Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer - Education Video

In an occasional departure from our focus on clinical trials, we thought we would share our latest patient education videos for prostate cancer patients.  Here Dr. Beer discusses chemotherapy for prostate cancer - very much the way it would be discussed in a clinic visit. 


To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon.
To learn more about clinical trials, take a look at our book.

(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker

What metrics are typically used to determine if the drug is successful?

The ultimate success of a new drug or drug combination is judged by the “safe and effective” standard.  Both of course are examined in context.  Safe often means safe enough – or no less safe than what we have today.  Some cancer treatment have severe side effects – but because their benefits are judged acceptable – they are approved.  Effective means that cancer patients benefit in a meaningful way.  This often involves living longer.  When survival is not impacted, meaningful quality of life improvements are required.  In some situations, cure rates are the measure of success.  Survival benefit, which is the most common measure of success, can take a year to several years to determine.

For more questions and answers about clinical trials, visit the Talk about Health website.
To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon.
To learn more about clinical trials, take a look at our book.

(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker

Immunotherapy for prostate cancer - patient education video

In a bit of a temporary departure from our focus on clinical trials, we thought we would share our latest patient education videos for prostate cancer patients.  Here Dr. Beer discusses immunotherapy for prostate cancer - very much the way it would be discussed in a clinic visit.  In the coming weeks, we will share our videos on chemotherapy and hormonal therapy for prostate cancer patients.

To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon.
To learn more about clinical trials, take a look at our book.

(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker

How to keep track of the latest clinical trials that one may be eligible for

The single most complete resource for clinical trials in cancer is offered through the NCI at www.cancer.gov.  Clinical Trials are listed under the Clinical Trials and the Find a Clinical Trial tab on the www.cancer.gov website.  Detailed instructions on how to use this search tool are available on the website.  We also provide a discussion of that in our book, Cancer Clinical Trials.  Once you set up a search that fits your specific situation, there is an easy way to track the latest trials.  The trial status component of the search form allows you to check the new trials box. This will show you only trials added in the last 30 days. This feature is very helpful if you want to track any new trials that are activated without going through the entire list every time.  A useful strategy is to do a thorough search for clinical trials once and then repeat the same search with the new trials box checked every 30 days.  This way, one can be sure not to miss anything new. 

For more questions and answers about clinical trials, visit the Talk about Health website.
To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon.
To learn more about clinical trials, take a look at our book.

(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker

Clinical Trials—a brief history

Over the past few decades clinical trials have been in the news quite frequently. Every time an important new drug has been approved or disapproved you hear about it on TV, read about it on the Internet, or hear about it from your medical team.

But did you know that the first successful clinical trial we know about occurred more than 250 years ago? If you have read our book, Cancer Clinical Trials, of course you do but if you haven’t you may find this interesting.

For hundreds of years, sailing ships explored the world on longer and longer voyages (think Columbus, Cook, Magellan, etc.). While on these long voyages, many sailors became ill with scurvy—a disease that causes severe joint pain, loss of teeth, skin lesions, bleeding ulcers, and even death. Nobody knew for sure what caused this.

In the 1740s a Scottish doctor named James Lind was hired as a ship’s doctor and while on a long voyage observed the devastating effects of scurvy. He believed it was diet-based and devised a plan to test his idea. His hypothesis was that scurvy was diet based and lemons and lemon juice might cure it. The experiment was to give various groups of sailors with scurvy different dietary treatments including lemon juice. After a few weeks the sailors taking lemon juice were cured and the other groups were not. The result was that Dr. Lind had shown scientifically that lemon juice would cure scurvy. We now know that scurvy is caused by a vitamin C deficiency and lemons and limes can prevent or cure it.

It took a long time for Lind’s discovery to be widely accepted, but eventually and to this day citrus fruits and juice are available on nearly all voyages and scurvy is no longer the scourge of the seas.

This is the same process (hypothesis, experiment, result) used to conduct clinical trials today—with a little more sophistication, of course. We owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Lind.

To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon.
To learn more about clinical trials, take a look at our book.

(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker