How does the drug abemaciclib treat breast cancer?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
The anti-cancer drug abemaciclib (also known as Vernezio) has this month been added to the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to treat certain types of breast cancer.
This significantly reduces the cost of the drug. A patient can now expect to pay A$31.60 for a 28-day supply ($7.70 with a health care concession card). The price of abemaciclib without government subsidy is $4,250.
So what is abemaciclib, and how did we get to this point?
It stops cells dividing
Researchers at the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly developed abemaciclib and published the first study on the drug (then known as LY2835219) in 2014.
Abemaciclib is a type of drug known as a “cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor”. It’s taken as a pill twice a day.
To maintain our health, many of the cells in our bodies need to grow and divide to produce new cells. Cancers develop when cells grow and divide out of control. Therefore, stopping cells from dividing into new cells is one way that cancer can be fought.
When cells divide, they have to make a copy of their DNA to pass onto the new cell. “Cyclin-dependent kinases” (CDKs for short) are essential for this process. So, if you stop the CDKs, you stop the DNA copying, you stop cells dividing, and you fight the cancer.
However, there are different types of CDKs, and not all cancers need them all to grow. Abemaciclib specifically targets CDK4 and CDK6. Thankfully, a lot of cancers do need these CDKs, including some breast cancers.
But abemaciclib will only be effective against cancers that rely on CDK4 and CDK6 for continued growth. This specificity also means abemaciclib is fairly unique, so it can’t easily be replaced with a different drug.
Two other CDK4/6 inhibitors were developed around the same time as abemaciclib, and are called ribociclib and palbociclib. Both of these drugs are also on the PBS for specific types of breast cancer. As the drugs differ in their chemical structures, they have slight differences in the way they are taken up and processed by the body. The preferred drug given to a breast cancer patient will depend on their unique circumstances.
What are the side effects?
Research is still ongoing into the differences between each of these CDK4/6 inhibitors, but it is known that the side effects are largely similar, but can differ in severity.
The most common side effects of abemaciclib are fatigue, diarrhoea and neutropenia (reduced white blood cells). The gastrointestinal issues are generally more severe with abemaciclib.
If these side effects are too severe, abemaciclib treatment can be stopped.
What types of cancer has abemaciclib been approved for?
In 2017, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved abemaciclib for the treatment of patients with metastatic HR+/HER2- (hormone receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative) breast cancer who did not respond to standard endocrine therapy.
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) similarly approved abemaciclib in 2022 as an “adjuvant” therapy (after the initial surgery to remove the tumour) for patients with HR+/HER2- invasive early breast cancer which had spread to lymph nodes and was at high risk of returning.
As of May 1 2024, the PBS covers this use of abemaciclib in combination with endocrine therapy such as fulvestrant, which is also listed on the PBS. Endocrine therapy, also known as hormonal therapy, blocks hormone receptor positive (HR+) cancers from receiving the hormones they need to survive.
Could abemaciclib be used for other cancers in the future?
Abemaciclib is of great interest to scientists and medical practitioners, and testing is ongoing to assess the effectiveness of abemaciclib in treating a range of other cancers, including gastrointestinal cancers and blood cancers.
Abemaciclib may even be usable in brain cancers, as it has long been known to be capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, a common stumbling block for potential anti-cancer drugs.
Time will tell whether the role of abemaciclib in health care will be expanded. But for now, its inclusion on the PBS is sure to bring some relief to breast cancer patients nationwide.
Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and John (Eddie) La Marca, Senior Resarch Officer, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Radical Remission – by Dr. Kelly Turner
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
First, what this is not:an autobiographical account of the “I beat cancer and you can too” pep-talk style.
What it is: a very readable pop-science book based on the author’s own PhD research into radical remission.
She knew that a very small percentage of people experience spontaneous radical remission (or quasi-spontaneous, if the remission is attributed to lifestyle changes, and/or some alternative therapy), but a small percentage of people means a large number worldwide, so she travelled the world studying over 1,000 cases of people with late-stage cancer who had either not gone for conventional anticancer drugs, or had and then stopped, and lived to tell the tale.
While she doesn’t advocate for any particular alternative therapy, she does report on what things came to her attention. She does advocate for some lifestyle changes.
Perhaps the biggest value this book offers is in its promised “9 key factors that can make a real difference”, which are essentially her conclusions from her PhD dissertation.
There isn’t room to talk about them here in a way that wouldn’t be misleading/unhelpful for a paucity of space, so perhaps we’ll do a main feature one of these days.
Bottom line: if you have (or a loved one has) cancer, this is an incredibly sensible book to read. If you don’t, then it’s an interesting and thought-provoking book to read.
Click here to check out Radical Remission, and learn about the factors at hand!
Share This Post
-
Benefits of Different Tropical Fruits
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Would very much like your views of the benefits of different tropical fruits. I do find papaya is excellent for settling the digestion – but keen to know if others have remarkable qualities.❞
Definitely one for a main feature sometime soon! As a bonus while you wait, pineapple has some unique and powerful properties:
❝Its properties include: (1) interference with growth of malignant cells; (2) inhibition of platelet aggregation*; (3) fibrinolytic activity; (4) anti-inflammatory action; (5) skin debridement properties. These biological functions of bromelain, a non-toxic compound, have therapeutic values in modulating: (a) tumor growth; (b) blood coagulation; (c) inflammatory changes; (d) debridement of third degree burns; (e) enhancement of absorption of drugs.❞
*so do be aware of this if you are on blood thinners or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, as you might want to skip the pineapple in those cases!
