Rare Diseases and Rare Medicines: Cancer care; constipation

Sameer Bhatia, the founder of barter site MonkeyBin and mobile gaming company Octane Technologies, has a new challenge ahead of him. The 31-year-old Stanford grad has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML),died on Thursday, March 27, 2008, in Seattle. He left after a valiant and positive struggle with leukemia and the subsequent accumulation of issues from multiple chemotherapies. We felt the love of many hospital staff members who had looked after him in their efforts to nurture him to health.

send flowers or other gifts. If you would like to make a donation in Sameer’s memory,you donate to any one or more of the following organizations:

Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
(http://www.seattlecca.org/aboutscca/donations.htm)
Vedanta Society of Western Washington
(http://vedanta-seattle.org/pages/contact.html)
People for Progress in India, Seattle
(http://www.ppi-usa.org/webroot/HTML/ContactUs.htm)
Unitus
(http://76.12.48.180/sections/involved/involved_cu_main.asp)

Sameer’s Memorial Service
http://www.helpsameer.org/

Constipation is a frequent cause of distress in advanced cancer. A palliative care unit in Kerala, a southern state of India, conducted a controlled trial comparing a liquid Ayurvedic (herbal) preparation (Misrakasneham) with a conventional laxative tablet (Sofsena) in the management of opioid-induced constipation in patients with advanced cancer. Although there was no statistically significant difference in the apparent degree of laxative action between the two, the results indicate that the small volume of the drug required for effective laxative action, the tolerable taste, the once-daily dose, the acceptable side effect profile, and the low cost make Misrakasneham a good choice for prophylaxis in opioid-induced constipation. There is a need for further studies of Ayurvedic medicines in palliative care.

Author : Dr. P. R. Ramesh, Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakkal (P. O.), Malappuram Dist., 676 503, Kerala, India

Treatment avilabale at : Pain and Palliative Care Clinic, Kottakkal, Kerala, India