When thyroid cancer is advancing aggressively, metastasizes to other locations, and becomes resistant to the usual treatment of radioiodine, the treatment options can become limited because traditional chemotherapy only works in less than 25% of these patients. Now, researchers are reporting that a new drug, motesanib diphosphate, is showing positive results in clinical trials, and may be effective in patients with metastatic thyroid cancer. In a phase 2 study, 93 patients with advanced or metastatic, radioiodine-resistant thyroid cancer -- 57 (61%) had papillary thyroid carcinoma -- were treated with motesanib diphosphate. Of the 93 patients, almost half -- 49 percent -- had Read more...
As summer heat, storms, and power outages pop up around the country, there's another casualty of the heat we may not realize: our prescription medications -- including thyroid drugs. One reader wrote to me during a heat wave saying "I didn't become aware that the extreme heat had compromised the potency of my pills until I started feeling really lousy a few days later." If you take any prescription drug, you need to be aware of