Tag Archives: cancer

What Genentech is doing to fix biotech’s diversity problem

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Fortune Editors, Fortune: April 7, 2021

There’s a big problem with clinical trials: a lack of diversity. And that issue is ultimately detrimental to countless people’s lives and health.

Take, for example, breast cancer research. For a long time, the thinking in the health care world was that Black women didn’t develop breast cancer as often as white women, but when they did, they were more likely to die because of it.

“There was this assumption that it was an issue of access to care, the quality of care,” says Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, a nonprofit think tank that analyzes the latest research and helps consumers and organizations put that information to work. But “if you looked at the research, you saw that the original major studies of breast cancer treatment were done on white women.”

That meant the research featured fewer women with triple-negative breast cancer, which Black women develop more often than white women. “Because [women with triple-negative breast cancer] weren’t studied,” Zuckerman continues, “[the researchers] didn’t realize that the treatments that they were studying would not work on those types of cancer.”

Zuckerman talks with Fortune’s Ellen McGirt on this week’s episode of Leadership Next, a podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. Also on the episode with McGirt and cohost Alan Murray is Alexander Hardy, who became CEO of biotech company Genentech two years ago.

Hardy has made it clear that he’s committed to boosting diversity within the biotech world and in clinical trials, and he was already doing so before the pandemic. But COVID-19 crystallized some of the issues in the U.S.

[….]

During the show, Hardy also discusses the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the biotech industry, and how those changes could spill over into research on diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, and cancer.

To read the entire article and listen to the podcast, click here.

“We Can’t Ever Go to the Doctor with Our Guard Down”: Why Black Women Are 40% More Likely to Die of Breast Cancer

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Maria Aspan: Fortune Magazine June 30, 2020

Racism kills Black Americans, and has long before COVID-19. But its toxic combination with sexism has particularly vast and disastrous consequences for the health of Black women.

While Black people in the U.S. are dying from the COVID-19 pandemic at a disproportionately high rate, this national health crisis underlines an even grimmer status quo: Black Americans are also much more likely to die from far more common and longstanding health problems every day. Black women are at particularly high risk of heart disease and strokes, and are at least three times as likely to die as a result of childbirth as white women, contributing to the overall alarmingly high maternal mortality rate in the United States.

Then there are the shocking statistics around breast cancer, which affects one in every eight women and is the most common non-skin cancer affecting women. Black women are less likely to develop it—but 40% more likely to die from it than white women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The reasons behind this awful disparity are wide-ranging, and include systemic problems both within healthcare and far beyond it. Now the disproportionately high toll of COVID-19 on the Black population in the U.S. and the simultaneous national reckoning over racism are drawing new attention to the racial inequities hurting Black women—and amplifying the voices of doctors, scientists, and public health experts who have long sounded the alarm.

[…]

Women of all races could be legally omitted from government-funded clinical trials before 1993, and are still often under-represented in most research studies of conditions that affect them. Pregnancy and menstrual cycles are thought to “complicate” the results of trials that are mostly conducted on white men, who are seen as the “norm.”

This can obviously backfire. In 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sharply cut its recommended dosages of Ambien for women, after years of complaints about grogginess and falling asleep while driving, when followup tests showed that women metabolized the active ingredient in sleeping aids much more slowly than men.

When it comes to clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies, “the FDA encourages but does not require diversity in clinical trials,” says Diana Zuckerman, a scientist and president of the National Center for Health Research. “Worse, the agency frequently approves drugs and devices for all adults, even if they were primarily studied on white adults.”

One treatment that the FDA approved in April, for the “triple-negative” type of breast cancer that disproportionately affects Black women, was approved after being tested on 108 patients. Eight of them, or 7%, were Black. Another breast-cancer treatment was approved last year after being tested on 234 patients; seven of them, or 3%, were Black.

[…]

Read the full article here

Allergan is trying to track down women with breast implants it recalled nearly a year ago

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Maria Aspan, Fortune: June 03, 2020

More than 10 months after recalling some of its breast implants, Allergan is making a new effort to find tens of thousands of women who still have the dangerous devices.

The pharmaceutical company, now owned by AbbVie, said this week that it will launch a digital and social media ad campaign to alert patients about the July 2019 recall of its textured Biocell implants. Those implants have been linked in academic studies to a sometimes-fatal cancer known as BIA-ALCL, for “breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma.” More than 33 women have now died from BIA-ALCL.

