• Sutent and Thyroid Function

    According to data for patients in the Phase I/II trial of sunitinib (Sutent), 36% developed hypothyroidism during treatment with sunitinib, and the incidence of hypothyroidism increased with duration of treatment. These findings were published in November 2006 by Desai et al in the Annals of Internal Medicine (click for abstract). Desai et al report that […]

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  • GIST Summit webcasts

    The Third GIST Global Opinion Leader Summit meeting, “Multi-modality Approaches to Treating Patients with GIST” was held in Prague on October 27-29, 2006, and was supported by an unrestricted grant from Novartis Oncology. The co-chairs for the meeting were Jean-Yves Blay, MD PhD and Peter Reichardt, MD PhD, both well-known GIST experts. Novartis has removed […]

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  • Cardiotoxicity from imatinib?

    Could imatinib (Gleevec) affect heart function? A new paper released electronically (prior to print publication) suggests that a small percent of patients taking imatinib may experience reduced cardiac function. Specifically, some patients may experince reduced left ventricular function of the heart, reducing its pumping capacity. Dr. Thomas Force, the corresponding author of the paper, discussed […]

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  • Slide presentation from Dr. Peter Reichardt

    Dr. Peter Reichardt has generously made available the slides he used at his June 2005 presentation at the meeting "New Horizons in Treating Cancer: Third International Conference for Organizations Representing People with CML or GIST," held in Dublin, Ireland. This presentation summarizes the consensus about GIST diagnosis and treatment from the European Society of Medical […]

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  • Managing Sutent side effects

    A practical paper written by oncology nurse Laura S. Wood, RN MSN OCN has been published online with free access by the journal Community Oncology. The paper, which covers side effects from sunitinib and sorafenib (in trials for GIST), deals with fatigue, hypertension, diarrhea, mucositis, skin conditions, and hair changes. Patients taking thes drugs or […]

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  • Dr. von Mehren on GIST

    Margaret von Mehren, MD, of Fox-Chase Cancer Center, recently gave an interview on GIST treatment to Medscape. You can complete a free registration to view the entire interview at Medscape. Major points included: role of surgery after kinase inhibitor treatment importance of a patient’s particular mutation in determining response to different drugs (such as imatinib […]

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  • PET Scans & Medicare

    National Oncologic PET Registry http://www.cancerpetregistry.org/ Medicare has started a project to determine the potential benefits of PET scans for additional cancer applications, as input data to determine whether additional cancers and purposes should be covered by Medicare’s rules for paying for PET scans. Currently Medicare does not pay for PET scans for soft tissue sarcoma […]

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  • GSI attends ASCO

    Three members of GIST Support International attended the meeting of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) in Atlanta June 2-6, 2006. Karen Loomis, Leslie Norman, MD, and Paul Rubin, MD volunteered their time to navigate the huge and hectic convention. Jim Loomis, Karen’s husband, also gave his time to go. They heard lectures, spent time […]

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  • Sutent approved in Canada

    Pfizer Canada announced May 31, 2006 that its oral multi-targeted agent, SUTENT (sunitinib malate) has been approved by Health Canada for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) after failure of imatinib mesylate treatment due to intolerance or resistance.

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  • Searchable online Canadian database of health product adverse reactions

    You can read the descriptive news story or go directly to the database.

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