cml n gist

yesterday night i slept for about 10 hours or more i lost count. that was a very good night sleep. the longest sleep ive had for a long long time. but, last night i couldnt sleep n i was up till 2.30 in the morning. so finally i read reader's digest. n found an article about promising new cancer drugs. very good news, at least now people who received the news that they have cancer, wouldnt see it as a you-will-suffer-and-die-painfully death sentence, says the article.

gleevec, the new drug for CML (chronic myeloid leukemia) and GIST (gastro intestinal stromal cancer), shows that in 84% patients who took it, cancer can no longer be detected. herceptin helps women who have metastatic breast cancer in the early stage that also being treated with chemo, by reducing the recurrence of the cancer compared by those with chemo alone.

there are other drugs that the article mentions such as tarceva for metastatic lung (non-small cell); pancreatic, avastin for metastatic colorectal, aldara for skin cancer, sutent for gist n advance kidney, sorafenib, revlimid, erbitux and velcade. some still needs fda approval.

for mor information contact the National Cancer Institutes Cancer Information Service (800-4-cancer) or go to NCI website, www.cancer.gov