July, 2019 - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

29Jul 2019 by Ronny Allan No Comments

Surufatinib for Neuroendocrine Cancer

UPDATE 2nd May 2022. US FDA did not approve. Commentary from Healthcare New company Global Data. "On 2 May, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected HUTCHMED’s new drug application (NDA) for its lead candidate, Sulanda (surufatinib), for the treatment of advanced neuroendocrine tumours (NETs). Issues pertaining to trial populations were raised in a complete response letter (CRL) and GlobalData expects this case to have wide implications for the whole field of oncology therapeutics. China-based HUTCHMED received approval for its multi-receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Sulanda in China for the treatment of pancreatic and extra-pancreatic NETs in June last year and December 2020, respectively. Following the submission to Chinese authorities, NDAs were also submitted to the FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA). Two large Phase III studies formed the basis…

The trouble with the NET (Part 4) – Cancer can kill but so can fake cures

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy

No matter where you look on social media, there are millions of sites claiming that 'this' and 'that' can cure cancer. If you analyse some of the things that can apparently 'cure' cancer, you will normally find that behind these fantasies, there is someone selling something, a book, a video, a product.I was also interested to read a number of articles about various aspects of this modern phenomenon. Firstly, in the magazine Wired, a major media company was forced to take down some cancer therapy videos after someone pointed out they were not scientifically factual. Not just patients who get fooled by these claims then?Much of the misinformation arrives via Facebook, and YouTube, two of the most commonly used social media tools. This article suggests a shockingly large majority of…

Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumours – to cut or not to cut

Treatment

Background I've written before about pancreatic NETs (pNETs), much of which has been on the awareness side of my advocacy work, particularly emphasising the differences with core Pancreatic Cancer (adenocarcinoma).Pancreatic NETs are quite difficult to diagnose and treat, some of that difficulty is due to the location of the pancreas and accessibility for surgeons and radiographers. It's not helped by the fact that most pNETs are non-functional, making diagnosis more difficult as there is little clinical suspicion to scan, but also results in more late diagnoses.Although biopsies are possible, mainly via endoscopic ultrasound or laparoscopy, they can still be difficult to reach. In some cases, biopsies are not done until after the surgical removal of tumours. The latter scenario plus surgery after a positive biopsy result does present an increased risk…