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Allergic Reaction to Cancer Drug in the Middle Southern U.S. Puzzles Scientists
A recent study have identified an unusually high rate of allergic reaction in cancer patients living in the middle South who received a common drug used for treating their cancer.
The drug, cetuximab, marketed by Bristol-Meyers Squibb as Erbitux, is a widely used chemotherapeutic agent for treating colon cancer, head and neck tumors, and is being studied in the treatment of ovarian, lung, breast and gastrointestinal tumors.
When cetuximab was first approved, the first three patients treated at UNC had severe reactions to the drug. Doctors at both Sarah Canon and Vanderbilt also had more patients than expected react with a drop in blood pressure and shortness of breath or other hypersensitivity reactions within minutes of infusion of cetuximab.
“After speaking with others, we realized that patients who lived on a line across North Carolina, Tennessee, northern Arkansas and southern Missouri had these adverse reactions to the drug,” said study leader Dr. Bert O’Neil, assistant professor of medicine, division of hematology and oncology at UNC. “So, we thought it appropriate to see what common bonds were there.”
Cancer researchers from UNC and Vanderbilt pooled their patients dating back to when the drug received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, in 2004. More than 140 patients from ongoing clinical trials (at Vanderbilt) and current clinical records (at UNC) were reviewed for the presence of immediate, severe hypersensitivity reactions as well as pertinent demographics to determine this region’s rate of allergic reactions and to see if a profile of the potentially allergic patient was evident.
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More News on: Allergy, Drug Toxicity, Cancer and Homeopathy, Signature Drug Toxicity, Cancer Facts, Cancer, Pruritus, Dealing with Pollen Allergy
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