cancer treatment

First cancer 'living drug' gets go-ahead

The regulator - the US Food and Drug Administration - said its decision was a "historic" moment and medicine was now "entering a new frontier".

The company Novartis is charging $475,000 (£367,000) for the "living drug" therapy, which leaves 83% of people free of a type of blood cancer.

Doctors in the UK said the announcement was an exciting step forward.

The living drug is tailor-made to each patient, unlike conventional therapies such as surgery or chemotherapy.

It is called CAR-T and is made by extracting white blood cells from the patient's blood.

Child cancer initiatives seeing results in Pacific

Jane Skeen says she is passionate about getting better staff training and treatment to children in countries such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

Dr Skeen said greater collaboration had seen an improvement in recovery rates, saying that about 50 children are now getting treatment in Fiji every year.

And colleagues at Auckland and Christchurch hospitals are also able to assist some children from the Pacific who travel for chemotherapy.

Mother charged with injecting feces to son's IV during cancer treatment

According to Marion Superior Court documents, Tiffany Alberts, 41, of Wolcott, Indiana, used a syringe to inject feces into her son's IV on several occasions between November 13th and 17th, knowingly placing him "in a situation that endangered the dependent's life or health."

The mother claimed her actions were meant to get her son moved from the ICU to another Riley unit, where she believed "the treatment was better."