Africa-Press – Uganda. Two new cancer medicines have been added to the list of essential medicines that hospitals treating cancer should have to reduce deaths.
This information is contained in a report titled, “The selection and use of essential Medicines 2023”, which was published last week by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Two new cancer treatments have been added: pegylated liposomal doxorubicin for Kaposi sarcoma and pegfilgrastim to stimulate production of white blood cells and reduce the toxic effect of some cancer medicines on the bone marrow,” the WHO said in the report.
Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is a cancer that manifests as tumours on the skin or on mucosal surfaces such as inside the mouth. But these cancerous growths can also develop in other parts of the body, such as in the lungs, stomach or intestines.
KS contributed 3,844 (11.3 percent) of the 34,008 new cancer cases in Uganda in 2020, according to statistics from the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Dr Henry Ddungu, a specialist at Uganda Cancer Institute, while commenting on the WHO’s recommendation, told the Monitor yesterday that the new drug for KS eases patient management by reducing side effects experienced during cancer treatment.
“Doxorubicin is a medicine that we use for various forms of cancer treatment. But there is a form, pegylated liposomal doxorubicin that is designed to be a little longer acting. So instead of giving someone many doses, you give them one, making them [the patients] experience fewer side effects,” Dr Ddungu said.
Some of the common side effects of Doxorubicin medicine include cough, fever or chill, darkening or redness of the skin, fast or irregular heartbeat, joint pain and lower back or side pain.
Dr Ddungu also said because of the unavoidable side effects of other drugs that may be used to treat a cancer patient, the new medicine called Pegfilgrastim is an excellent boost for care and the quality of life of patients.
“When people are undergoing cancer treatment, the medicine they use for cancer treatment takes away their immunity by destroying all the cells, including the good ones. So people can be given a long-acting form of that growth factor called pegfilgrastim. The short-acting one is called filgrastim,” he added.
Dr Nixon Niyonzima, the head of research and training at the Institute, told this newspaper that they have already started using the medicines recommended by the WHO.
Recommended drugs
In the report, the WHO indicated that in total, their experts “recommended the addition of 24 new medicines to the List of Essential Medicines (EML) (15 to the core list and nine to the complementary list); recommended the addition of 12 new medicines to the EML for children (EMLc) (eight to the core list and four to the complementary list).”
Important among the recommended were drugs for Multiple sclerosis (MS), which WHO said had no treatment listed on the essential medicines.
MS is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance, according to information from the National Health Services of the United Kingdom.
“Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, debilitating disease of the nervous system affecting approximately 2.8 million people worldwide. Until now, no medicines for its treatment have been included on the EML. In 2023 three medicines that can delay or slow its progression – cladribine, glatiramer acetate and rituximab – are added to the EML, filling an important gap given the large global burden of MS,” the WHO said.
The other drugs recommended included pretomanid for treatment of multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis, acamprosate and naltrexone – for treatment of alcohol use disorder, fixed-dose combinations of multiple medicines for heart diseases, and monoclonal antibodies for Ebola virus disease.
“The recommended changes bring the total number of medicines (including fixed-dose combinations) on the EML to 502 (from 479 in 2021), including 361 on the EMLc (from 350 in 2021),” the global health agency added.
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