DUBLIN, OH - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved Lymphoseek (technetium Tc 99m tilmanocept) Injection, the first new drug used for lymph node mapping to be approved in more than 30 years.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the U.S. (Siegel 2012) with more than 12,000 new diagnoses per year among veterans in Veterans Health Administration (Zullig 2012).

WAYNE, NJ - Tthe U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Bayer's Stivarga (regorafenib) tablets to treat patients with locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) who have been previously treated with imatinib mesylate and sunitinib malate, according to Bayer HealthCare and Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO - The FDA has approved Kadcyla (ado-trastuzumab emtansine or T-DM1) for the treatment of people with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer (mBC) who have received prior treatment with Herceptin (trastuzumab) and a taxane chemotherapy.

Bethesda MD - Walter Reed National Military Medical Center honored the late Rep. John P. Murtha last month by renaming its comprehensive cancer center in memory of the Pennsylvania congressman.

MINNEAPOLIS — New research out of the Minneapolis VAMC finds that radical prostatectomy does not significantly reduce the risk of death in prostate cancer patients, when compared to observation over more than a decade. While that study confirms other major research on the topic, the controversy about how to treat early-stage prostate cancer continues.
Please read this article and participate in this month's online opinion poll whether radical prostatectomy is overused in early stage prostate cancer at the VA?

When is a cancer patient too old to benefit from a surgical procedure? An answer to that question has been hard to find. Now, researchers from the Minneapolis VAMC are providing data and guidelines to help physicians and surgeons determine optimal treatments for colon and lung cancers.

Controversy continues about when and for whom prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening makes sense. PSA testing often is on lists of “excessive” medical procedures, but primary-care physicians are uncomfortable doing no screening for the common cancer. Two VA clinicians who have researched extensively in the area offer practical advice.

Alarmed by a near tripling of the number of veterans developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) during the past five years, VA has strengthened its programs for the prevention, screening and treatment of veterans with hepatitis C (HCV), which is a major risk for developing the cancer. VA also is revamping practice guidelines for the use of promising new drugs.

WASHINGTON — The number of drug shortages reported annually has nearly tripled over the last five years, with much-needed drugs such as chemotherapy, anesthetics and electrolytes disproportionately affected.

Please read this article and participate in this month's online opinion poll about whether pharmaceutical manufacturers should be required to inform FDA six months in advance if they are discontinuing any drug?