(Circ Res. 2010;106:1818-1828.)”
“This study was conducted to assess the efficacy and safety of sorafenib monotherapy in clinical practice settings for Korean patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) related primarily to HBV infection.\n\nMedical records of 57 consecutive patients with unresectable or metastatic HCC treated with 400 mg bid sorafenib at the National Cancer AZD1208 in vitro Center, Korea between June 2007 and March 2008, were retrospectively reviewed.\n\nThe median patient age was 55 years

(range, 28-76 years), and all patients had performance status 0-2 and Child-Pugh class A or B disease. HCC was etiologically related to HBV in 79.0% of patients. Eleven patients (19.3%) had modified UICC stage III tumors, 11 (19.3%) had stage IVa, and 35 (61.4%) had stage IVb. Following sorafenib monotherapy, 3 patients (5.3%) achieved a partial response and 18 (35.1%) achieved stable disease, with a disease control rate of 40.4%. The median times to progression (TTP) was 9.1 weeks (95% CI 3.4-14.8 weeks). Multivariate analyses showed that serum alpha-fetoprotein (alpha-FP)

a parts per thousand yen400 ng/mL (HR, 2.810; P = 0.023) and the presence of massive intrahepatic tumors (HR, 7.633; P = 0.033) were independent GSK2126458 purchase predictors of shorter TTP. The most common grade 3/4 adverse events were hand-foot syndrome (8.8%), diarrhea (7.0%), and skin rash (7.0%). Exacerbation of underlying chronic hepatitis B was not found.\n\nSorafenib monotherapy showed better outcomes with tolerable toxicity in Korean advanced HCC patients, who had intrahepatic nodular tumors and/or metastatic tumors, coupled with low levels of serum

alpha-FP.”
“We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of administering a daily “polypill” consisting of three antihypertensive drugs, a statin, and aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease among high-risk patients in Latin America. We found that GW786034 cell line the lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease could be reduced by 15 percent in women and by 21 percent in men if the polypill were used by people with a risk of cardiovascular disease equal to or greater than 15 percent over ten years. Attaining this goal would require treating 26 percent of the population at a cost of $34-$36 per quality-adjusted life-year. Offering the polypill to women at high risk and to men age fifty-five or older would be the best approach and would yield acceptable incremental cost-effectiveness ratios. The polypill would be very cost-effective even in the country with the lowest gross national income in our study. However, policy makers must weigh the value of intervention with the polypill against other interventions, as well as their country’s willingness and ability to pay for the intervention.”
“The applicability of small interfering RNA (siRNA) in future therapies depends on the availability of safe and efficient carrier systems.