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Friday, April 15, 2011

New Drug Against Skin Cancer

To prevent skin cancer is the best precaution against the sun’s rays.

Now, this prevention with medical and pharmacological advances could bring an end to skincancer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA for its acronym in English) has just approved a new drug that has shown to prolong the lives of people with advanced melanoma.
It is called , ipilimumab.

People who have some type of melanoma are in luck.

So far the only treatment before the disease was chemotherapy, which also does not stop the cancer and in 20 percent of cases.

Now, thanks to pharmaceutical research, there is another less invasive treatment, the Yervoy (trade name ipilimumab).

As explained by the director of the office assessment of the FDA anti-cancer treatments, Richard Pazdur, although there are many treatments in the process of investigation, “it is the first therapy approved by the FDA which clearly shows that longer life of people with advancedmelanoma. “

And in the clinical study conducted with 649 patients, there was actually to increase the survival of them in about 10 months.

Why is effective against skin cancer?

But how exactly to be as effective?


The drug essentially stops the action of a protein active in melanoma, the CTLA-4, which disrupts the immune system and prevents the body fight the cancer.

In this way, makes the body react to the melanoma extending the life of patients.

In any case, the FDA has advised to study each case individually in order to avoid toxic reactions.

In Spain and administering this drug in certain cases (people with distant and unresponsive to chemotherapy).

However, this approval could lead to general approval in our country, allowing this drug without the red tape that must be passed today.

According to the World Health Organization, skin cancer causes 66,000 deaths worldwide each year.



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