SciClone Halts Study of Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) - SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it has discontinued a abstraction of its beginning biologic for pancreatic blight afterwards a advocacy by a assurance analysis committee. The shares fell as abundant as 24 percent.

The drug, accepted as RP101, is a nucleoside analog that was actuality activated for patients with late-stage blight of the pancreas, the aggregation said in a account today. The accommodation to stop the abstraction was based on a analysis of abstracts by a assurance ecology accumulation administering the trial, the aggregation said.

Foster City, California-based SciClone markets Zadaxin, a analysis for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and assertive cancers. The RP101 abstraction was in the additional of three phases about appropriate by U.S. regulators afore they will accept a drug. The aggregation didn’t specify what the assurance console found.

Pancreatic cancer is sometimes called a "silent killer" because early pancreatic cancer often does not cause symptoms and the later symptoms are usually non-specific and varied.[5] Therefore, pancreatic cancer is often not diagnosed until it is advanced.[5] Common symptoms include:

* Pain in the upper abdomen that typically radiates to the back (seen in carcinoma of the body or tail of the pancreas)
* Loss of appetite and/or nausea and vomiting
* Significant weight loss
* Painless jaundice (yellow skin/eyes, dark urine) when a cancer of the head of the pancreas (about 60% of cases) obstructs the common bile duct as it runs through the pancreas. This may also cause pale-colored stool and steatorrhea.
* Trousseau sign, in which blood clots form spontaneously in the portal blood vessels, the deep veins of the extremities, or the superficial veins anywhere on the body, is sometimes associated with pancreatic cancer.
* Diabetes mellitus, or elevated blood sugar levels. Many patients with pancreatic cancer develop diabetes months to even years before they are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, suggesting that new onset diabetes in an elderly individual may be an early warning sign of pancreatic cancer.
* Clinical depression has been reported in association with pancreatic cancer, sometimes presenting before the cancer is diagnosed.

However, the mechanism for this association is not known.

HPV Vaccine Ingrediant and cancer treatment relationship

WHAT IS HPV VACCINE?
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is a vaccine that prevents infection with assertive breed of animal papillomavirus associated with the development of cervical cancer, animal warts,[1] and some beneath accepted cancers. Two HPV vaccines are currently on the market: Gardasil and Cervarix. Both vaccines assure adjoin two of the HPV types (HPV-16 and HPV-18) that can account cervical cancer, and some added animal cancers; Gardasil additionally protects adjoin two of the HPV types that account animal warts.[1] In accession to cervical blight and warts, some commercially accessible vaccines accept been apparent to anticipate abeyant precursors to anal,vulvar, vaginal, and penile cancers.

SAFETY
Gardasil is a 3 dosage (injection) vaccine. There accept been 24 actor doses broadcast in the United States, and there accept been 13,758 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) letters afterward the vaccination. Ninety-three percent were letters of contest advised to be non-serious (e.g., fainting, affliction and abscess at the bang armpit (arm), headache, abhorrence and fever), and 7% were advised to be austere (death, abiding disability, life-threatening affliction and hospitalization). There is no accurate causal articulation amid the vaccine and austere adverse furnishings - all letters are accompanying by time only. That is, they are alone accompanying because the aftereffect happened some time afterwards the vaccination.

None of the accepted deaths of women and girls who had taken the vaccine were affiliated to the vaccine. Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), a attenuate ataxia that causes beef weakness, has been appear afterwards anesthetic with Gardasil. There is no affirmation suggesting that Gardasil causes or raises the accident of GBS.

Additionally, there accept been attenuate letters of claret clots basic in the heart, lungs and legs. Most of those who suffered claret clots were already at accident from added factors, such as demography accumulated articulate contraceptive pills.

Based on all of the advice they accept today, CDC continues to acclaim Gardasil anesthetic for the blockage of 4 types of HPV. Merck, the architect of Gardasil, will abide to analysis women who accept accustomed the vaccine to actuate the vaccine's ability over a lifetime.

GARDASIL IS ONE OF THE HPV VACCINE
Gardasil (Merck & Co.), additionally accepted as Gardisil or Silgard,is a vaccine adjoin assertive types of animal papillomavirus (HPV).

Gardasil is advised to anticipate infection with HPV types 16, 18, 6, and 11. HPV types 16 and 18 that currently account about 70% of cervical blight cases and additionally account some vulvar, vaginal,penile, anal. HPV types 6 and 11 account about 90% of animal warts cases.

Gardasil is alone able in preventing HPV infections, not in alleviative those already adulterated by HPV, and so the vaccine charge be accustomed afore HPV infection occurs in adjustment to be effective. For this acumen it is recommended to administrate the vaccine afore boyhood and the access of animal activity.

Ingredients

* Proteins of HPV Types 6, 11, 16, and 18
* baggy aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate
* aggrandize protein
* sodium chloride
* L-histidine
* polysorbate 80
* sodium borate
* baptize for injection.


The HPV above capsid protein, L1, can spontaneously self-assemble into virus-like particles (VLPs) that resemble accurate HPV virions. Gardasil contains recombinant VLPs accumulated from the L1 proteins of HPVs 6, 11, 16 and 18. Since VLPs abridgement the viral DNA, they cannot abet cancer. They do, however, activate an antibiotic acknowledgment that protects vaccine recipients from acceptable adulterated with the HPV types represented in the vaccine.

The National Cancer Institute says, "FDA-approved Gardasil prevented nearly 100 percent of the precancerous cervical cell changes caused by the types of HPV targeted by the vaccine for up to 4 years after vaccination."The vaccine is believed to be effective for longer, but for how long, and whether a booster shot will be needed is still being studied.

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