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BCAC says a new report highlights how desperately poor access to new and innovative medicines is in New Zealand.
The Medicines NZ Medicines Landscape 2017 report finds that New Zealand comes last out of 20 comparable OECD countries for access to publicly-funded new medicines.
The report says this means more than 230,000 patients in New Zealand are currently waiting for access to medicines that are not yet approved for public funding in this country.
BCAC committee member, Louise Malone, attended the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December 2017 and gives us an update on the latest cutting-edge research into new targeted immunotherapy treatments.
As cancer researchers better understand the complex interchanges between tumour cells and immune cells and the microenvironment in which they operate, new targets for therapy are emerging.
In the most comprehensive study ever looking at the genetics of breast cancer, scientists have linked 110 genes to an increased risk of the disease.
The Institute of Cancer Research study used a pioneering genetic technique to analyse 63 areas of the genome that had previously been associated with the risk of breast cancer.
New research from the UK shows how alcohol damages DNA in stem cells and helps to explain why drinking can increase your risk of cancer.
The study, by scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge has been published in the journal Nature, and used mice to show how alcohol exposure leads to permanent genetic damage.
Researchers in the US have identified two new genes associated with breast cancer: MSH6 and PMS2.
The new study suggests that each gene approximately doubles a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer by age 60. The two genes were previously known to cause Lynch syndrome, an inherited condition that raises the risk of colorectal, ovarian, stomach, and endometrial cancer.
A new study has found that acupuncture significantly reduces joint pain for post-menopausal women with early-stage breast cancer taking aromatase inhibitors.
The research, presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, involved a randomised controlled trial comparing acupuncture, sham acupuncture and no acupuncture.
A combination of the breakthrough drug Keytruda and Herceptin is well tolerated and has clinical benefits for patients with Herceptin-resistant HER2-positive breast cancer.
The new treatment regimen was tested in a clinical trial on patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer that had continued to grow on Herceptin (trastuzumab) therapies.
Increasing the dose intensity of chemotherapy by shortening the time period between treatments may help to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurring, a new study shows.
The research, presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, also noted that delivering drugs sequentially rather than at the same time helped to reduce the risk of recurrence and death.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) is pushing for the chemotherapy drug, Abraxane, to be publicly funded for women with advanced breast cancer.
BCAC has lodged an application with the Government’s drug-buying agency, PHARMAC, to publicly fund the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer.
