Budgetary impact on a U.S. health plan adopting abiraterone acetate plus prednisone for the treatment of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Background: Abiraterone acetate, an androgen biosynthesis inhibitor, received FDA approval in 2011 for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients who have received prior chemotherapy containing docetaxel.

Objective: To estimate the projected budgetary impact of adopting abiraterone for mCRPC patients from a U.S.

Clinical, safety, and economic evidence in radioactive iodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer: a systematic literature review.

Background: Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) comprising ~93% of all thyroid cancers. While most cases of DTC are curable with the use of surgery and radioactive iodine (RAI) ablation of the remaining thyroid remnant, prognosis is dire and treatment options limited when DTC becomes RAI-refractory (RAI-R). Standard cytotoxic chemotherapy has limited efficacy, making enrollment in clinical trials of novel targeted therapies the preferred treatment approach.

Economic analysis of decitabine versus best supportive care in the treatment of intermediate- and high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes from a US payer perspective.

Background: Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are blood and bone marrow disorders that occur primarily in the elderly population, with 30% of all cases progressing to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Red blood cell transfusions--a conventional treatment of MDS--have been associated with high costs and decreased quality of life compared with transfusion independence. Phase III clinical trial data suggest that decitabine may offer an improved AML-free survival versus best supportive care (BSC), which consists of red blood cell transfusions, deferoxamine, erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, platelet transfusions, and colony-stimulating factors.

Histidines 13 and 14 in the Abeta sequence are targets for inhibition of Alzheimer's disease Abeta ion channel and cytotoxicity.

The fact that Alzheimer's beta amyloid (Abeta) peptides forms cation channels in lipid bilayers was discovered during the course of our experiments in the laboratory of "Guayo" Rojas at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland (USA). Recently, we found that the Abeta ion channel could be blocked selectively with small peptides that copy the amino acid sequence of the predicted mouth region of the Abeta channel pore. We now have searched for the essential amino acid residues required for this blocking effect by mutations.