Allergan’s announcement comes two weeks after Fortune published an investigation into the persistent problems with breast implants and the health risks, including BIA-ALCL, they have created for millions of women worldwide. These risks have been amplified by decades of inadequate study and problems that were hidden by breast implant manufacturers, as well as the generally poor tracking of medical devices, our investigation found.

Many women affected by Allergan’s Biocell recall told Fortune that they found out about it through social media or news reports, rather than directly from the company or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which requested the recall.

On Monday, Allergan acknowledged that it does not have device-tracking information for some 52,000 Biocell breast implants. Despite “robust efforts” to reach patients since last July, “the company is still seeking to directly contact all U.S. Biocell patients that have not yet been notified,” Allergan said in a press release.

“We are continuing to make every effort to make sure that each and every patient is made aware of the Biocell recall, and knows their implant type and implant history,” John Maltman, Allergan’s vice president of medical affairs, said in the release.

A company spokesperson did not respond to a request for more specifics about when the ad campaign would launch, or what exactly it would entail. And longtime critics of breast implant safety greeted Allergan’s announced plans with skepticism.

“I don’t know how visible it’s going to be,” says Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research. “Will the kind of money and effort be put into this in a way that’s comparable to ad campaigns when they’re selling something?

The new ad campaign appears to be at the behest of the FDA, which “asked Allergan to develop a strategy to contact patients who may not have heard about the recall,” an agency spokesperson told Fortune by email on Tuesday, adding that the FDA “is working with Allergan to amplify the message and outreach related to its July 2019 voluntary recall of certain breast implants.”

This is the latest of several actions the FDA has taken on breast implant safety in the wake of Fortune’s investigation. Last month, after speaking with Fortune, the FDA sent a warning letter to Allergan over its longtime failure to comply with regulatory requirements for selling its implants. At the same time, the agency also sent a letter to a smaller manufacturer warning about manufacturing and quality-control issues.

[…]

Read the full article here.

Breast Implants Causing Cancer

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WJMN Local 3 News: September 8, 2017.

Stacey Boone says she was trying to boost her self-esteem, and wound up fighting for her life.

Boone says, “It was, how I wanted to feel about myself.”

She had no idea hew new beast implants would nearly kill her.

Boone says, “I came close three different times to dying. It started metastasizing to my bones and it metastasized to my liver, my liver had shut down.”

Stacey says doctors determined the plastic from her textured implant caused breast implant-associated lymphoma. The symptoms include lumps or hardening of the implant and fluid behind the implant.

Dr. Frederick Locke, medical oncologist, Moffitt Cancer Center says, “The symptoms often come on years after the breast implants are surgically placed.”

Dr. Locke says recent FDA warnings show there have been 359 breast implant-associated lymphoma cases reported. Nine deaths have been documented.

Dr. Locke says, “When the FDA looked at whether it was associated with silicone or saline implants there wasn’t much of a difference.”

But the difference in these cases? 90% had textured implants, just like Boone. Locke says breast implant-associated lymphoma can affect 1-in-30,000 women. […]

Read the original article here.

Woman with Rare Cancer Linked to Breast Implants Seeks to Spread Awareness

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CBS News: July 13, 2017.

[…] The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says around 550,000 women last year received breast implants, but the FDA published a report this year linking a rare cancer to the implants.

So far, there have been 359 reported cases globally, including nine deaths.

The risk is low, but one in 30,000 women with implants could develop it, including one patient who says she is battling the disease and her insurance company, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner.

Kimra Rogers was shocked to find a tumor under her arm. […]

Then she learned it was cancer, possibly connected to the cosmetic breast implants she’d had put in 17 years ago. […]

It’s called breast implant-associated anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, a rare cancer the FDA says can develop following breast implants, something doctors at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have been studying for five years.

“This is a type of lymphoma. It is not a breast cancer. It’s actually a cancer that develops in the scar tissue around a breast implant,” said Dr. Mark Clemens. […]

But insurance companies don’t always agree to pay. Rogers says her insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, denied payment for removal of her implants three times, telling her it was a contract exclusion because her implants were cosmetic. […]

But Dr. Clemens said, “We can’t wait months or years till an insurance company say, ‘okay, we’re gonna cover it.'” […]

But if you notice any changes in the implants or your breasts, such as swelling, head to your doctor’s office as soon as possible to have any problems checked out.

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A Shocking Diagnosis: Breast Implants “Gave Me Cancer”

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Denise Grady, The New York Times: May 14, 2017.

