New Edition of DrugInfoLine Now Available

The current issue of DrugInfoLine from the American Pharmacists Association is available to all STAT!Ref subscribers! It provides pharmacists and primary care physicians with the latest pharmaceutical information and details FDA clinical trials, new drug approvals and sales suspensions. Topics in the current issue include liver damage from natalizumab, grapefruit drug interactions and new research on prostate cancer treatment. Read part of the article below:

Oncologic Disorders
Gary C. Yee, Section Advisor

"Best treatment" for early-stage prostate cancer not identified; adverse effects from all

Key point: A review prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that insufficient data existed comparing the efficacy and/or safety of available localized prostate cancer treatments (e.g., watchful waiting, radical prostatectomy, brachytherapy, and androgen deprivation).

Finer points: No treatment demonstrated a significant advantage over the others in more than one high-quality trial,and many of the studies did not provide long-term survival data. None of the randomized controlled trials tested cryotherapy, laparoscopic or robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy, high-intensity focused ultrasonography, proton-based radiation, or intensity-modulated radiation therapy

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