hospital of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have developed a new drug that is helping patients with breast cancer. The drug was developed as a vaccine but is currently being used a treatment option.

The vaccine works by adding molecules to the patient's own white blood cells to train the body's immune system to fight off the cancer. Six weeks of injections creates an immune response to the cancer and the body starts killing off the cancerous tumors. It is unknown how long the body can fight the cancer but early trials are promising. Once the initial trials are complete the doctors want to use the treatment to prevent cancer rather than just fight off existing cancer.

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Health: Local Breast Cancer Vaccine

There is currently no treatment option that will prolong a person's life suffering from melanoma but there could be a drug by the end of this year. The Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing the drug, ipilimumab, and its effectiveness in fighting off skin cancer.

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and claims close to 50,000 people each year. Ipilimumab hopes to lower that number by working with the patient's immune system to fight off the deadly tumors. Melanoma is also one of the fastest growing cancers and is almost always deadly when it spreads to vital organs.

The study gave the drug to almost 700 people suffering from advanced, inoperable melanoma that had exhausted all other treatment options. The drug saw 67% percent improvement in survival and 25% more patients who took the drug were alive after two years than those who did not take the drug. Oncologists are hoping that the drug can provide greater benefits if given to patients earlier in the course of the cancer. The FDA is looking to release the drug to the public by the end of the year.

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Drug boosts survival in major skin cancer study

An immunologist has developed a highly successful breast cancer vaccine. The vaccine has shown to prevent breast cancer in animals and is currently undergoing more clinical trials before human trials can begin.

Vaccines prevent diseases but it is difficult for doctors to create a vaccine for cancer because the body does not use the immune system to fight the disease. Unlike a virus, that is recognized by the body as foreign, cancer is an over-development of cells and is not recognized as the body as harmful. Doctors have discovered that with certain cancers and tumors there are substances within the tumor that are not normally found in the healthy human body. Using this technique, the researchers can create a vaccine that can train the body to fight the cancer cells.

The immunologist studying breast cancer discovered that the protein, a-lactalbumin was found in the majority of breast cancer tumors but only in healthy women during lactation. Targeting this protein the research team injected cancer-prone mice with the vaccine and found that those vaccinated did not develop breast cancer and those who were not injected developed breast cancer. The team also found that the vaccine inhibited the grown of existing tumors.

If the vaccine is found to be as successful in human trials, the strategy could be to vaccinate all women over the age of 40 in hopes of preventing the disease. The risk of developing breast cancer increases in women after 40 and their chances of becoming pregnant decreases. Women under 40 with a high risk of breast cancer could be vaccinated but would not be able to breast fed if they did become pregnant.

The research team behind the vaccine hopes that this vaccine could all but eliminate breast cancer and will foster the invention of vaccines for other types of cancer.

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Breast Cancer Vaccine Shows Promising Results

A recent trial has confirmed that testing lung cancer patients for tumor markers helps doctors choose the medication to treat the cancer that will be the most successful in improving the patient's life.

Advancements in cancer testing and treatment have not yet reached lung cancer. There are little classifications and not very many treatment options for patients who are diagnosed with lung cancer. Doctors have been testing tumors in patients suffering from colon and breast cancer for years and the tests have greatly improved the survival rate for those types of cancers.

The trial studied almost 300 patients with advanced lung cancer who had already been treated with chemotherapy. Each patient had the tumors in their lungs biopsied and tested for several "biofactors" such as epidermal growth factor and vascular endothelial growth factor. The test also checks for the gene KRAS and examines the protein codes of the tumors.

Studying and understanding the tumors helps doctors pick the right medications to treat the patients. There are several drugs currently on the market that attack lung cancer tumors in different ways. The markers or "biofactors" of the tumor enable the oncologist to better determine what medication will give their patient the best chance of extending their life.

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Tumor marker tests help docs pick best meds

Philadelphia patients who are diagnosed and treated for a non-invasive type of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma (DCIS) are never sure if the cancer will return in a more invasive and dangerous form. Oncologists now have a new test that will help them advise patients with DCIS about their risks for developing breast cancer in the future.

Doctors and researchers studied the breast tissue of women diagnosed with DCIS and found those with certain characteristics were at a higher risk to suffer from another bout of breast cancer within eight years. This groundbreaking study will help doctors better weigh the treatment options for women with DCIS. Those with a low risk of developing breast cancer again will avoid invasive treatment and surgeries such as mastectomies and those with a high risk will be undergo treatments to try and prevent the cancer from returning.

This information will help doctors better diagnose and treat patients leading to happy and healthier lives to those diagnosed with the crippling disease of breast cancer.

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Health: Predicting Invasive Breast Cancer

A federally funded study compared two drugs used to treat and prevent breast cancer in older women with a higher risk of developing the disease. The study compared the risks and benefits associated with Tamoxifen and Raloxifene which is marketed as Evista.

The drugs work by blocking estrogen, the fuel behind breast tumor growth. Evista more selectively blocks estrogen and has only been used in women who have gone through menopause. The drugs are not recommended for use in women with average risk of breast cancer but only in those with elevated risks due to family history or gene mutations.

The study asked 20,000 post menopausal women with a higher risk of breast cancer to take the drugs for five years. Follow up visits found that women who took Tamoxifen were half as likely to develop breast cancer and those who took Evista had about a 40% lower chance of developing the disease. Head to head women who took Evista had almost a 25% higher rate of developing breast cancer.

