Medicare's decision to cover more off-label use of cancer drugs has sparked some serious debate. You can read about it. Shorter verion here. Longer version of the story is available on the NYTimes site  here.  (Access requires a free subscription to the NYT online. You can use the cancerpage login. User: cancerpage  PW: visitor.) Cancerpage ran a news story when Medicare made the announcement January 12^th  here .

...I'm Brown!!!' --- That's what one of the posters exclaims on a discussion board for people who use an UNAPPROVED product for skin tanning.  An injectible solution -  Melanotan -  is sold on the internet as "synthetic versions of melanocyte stimulating hormone that were created, synthesized and developed at The University of Arizona and the Arizona Cancer Center".  The health agencies of four governments have warned that Melanotan could be dangerous but apparently its popularity is growing. Now a letter in the British Medical Journalreports on two patients who had "rapidly changing moles and a conspicuous tan" when they showed up at the clinic. The moles, all benign, changed after the self-administered injections. One of the moles was "severely dysplastic."  Read letter here. The melanotan discussion board can be found here. FDA Melanotan II warning dated 2007.

Value of Acupuncture in Pain Relief Questioned

Large review of the research concludes the pain relief from acupuncture is small and hard to tease out from the bias of testing. The findings are published in the British Medical Journal: "We found a small analgesic effect of acupuncture that seems to lack clinical relevance and cannot be clearly distinguished from bias. Whether needling at acupuncture points, or at anysite, reduces pain independently of the psychological impactof the treatment ritual is unclear."  Read the report here.

In the Clinic/In the Lab

New research suggests the best time to get chemo is at night, when cancer cells are less able to repair the damage done to their DNA. That's the finding of work by Dr. Aziz Sancar of the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine. He and his team were interested in investigating how doctors could take advantage of the body's circadian rhythm. Read more about their work on how the time of day might affect the potency of chemotherapy here.