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Genetic testing for personalised medicine and limitations of the current medical practise in public health
Published in Ben Y.F. Fong, Martin C.S. Wong, The Routledge Handbook of Public Health and the Community, 2021
Moreover, there is no medical treatment available to cure some diseases such as Ataxia Telangiectasia (Rothblum-Oviatt et al., 2016) and systemic lupus erythematosus (Javinani et al., 2019). It may possibly create panic in patients if the results of the genetic testing are made known to them before the disease is diagnosed. It may also create a psychological burden to the patients and their families for an extended period of time.
Design and Analysis of Cancer Clinical Trials
Published in Yingwei Peng, Binbing Yu, Cure Models, 2021
Cancer is a heterogeneous disease and differs greatly among different patients and even within the same type of tumor. Survival rates may vary greatly between different cancer types and remain poor for some cancers, while some treatments can have serious side effects (ICR, 2014). Exciting advances are paving the way to better treatments and possibly more cures. Although it is difficult to achieve cure for most advanced solid tumors, many types of cancer, e.g., leukemia, lymphoma, testicular cancers, may have long-lasting durable remission. Because of the progress of early diagnosis and cancer treatment, many cancer patients become long-term survivors, even though one cannot be sure that cancer eventually goes away after treatment. In this chapter, we refer the “cure” as long-term remission, meaning there is still a slight chance that disease may come back. But, in general, a person who stays cancer free five years after a diagnosis has better odds of recovery.
Oncology
Published in Roy Palmer, Diana Wetherill, Medicine for Lawyers, 2020
Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the major non-surgical fields of management for patients with cancer. The popular concept is that such treatment is unpleasant. Although the two treatment methods are often confused, the implications regarding the induction of sickness and vomiting, hair loss and general fatigue, as well as redness and soreness of the skin during a course of radiotherapy, are well perceived. As cancer is seen as a life-threatening disease, many patients are prepared to undergo unpleasant treatment and to accept both short- and long-term side-effects if there is a chance of cure or long-term survival. Indeed, many papers have described the fact that the medical profession is, in general, more conservative about what patients will want to tolerate in the way of side-effects for what may be a very small increase in survival. Much of the management of patients with cancer is palliative, i.e. designed to improve symptom control rather than to increase longevity. However, happily, an increasing percentage of treated patients are being cured. Cure is defined as having been achieved when a cohort of patients with the disease in question reaches the same rate of death as the normal population.
Prevalence, motivation, and associated factors of medicinal herbs consumption in pregnant women from Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office: a systematic review
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2023
Afaf Bouqoufi, Laila Lahlou, Fatima Ait El Hadj, Mohammed Abdessadek, Majdouline Obtel, Youssef Khabbal
Herbal medicines include herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products, that contain active ingredients that are parts of plants, other plant materials, or combinations of these (World Health Organization [WHO], 2019). Herbal treatment is based on the extract of the whole plant, part of the plant (i.e., leaves, roots, flowers), or a mixture of several herbal compounds. For several years, herbal remedies have been taken as a preventive measure to maintain health and to prevent, relieve, or cure diseases (Pieroni et al. 2005). Approximately 80% of the world’s population uses various traditional medicines, including herbal medicines, to diagnose, prevent, and treat disease, and to improve general well-being (Eisenberg et al. 1998). This practice is due to the popular belief that herbs are natural and free of any adverse effects compared to conventional medicine (Pieroni et al. 2005). Local traditions and social pressure, for example, high costs of drugs and medical visits, as well as insufficient health coverage, could also be the reason behind this practice (Choudhry 1997). Herbal medicines are available as non-prescription medicines. Given such ease of access, most women say that they decided to use herbal medicine on their own initiative or on the advice of family and/or friends (Kennedy et al. 2016).
Perspectives on deprescribing in palliative care
Published in Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology, 2023
Jennifer Tjia, Maki Karakida, Matthew Alcusky, Jon P Furuno
Unfortunately, not all diseases have a cure or disease-modifying therapies, and many are accompanied by burdensome symptoms. For incurable or untreatable diseases and conditions that affect quality of life, symptom management eventually becomes the priority for care, and this is the primary domain of palliative medicine [9]. Thus, palliative care is not just about cancer, dementia, or dying [16]. Palliative care is the interdisciplinary specialty focused on improving quality of life for persons with serious illness and their families [1]. Sometimes it may be possible to continue curative and disease-modifying treatments along with symptom-focused care in an approach called concurrent palliative care [22,23], which is an approach that has been shown to prolong life expectancy for some patients [24].
Prostate and metastasis-directed focal therapy in prostate cancer: hype or hope?
Published in Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy, 2023
Jonathan J. Chen, Emily Weg, Jay J Liao
What is ‘cure’? Even that word can incite fierce debates among providers. Practically speaking, from a patient perspective, the most important benchmark of ‘cure’ is the ability to live out a life of duration and quality unaffected by the cancer diagnosis. This does not necessarily require that all cancer cells are truly eradicated, even if one could ever possibly know that. Similar to how AIDS has changed from a death sentence to something that patients live with, can we get to a point where a metastatic prostate cancer patient has a chance of living the rest of their natural years with good quality of life? Prostate cancer already has relatively longer median survival after a diagnosis of metastatic disease compared to other malignancies. With cumulative improvements in PFS, perhaps it could be possible someday.