Tamoxifen is the more effective drug but its effectiveness comes with risks. Women who took Tamoxifen were at a higher risk of developing uterine cancer and were also at risk at abnormal uterus growths that led to hysterectomies. There were also higher risks of blood clots and cataracts. Evista is the safer drug but its effectiveness decreases rapidly over time and women were still at risk for uterine cancer while on the drug. Women who are at an extremely high risk of breast cancer and have had hysterectomies can take Tamoxifen without the risk of uterine cancer.

The study leaves doctors and patients better informed about the benefits and risks associated with each drug. The healthy community hopes the success of this study will lead to the prevention of breast cancer in more patients at risk for the deadly disease.

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Study: 2 good choices to prevent breast cancer

Philadelphia area hospitals have a new device to remove blood clots from the body.

Blood clots are serious medical conditions that prevent blood flow in the body and can become fatal if not treated quickly. One of the more serious types of blood clot is a deep vein thrombosis or DVT and can form when people sit too long or are bed ridden. Symptoms of a DVT include muscle cramps and muscle stiffness and must be diagnosed by an x-ray or other digital imagining machine. A DVT usually forms in the leg and is classified as a medical emergency. If the clot breaks off and moves to the lung or the brain it can become fatal. Clots are usually treated through an IV injection of a blood thinner but not all patients respond to the medication and a new device is helping save patient's lives.

The Trellis Peripheral Infusion System is a catheter like device that is proving extremely effective in removing hard to treat blood clots. The thin catheter is inserted to the patient's body and balloons are inflated to isolate the clot. The device then vibrates and sprays blood thinner medication through tiny holes in the wire to break up the clot. Once the clot has been broken up the balloon deflates and the device is removed from the body. Some hospitals in the Philadelphia area are currently using the device and doctors are optimistic that this will be a more popular treatment in the future.

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New clot-busting device

Doctors at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia are using stem cells to help hearts repair themselves after a heart attack.

Patients are more likely to suffer from heart failure after a heart attack because scar tissue replaces part of the heart muscle causing it to grow in size and weaken. Doctors are now using adult stem cells to repair the heart after an attack. Patients must be infused with stem cells through I-V within seven days of an attack to have any likelihood of the heart being repaired.

The test seems to have lessened or prevented the common complications after a heart attack. Patients saw an improved heart function and fewer irregular heart rhythms when compared to patients who did not receive stem cells.

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Drexel docs fixing hearts with stem cells

Coumadin is the most popular blood thinner prescribed to patients but is also one of the world's most dangerous drugs. Coumadin or warfarin is prescribed to about two million patients each year to prevent blood clots after surgeries and for other medical conditions such as a stroke. Dosing with Coumadin is tricky and doses are usually determined by trial and error but a new gene test aims to discover an accurate and appropriate dosage for a patient before the drug is prescribed.

The test evaluates two genes that control how the drug is metabolized by the body. A clinical trial of close to one thousand patients resulted in a thirty percent lower risk of hospitalization than those who were not gene tested. An accurate dose can save lives; too much Coumadin can lead to bleeding and too little can cause clots.

This gene test is also a promising win for gene testing and personalized medicine. The positive results of this test can lead to further research and testing with other medications and genes to prevent prescription errors and save patient's lives.

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Study: Gene testing helps get blood thinner dose right

The Shops at Liberty Place at 17th and Chestnut Street in Center City Philadelphia have a new innovative addition to their ground floor, Drexel University's walk-in clinic. The facility is the first in the city but other city health systems are planning to build similar treatment centers in the area.

The clinic will be open 7 AM to 7 PM and is aimed to cater to the millions of people who live and work in Center City Philadelphia. Doctors and nurse practitioners will staff the clinic and will be able to diagnosis and treat routine medical conditions and if need be patients will be referred to Drexel specialists. Also at the clinic will be a state of the art drug vending machine that is able to easily provide patients with the most common generic drugs without them having to visit a pharmacy.

Doctors are hoping that the convenience of the clinic and the onsite prescription vending machine will help people to see doctors more often and catch problems early. There is also hope that the clinic and others like it will alleviate some of the traffic visiting emergency rooms after the recent concerns about treatment at local emergency rooms.

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Walk-in clinic opens in Center City
Kenneth Rothweiler Appears on Fox 29 Good Day Philadelphia to Discuss Emergency Room Treatment

Doctors at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Center City Philadelphia are very excited about a new option for brain cancer patients. The drug Avastin originally developed to treat colon cancer has found to be effective in improving the quality life of brain cancer patients. The drug works at blocking the protein that the tumor needs to grow. The Food and Drug Administration has recently approved the drug for use with brain cancer patients.

Over ten thousand people die each year due to brain tumors. Avastin has yet to be proven to lengthen the life of brain cancer patients but studies have shown that the drug can vastly improve their day to day lives. Avastin also has fewer and less severe side effects of the typical treatments for brain tumors, chemotherapy and radiation.

Doctors and researchers are very excited about the potential of Avastin and other drugs like it. "I don't think anybody thinks Avastin is going to be a home run, but in a field which didn't even have singles or doubles, Avastin is a triple," Dr. Adam Dicker of Jefferson University Hospital said.

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A new treatment for brain tumors