Pharmacology Consult

Until the last decade, efforts to develop a therapy that successfully targeted the KRAS mutation had been futile.

COVID-19 has caused major physical and psychological harm for millions of Americans.

Pain and other common adverse effects of cancer treatment — such as nausea and vomiting, mucositis, depression or anxiety — can dramatically decrease quality of life.

Ibrutinib — a Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor that inhibits B cell-receptor signaling — has demonstrated long-term efficacy as treatment for many mature B-cell malignancies, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, researchers around the world have joined the effort to develop a vaccine and test potential treatments.

Management of polypharmacy — the concurrent use of five or more medications — is a major challenge for clinicians who care for older adults.

One of the hot topics at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting was broadening eligibility criteria to increase clinical trial access and enrollment.

Donna was a young mother of two whose mom and maternal aunt died of breast cancer at early ages.

Clostridioides difficile infection, or CDI, continues to be a significant pathogen in both hospitals and community-based settings. The associated morbidity, mortality and health care costs have prompted many to strengthen infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship strategies to minimize transmission and recurrence. Optimizing these efforts is a tough task because of the broad array of CDI risk factors. Recent antibiotic exposure — especially to fluoroquinolones, clindamycin, carbapenems and third- and fourth-generation cephalosporins — along with chemotherapy, proton-pump inhibitors, immunosuppression, advanced age, comorbidities such as renal dysfunction and hospitalization duration are known CDI risk factors. The frequent exposure to antimicrobials and health care settings, along with higher rates of C. difficile colonization in the immunosuppressed population, poses an appreciable conundrum to clinicians who are trying to reduce CDI risk.

Individuals with cancer are more than four times as likely as those in the general population to develop venous thromboembolism.