For women with faced with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer trastuzumab emtansine, commonly referred to as T-DM1, will offer a very important therapeutic option.

The drug, trastuzumab emtansine, commonly referred to as T-DM1, appears to be superior to the standard treatment for women with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer. Researchers are presenting the results of a large three-year clinical trial Sunday at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago.

This two pronged approach to treating cancer offers an effective result with fewer side affects than traditional treatments.

Because the drug is delivered directly to the cancer and not into the blood stream the immune system has the opportunity to help fight the cancer.

Medical advances in the new year could have a huge impact on world health.

Vaccines, new regulations and cheaper drugs are just some of the medical advances to come.

Like other vaccines, cancer vaccines use a chemical marker of a disease (in one case, a virus; in another, a malignant tumor) to train a person’s immune system to fight the disease.
But unlike vaccines for the flu or chicken pox, which are preventive, “we almost uniformly vaccinate after cancer is there,” Kwak said.
Some cancer vaccines in development could be administered to many people, while others – including Kwak’s vaccine for follicular lymphoma – would have to be tailored to each patient’s tumors.

There is a lot to look forward to and more choices will be one of the biggest drivers of change and improvement.

Ways to save money on pharmaceuticals may be the answer for millions of Americans, especially the elderly who are often prescribed multiple medicines, to make ends meet and still maintain their health.

Coupons, generics, substitution of brands and frank discussions with your physician regarding your ability to pay for your Rx are just a few of the options available.

A grey hair pill could be the answer to all your hair woes.

Bottles of color and peroxide no longer need clutter the bathroom.
The pill, scheduled to become available in 2015, contains an undisclosed fruit extract that mimics the chemical tyrosinase-related protein or TRP-2, an enzyme that protects pigmentation production, the company has said. The goal of the fruit extract pill is to prevent oxidative stress, a process that occurs when hair cells succumb to antioxidants and turn gray, L’Oreal officials say.

Confusing or similar drug names can cause serious mix-ups.

The government has a system in place to try to keep drugs that look or sound alike from ending up on the market together. But the pharmaceutical industry has been pushing to kill the system.

There are nearly 800 pairs of drugs like Clindesse and Clindets that look or sound alike, according to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, or ISMP, a patient safety group that compiled a list of them. And the ISMP says all of these similarly named drugs are a big problem, because name mix-ups are responsible for about 25 percent of all medication errors.

While the government does have a system in place to avoid such mix-ups, the pharmaceutical companies are fighting against such safeguards as they are found to be cumbersome to the process of getting drugs to market.