A new pill undergoing
clinical trials in the US that treats a common kind of
leukemia. The results so far are very positive, and the
pills have very few
side effects. It's very exciting to see something that might take away all the pain and anguish of conventional
cancer treatments -
chemotherapy with its extreme pain, fatigue and hair loss; often dangerous
surgery... it also has the advantage of potentially being much
cheaper than existing treatments, which will reduce the financial burden on suffering families in
countries without socialized medicine, not to mention government health agencies themselves. The pills are designed to seek out and destroy cancer cells, based on work by recent
Nobel Prize winners in determining exactly what causes
cancerous cells to become cancerous.
kiladogg says: you might want to update this writeup - the drug was approved by the
FDA for the treatment of
chronic myeloid leukemia, and is now known as
Gleevec...it's currently being tested to see if it works on other
cancers.