Oral drugs may protect cancer patients from blood clots
London, May 13: Taking oral drugs daily can be an effective treatment for nearly 10 million cancer patients worldwide suffering from a deadly blood clot condition, results from a clinical trial have showed.
People with cancer have an increased risk of developing blood clots, with roughly one in five experiencing venous thromboembolism (VTE) -- either a blood clot in a deep vein or a condition in which one or more arteries in the lungs become blocked by a blood clot.
The results from the clinical trial called "select-d" suggested that prescribing the oral drug rivaroxaban significantly reduced VTE recurrence among patients with cancer.
"Clinicians were already adopting the oral drug into practice for non-cancer patients and now they have data from this study to indicate that this form of treatment is an alternative option for many cancer patients who have a clot," said lead author Annie Young, Professor at University of Warwick in the Britain.
Although there are many causes and risk factors for VTE, cancer patients are particularly at risk due to a combination of factors such as immobility, pancreatic and gastric tumours as well as chemotherapy, the researcher said.
For the "select-d" trial, researchers enrolled 406 patients who had cancer and VTE; most (69 per cent) were receiving cancer treatment (typically chemotherapy) at the time of their VTE.
Half were randomly assigned to receive low-molecular-weight heparin (dalteparin) and half were given the oral drug rivaroxaban. After six months of treatment, the VTE recurrence rate was four per cent among those taking the tablet and 11 per cent in those receiving dalteparin.
The results for secondary outcomes were mixed, the researcher said.
In patients receiving rivaroxaban, there were around the same percentage of major bleeding events (6 per cent) as those receiving dalteparin (4 per cent) but a marked and significant increase in clinically relevant non-major bleeds (13 per cent) with rivaroxaban compared to those having low molecular weight heparin (4 per cent).
The reason for increased bleeding is not known. It may be because rivaroxaban is more 'potent', the paper published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology said.
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Salman Khan gets another threat; message sent to Mumbai traffic police helpline
Mumbai (PTI): Another threat has been issued to Bollywood actor Salman Khan, with the sender demanding Rs 5 crore on “behalf of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang”, officials said on Friday.
The threat message was sent to Mumbai traffic police’s WhatsApp helpline on Thursday night, an official said.
The sender of the message threatened the actor and demanded Rs 5 crore, claiming it was being made on behalf of the Bishnoi gang. Besides, the individual also threatened the lyricist of the song ‘Main Sikandar Hoon’, the official said.
On a complaint by traffic officials, the Worli police have registered a case and launched a probe, he said.
In the past few weeks, the traffic police helpline has received many threat messages for Salman Khan.
Khan had earlier received death threats from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. While Bishnoi himself is lodged in Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati jail in cases including attempted murder and extortion, suspected members of his gang opened fire outside the actor’s Bandra home in April.
Weeks after that, Navi Mumbai Police claimed to have uncovered a plot by the Bishnoi gang to kill Khan while on his way to his farmhouse at Panvel near Mumbai.
