đź’ŠNew FDA Medicine Approval
⚕️Medicine: Fruzaqla ®
👉active ingredient: fruquintinib
✔️Indications
To treat refractory, metastatic colorectal cancer.
⚙️Mechanism of Action
Fruquintinib inhibits VEGF-induced phosphorylation of VEGFRs 1, 2, and 3.
This inhibits the migration, proliferation and survival of endothelial cells, microvessel formation, hence inhibition of tumor cell proliferation, leading to tumor cell death.
Dosage:
This anti VEGF drug is taken for 28 days with 3 days free period. 5mg of Fruzaqla is taken daily for 21 days in a 28 days chemotherapy cycle.
The awareness about colorectal cancer is loud but still not loud enough.
This is the reason why:
1. Since the 1990s, there has been a 51% increase in colorectal cancer among those under 50–with this noted most in racial/ethnic minorities. Now 1/5 people diagnosed with colon cancer are between 20-54. The drivers behind this are not known. Despite this trend for younger patients, guidelines previously recommended colonoscopy screening to start at age 50, and only in 2018 did American Cancer Society recommend starting colonoscopy earlier at age 45, especially in black patients. Clearly these current guidelines are going to miss many younger patient—as researchers and clinicians we need to figure out the optimal age for screening and a way to risk stratify our patients as well as raise awareness among doctors about this trend to minimize delays in diagnosis for these young patients.
2. Rates of colon cancer diagnosis are 20% higher in blacks compared to whites with death rates almost 40% higher in blacks. This trend of worse cancer outcomes for black patients compared to whites unfortunately is present for the majority of cancers. These cancer health disparities are also one of the reasons I became an oncologists and currently conduct health disparities research now and also plan to continue to devote my career to this type of research. We ABSOLUTELY have to do better for our patients!
The advent of Fruzaqla if made affordable, is an added advantage to the fight against colon cancer as far as threatment options are concerned.
I hope to see health equity achieved over my career.đź’—