Raylene Hollrah was 33, with a young daughter, when she learned she had breast cancer. She made a difficult decision, one she hoped would save her life: She had her breasts removed, underwent grueling chemotherapy and then had reconstructive surgery.

In 2013, six years after her first diagnosis, cancer struck again — not breast cancer, but a rare malignancy of the immune system — caused by the implants used to rebuild her chest. […]

Her disease — breast implant-associated anaplastic large-cell lymphoma — is a mysterious cancer that has affected a tiny proportion of the more than 10 million women worldwide who have received implants.  […]

The Food and Drug Administration first reported a link between implants and the disease in 2011, and information was added to the products’ labeling […] An F.D.A. update in March that linked nine deaths to the implants has helped raise awareness. The agency had received 359 reports of implant-associated lymphoma from around the world, although the actual tally of cases is unknown because the F.D.A.’s monitoring system relies on voluntary reports from doctors or patients. The number is expected to rise as more doctors and pathologists recognize the connection between the implants and the disease. […]

As late as 2015, only about 30 percent of plastic surgeons were routinely discussing the cancer with patients, according to Dr. Mark W. Clemens II, a plastic surgeon and an expert on the disease at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. […]

Diagnosis and Treatment

Most of the cancers have developed from two to 28 years after implant surgery, with a median of eight. A vast majority occurred with textured implants. […]

Researchers estimate that in Europe and the United States, one in 30,000 women with textured implants will develop the disease. But in Australia the estimate is higher: one in 10,000 to one in 1,000. No one knows why there is such a discrepancy. […]

Symptoms of the lymphoma usually include painful swelling and fluid buildup around the implant. Sometimes there are lumps in the breast or armpit. […]

What exactly causes the disease is not known. One theory is that bacteria may cling to textured implants and form a coating called a biofilm that stirs up the immune system and causes persistent inflammation, which may eventually lead to lymphoma. The idea is medically plausible, because other types of lymphoma stem from certain chronic infections. Professional societies for plastic surgeons recommend special techniques to avoid contamination in the operating room when implants are inserted […]

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FDA Agrees with WHO, Links Breast Implants to Rare Cancer. How Worried Should Women Be?

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Rita Ruben, Forbes: March 22, 2017.

The Food and Drug Administration has received nine reports of women dying of a rare blood cancer years after getting breast implants, according to information the agency released Tuesday.

The FDA says it now agrees with the World Health Organization that such cases are linked to the breast implants and not some unfortunate coincidence. As of Feb. 1, the FDA says, it had received a total of 359 reports of breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL).

The FDA reports suggest that implants with a textured surface are more likely to be associated with the cancer than smooth implants—of the 231 reports that contained information about the implant’s surface, 203 were reported to be textured implants, while 28 were reported to be smooth. The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) analyzed 46 confirmed cases of BIA-ALCL, including three deaths, and none of the cases occurred in women with smooth implants.

BIA-ALCL on average is diagnosed about a decade after implant surgery, according to the WHO. The first reported case of a woman with breast implants developing ALCL was published in a 1997 letter to the journal Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. While that case was a woman with saline-filled implants, the FDA says the filling, be it saline (salt water) or silicone, doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, although no well-designed studies have yet been conducted to settle that issue.

BIA-ALCL is rare, but just how rare isn’t clear. As the FDA notes, it medical device reports can’t answer that question, because they don’t represent all cases, and the denominator—the total number of women who’ve received breast implants—isn’t known.

ALCL is more common in the breasts of women who’ve had implants than in those who don’t have implants, in whom the cancer almost never develops in the breast. A U.S. studypublished in January concluded that over their lifetime, 3.3 women out of every 100,000 with textured breast implants will develop BIA-ALCL. But the TGA estimates that the disease is more common, affecting 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1,000 women with breast implants (that agency says it has received no reports of BIA-ALCL in women with smooth implants).

“There is no reason to think it is less likely to develop in women in the U.S., and given the dramatic increase in diagnoses in recent years, it is clear that it was under-diagnosed and under-reported for many years,” Diana Zuckerman, a health advocate who has long questioned the safety of breast implants, told me.  Zuckerman serves as president of both the National Center for Health Research and the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund, nonprofits based in Washington, D.C.

Read the original article here.

Can Breast Implants Cause Cancer? WJLA Investigates

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Kimberly Suiters, ABC7 WJLA: February 6, 2017.