Source: Bromelain, the enzyme complex of pineapple (Ananas comosus) and its clinical application. An update
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
Powered by Plants – by Ocean Robbins & Nichole Dandrea-Russert
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Of the two authors, the former is a professional public speaker, and the latter is a professional dietician. As a result, we get a book that is polished and well-presented, while actually having a core of good solid science (backed up with plenty of references).
There’s an introductory section that’s all about the “notable nutrients”, that will be focused on in the ingredients choices for the recipes in the rest of the book.
The recipes themselves are simple enough to do quickly, yet interesting enough that you’ll want to do them, and certainly they contain all the plant-based nutrient-density you might expect.
Bottom line: if you’d like to expand your plant-based cooking with a focus on nutrition and ease without sacrificing fun, then this is a great cookbook for that.
Click here to check out Powered by Plants, and get powered by plants!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
An Unexpected Extra Threat Of Alcohol
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
If You Could Use Some Exotic Booze…
…then for health reasons, we’re going to have to say “nay”.
We’ve written about alcohol before, and needless to say, it’s not good:
(the answer is “no, we cannot”)
In fact, the WHO (which unlike government regulatory bodies setting “safe” limits on drinking, makes no profit from taxes on alcohol sales) has declared that “the only safe amount of alcohol is zero”:
WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
Up there, where the air is rarefied…
If you’re flying somewhere this summer (Sinatra-style flying honeymoon or otherwise), you might want to skip the alcohol even if you normally do imbibe, because:
❝…even in young and healthy individuals, the combination of alcohol intake with sleeping under hypobaric conditions poses a considerable strain on the cardiac system and might lead to exacerbation of symptoms in patients with cardiac or pulmonary diseases.
These effects might be even greater in older people; cardiovascular symptoms have a prevalence of 7% of inflight medical emergencies, with cardiac arrest causing 58% of aircraft diversions.❞
Source: Alcohol plus cabin pressure at higher altitude may threaten sleeping plane passengers’ heart health
The experiment divided subjects into a control group and a study group; the study group were placed in simulated cabin pressure as though at altitude, which found, when giving some of them two small(we’re talking the kind given on flights) alcoholic drinks:
❝The combination of alcohol and simulated cabin pressure at cruising altitude prompted a fall in SpO2 to an average of just over 85% and a compensatory increase in heart rate to an average of nearly 88 beats/minute during sleep.❞
In contrast, that was 77 beats/minute for those who had alcohol but weren’t at altitude pressure, or 64 beats/minute for those who neither drank nor were at altitude pressure.
Lots more metrics were recorded and the study is interesting to read; if you’ve ever slept on a plane and thought “that sleep was not restful at all”, then know: it wasn’t just the seat’s fault, nor the engine, nor the recycled nature of the air—it was the reduced pressure causing hypoxia (defined as having oxygen levels lower than the healthy clinical norm of 90%) and almost halving your sleep’s effectiveness for a less than 10% drop in available oxygen in the blood (the sleepers not at altitude pressure averaged 96% SpO2, compared to the 85% at altitude).
We say “almost halving” because the deep sleep phase of sleep was reduced from 84 minutes (control) to 67.5 minutes at altitude without alcohol, or 46.5 minutes at altitude with alcohol.
Again, this was a pressure cabin in a lab—so this wasn’t about the other conditions of an airplane (seats, engine hundreds of other people, etc).
Which means: in an actual airplane it’s probably even worse.
Oh, and the study participants? All healthy individuals aged 18–40, so again probably worse for those older (or younger) than that range, or with existing health conditions!
Want to know more?
You can read the study in full here:
Want to drop the drink at any altitude? Check out:
Want to get that vacation feel without alcohol? You’re going to love:
Mocktails – by Moira Clark (book)
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Fast. Feast. Repeat – by Dr. Gin Stephens
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
We’ve reviewed intermittent fasting books before, so what makes this one different?
The title “Fast. Feast. Repeat.” doesn’t give much away; after all, we already know that that’s what intermittent fasting is.
After taking the reader though the basics of how intermittent fasting works and what it does for the body, much of the rest of the book is given over to improvements.
That’s what the real strength of this book is: ways to make intermittent fasting more efficient, including how to avoid plateaus. After all, sometimes it can seem like the only way to push further with intermittent fasting is to restrict the eating window further. Not so!
Instead, Dr. Stephens gives us ways to keep confusing our metabolism (in a good way) if, for example, we had a weight loss goal we haven’t met yet.
Best of all, this comes without actually having to eat less.
Bottom line: if you want to be in good physical health, and/but also believe that life is for living and you enjoy eating food, then this book can resolve that age-old dilemma!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Mineral-Rich Mung Bean Pancakes
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Mung beans are rich in an assortment of minerals, especially iron, copper, phosphorus, and magnesium. They’re also full of protein and fiber! What better way to make pancakes healthy?
You will need
- ½ cup dried green mung beans
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
- ½ cup chopped fresh dill
- ¼ cup uncooked wholegrain rice
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp MSG, or 2 tsp low-sodium salt
- 2 green onions, finely sliced
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Soak the mung beans and rice together overnight.
2) Drain and rinse, and blend them in a blender with ¼ cup of water, to the consistency of regular pancake batter, adding more water (sparingly) if necessary.
3) Transfer to a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients except for the olive oil, which latter you can now heat in a skillet over a medium-high heat.
4) Add a few spoonfuls of batter to the pan, depending on how big you want the pancakes to be. Cook on both sides until you get a golden-brown crust, and repeat for the rest of the pancakes.
5) Serve! As these are savory pancakes, you might consider serving them with a little salad—tomatoes, olives, and cucumbers go especially well.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- What’s The Deal With MSG?
- All About Olive Oils: Is “Extra Virgin” Worth It?
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: