Thursday, October 25, 2007

Erythropoietin in ovarian cancer

Apparently it has now been shown that ovarian cancer cells become quite resistant to paclitaxel, if they are injected with erythropeitin. This is important because this is the first time it has been shown that erythropoeitin can induce cancer cells to become resistant to chemotherapy.

I suspect that more cancer cell lines also have this effect.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Pay for Performance

For the first time ever, pharma companies offer money back guarantees for its medicines! I think this is great!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Gone for Good?

My patient with gastric cancer has left for out of the country. Of all the time, it has to be now? I mean, he's CA-199 is of the scale, his CT showed mulitple lymph node involvement in the retroperitoneal space.

I wish I could him help but he's not here. I just hope everything will be better if not at least stable disease when he comes back!

Monday, October 08, 2007

Bad start for the week

Just got back from a vacation, and already its a bad start already.

The gastric cancer patient, Barry has metastasized lymph nodes all over the abdomen, now. He's not taking it well and so am I. Somehow I feel responsible for what has happened.

Everytime a patient of mine who comes back either sicker or dead becomes a personal thing for me. I feel like I didn' do enough for them.

My mind starts to doubt and question whether I should continue taking in cancer patients. My heart says yes, but my logical mind has started to plant doubts as to how can I cope with this morbidity of life.

Looking for Divine help!