“You have cancer — again.”

“What? Breast cancer?”

“No … a new one.”

So went the conversation between a stunned 40-year-old Raylene Hollrah and the plastic surgeon who performed her reconstructive surgery after she survived breast cancer seven years earlier.

Her new cancer diagnosis? Breast Implant-Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma, or BIA-ALCL for short. Of all the potential side effects of breast implants, she did not recall her surgeon ever mentioning a small but increased risk of cancer.

“I did everything to keep cancer away,” Hollrah told 7 On Your Side. “Yet, I put a device in my body that caused cancer.”

The US Food and Drug Administration is not prepared to say that the textured breast implants Hollrah chose cause lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

But in 2011 and again in 2016, the FDA cautioned of a “possible association” between ALCL and implants. […]

When 7 On Your Side filed a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) about ALCL cases reported to the FDA, we received more than 800 documents representing 441 cases, more than one-third unconfirmed, and at least 12 deaths. Even since the 2011 advisory from the FDA about ALCL and implants, when manufacturers responded to reported adverse events, they often listed many risks but didn’t include ALCL. […]

7 On Your Side spoke with a leader in the field of women’s health, Diana Zuckerman, PhD, President of the National Center for Health Research. Zuckerman was our chief source for information about the risk of suicide after implants. Regarding BIA-ALCL, she wrote:

“It is not true that textured implants are the only ones associated with BIA-ALCL. This summary of a recent medical journal article clearly says that “most women with ALCL have at least one textured implant” but that doesn’t mean they all do.

Read the original article here.

Janice Dickinson Regrets Getting Breast Implants, Believes It Affected Cancer Diagnosis

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Ali Venosa, Medical Daily: May 21, 2016.

Breast implants are one of the most popular cosmetic procedures on the planet, but that doesn’t mean they’re never regretted. Supermodel Janice Dickinson, 61, told Entertainment Tonight that when her doctor told her she had stage 1 breast cancer, she wished she never went under the knife.

The mammogram technician added it’s more difficult to detect abnormalities in the breasts when a woman has implants, to which Dickinson replied, “Take them out! Take them out, cut them out! Just take them out now!” Luckily, she doesn’t need to undergo a mastectomy, and instead will begin radiation treatments next week. If she had to do it all over again, Dickinson said she “would have never gotten breast implants in the first place. […]

Though breast implants do not appear to increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer, there may be a link between implants and an increased risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). In 90 percent of breast cancer cases, women find a breast lump themselves and bring it to the attention of their doctor. With implants, it can be a little more difficult to recognize changes in the breasts. According to one study, 55 percent of breast tumors were missed in women with implants compared to 33 percent of tumors in women without them. […]

For women worried that a mammogram will damage their implants, Bevers said not to worry: The benefits of a mammogram far outweigh any small risk of implant damage. But if women do have them, they should tell their clinician so that it’s easier for them to spot any unusual changes that may be taking place. Regardless of implants, though, the best defense against breast cancer is to be familiar with your breasts and to attend screenings regularly.

Overall, Dickinson herself doesn’t plan on slowing down. It’s not a “big pity party,” she said. “I am living and I am happy.”

Read the original article here.

Breast Implants in France to Carry Cancer Warning: Researchers Find a ‘Clearly Established Link’

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Dana Dovey, Medical Daily: March 18, 2015.

Following France’s National Cancer Institute finding a “clearly established link” between breast implants and a specific type of cancer, the country will now order all breast implants to come with a cancer warning. This announcement came after 18 cases of anaplastic large cell lymphoma were directly linked to women with silicone breast implants since 2011.

Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that affects the blood. The link between breast implants and this form of cancer is extremely rare, so French officials have urged women who already have the implants not to remove them, the Daily Mail reported. Given the severity of the cancer in the few women who do develop it, French officials felt it necessary to inform women of all the possible risks associated with the surgery.

ALCL is extremely rare, affecting around one to six in every three million women who undergo breast augmentation, Medical News Today reported. However, a study conducted by researchers from Cambridge University in the UK found that nearly all cases of ALCL in breasts occurred in patients who had undergone breast augmentation, suggesting a link between the two. […]

Breast implants are a very popular surgery, with Dr. Diana Zukerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, explaining that in 2013 alone 300,000 American women opted for the operation. Of these women, around 80 percent undergo breast enhancement for cosmetic reasons while a further 20 percent have breast implants following breast cancer. […]

 

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