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News tagged with gleevec

A lethal cancer knocked down by one-two drug punch

In the battle against cancer, allies can come from unexpected sources. Research at The Jackson Laboratory has yielded a new approach to treating leukemia, one that targets leukemia-proliferating cells with drugs that are ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Jun 07, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 2

Protein that drives survival of gastrointestinal tumors identified

(PhysOrg.com) -- For patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors, or GISTs, the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec has been a reason to hope. Since the drug’s introduction, survival rates have climbed ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Dec 23, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Drug could provide first treatment for scleroderma

Investigators have identified a drug that is currently approved to treat certain types of cancer, Gleevec, that could provide the first treatment for scleroderma, a chronic connective tissue disease for which a treatment ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Oct 18, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Cancer drug shows promise for treating scleroderma

A drug approved to treat certain types of cancer has shown promising results in the treatment of patients with scleroderma, according to results from an open-label Phase II trial. While the drug's efficacy must be demonstrated ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Mar 28, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

'Smart drug' targets new mutation, dramatically shrinks aggressive sarcoma and lung cancer

A new oral drug caused dramatic shrinkage of a patient's rare, aggressive form of soft-tissue cancer that was driven by an abnormally activated protein, physician-scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report in the ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Oct 27, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Imatinib

Imatinib (originally STI571) is a drug used to treat certain types of cancer. It is currently marketed by Novartis as Gleevec (USA) or Glivec (Europe/Australia/Latin America) as its mesylate salt, imatinib mesilate (INN). It is used in treating chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) and some other diseases. By 2011, Gleevec has been FDA approved to treat ten different cancers. In CML, the tyrosine kinase enzyme ABL is locked in its activated form. It induces the abnormal phenotypes of CML: excessive proliferation and high white blood cell count. Imatinib binds to the site of tyrosine kinase activity, and prevents its activity, thereby causing tumor cell apoptosis.

Imatinib is the first member of a new class of agents that act by specifically inhibiting a certain enzyme that is characteristic of a particular cancer cell, rather than non-specifically inhibiting and killing all rapidly dividing cells, and served as a model for other targeted therapy modalities through tyrosine kinase inhibition.

For more information about Imatinib, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.