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Medtronic Introduces The Vertex Select(R) Reconstruction System
Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT) announced the U.S. launch of the VERTEX SELECT® Reconstruction System. When a patient has a spinal condition that requires fusion or a procedure that must be performed from the back of the spine, also known as a posterior approach, the VERTEX SELECT® Reconstruction System contains implants and an instrument set for performing this surgical procedure. Conditions of the spine, such as degenerative disc disease, tumor, or trauma, can lead to instability and pain for patients...
Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy Recognized For Advocacy Work On Mental Health Issues
Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) was honored last night by the American Psychological Association for his advocacy work and legislative accomplishments on mental health issues. The APA presented Kennedy with the 2010 Outstanding Leadership Award, given annually to a member of Congress who has prominently championed the goals of professional psychology. "Congressman Kennedy has been a tireless crusader of mental health rights," says Katherine C. Nordal, PhD, APA executive director for professional practice...
Donating Kidney Doesn't Shorten Lifespan
A study of over 80,000 American live kidney donors found they were likely to live just as long as people who have two healthy kidneys and that the procedure carries very little medical risk. You can read about the landmark study by lead author and transplant surgeon Dr Dorry L Segev, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues, online in the 10 March issue of JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association...
NHS Dental Charges In Wales Frozen Again
Dental patient charges in Wales have been frozen for the fourth year running to help maintain wider access to NHS dentistry, Health Minister Edwina Hart announced today [Thursday, 11 March]...
Interacademy Council Asked To Review Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
The InterAcademy Council (IAC), a multinational organization of the world's science academies, has been requested to conduct an independent review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) processes and procedures. The study comes at the invitation of the United Nations secretary-general and the chair of the IPCC, and will help guide the processes and procedures of the IPCC's fifth report and future assessments of climate science...
Diary Note: East Of England Muscle Disease Conference
What Families living with muscle disease in the East of England are joining forces with clinicians and MPs at an inaugural conference for the region, organised by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. The conference will be an opportunity for families to learn more about fighting for better muscle disease services in their region and to find out how local campaigning can make a real difference. There will be talks from leading clinicians and local MPs about recent care developments and how best to make your voice heard on healthcare issues...
Today's OpEds: Congressional Dealmaking, Cutting 'Honchos Pay,' Controlling Costs
Congressional Deals: Watching The Sausage Making Politico Legislators need pork to make things happen, especially in an age when chronic obstruction has so weakened the legislative process that policy breakthroughs are almost impossible. This does not excuse all kinds of deal making, nor should we ignore that deals sometimes go too far (Julian E. Zelizer, 3/10). Health Care Reform's Sickeningly Sweet Deals The Washington Post Skipping through the Candy Land of the health-care bill, one is tempted to hum a few bars of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." What a deal. For dealmakers, that is...
GSK To Offer Flexible Drug Pricing In Middle-Income Countries
Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) "plans to bolster earnings by selling to more people in middle-income countries after cutting prices in the world's poorest nations," Bloomberg/BusinessWeek reports. "Our strategy is to grow our business in middle-income countries by increasing the volume of products we sell," GSK Chief Executive Andrew Witty said by e-mail, according to the news service...
Also In Global Health News: WFP In Somalia; Ugandans Displaced By Landslides; Polio Vaccination Campaign In Nigeria; Famine In Chad
Nearly 50% Of Food Aid Sent To Somalia Never Makes It To People In Need "As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report," the New York Times reports. "The report, which has not yet been made public ...
Link Between Brain Chemical And Cognitive Decline In Schizophrenia
In one of the first such studies involving human patients with schizophrenia, researchers at UC Davis have provided evidence that deficits in a brain chemical may be responsible for some of the debilitating cognitive deficits - poor attention, memory and problem-solving abilities - that accompany the delusions and hallucinations that are the hallmarks of the disorder. The study, published online in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests an important avenue of inquiry for improving cognitive function in the more than 2 million Americans who suffer from schizophrenia, according to Jong H...
MBL Scientists Identify Driving Forces In Human Cell Division
If you can imagine identical twin sisters at rest, their breath drawing them subtly together and apart, who somehow latch onto ropes that pull them to opposite sides of the bed - you can imagine what happens to a chromosome in the dividing cell. Understanding the forces that drive chromosome segregation - a crucial aspect of human development and some diseases, including cancer - is the goal of an international group of researchers who collaborate each summer at the MBL...
Texas Earthquake Study Cites 'Plausible Cause'
A study of seismic activity near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport by researchers from Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin reveals that the operation of a saltwater injection disposal well in the area was a "plausible cause" for the series of small earthquakes that occurred in the area between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 16, 2009. The incidents under study occurred in an area of North Texas where the vast Barnett Shale geological formation traps natural gas deposits in subsurface rock...
NYT Editorial Calls On Abortion-Rights Supporters 'To Make Their Voices Heard'
In the "three years since the Supreme Court's conservative majority abruptly departed from precedent to uphold a federal ban on a particular method of abortion, ... foes of reproductive freedom are pressing new attacks on women's rights and health," a New York Times editorial states. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) "has signed a bill (HB 462) that would criminalize certain behavior by women that results in miscarriage," the editorial notes. It adds, "The measure exempts lawful abortions, and particularly worrisome language about 'reckless' acts has been removed...
W.Va. House Panel Approves Bill Requiring Information About Ultrasounds Before Abortions
The West Virginia House Health and Human Resources Committee on Monday voted 16-9 to approve a bill (HB 4517) that would require physicians to give women the opportunity to view an ultrasound image at least one hour before performing an abortion, the Charleston Gazette reports. According to the Gazette, the rule would only apply to cases where ultrasound technology already is being used. The Senate passed the bill last week (Knezevich, Charleston Gazette, 3/8). The bill now proceeds to the House Judiciary Committee (AP/Charleston Gazette, 3/8)...
Research Shows Removing Healthy Breast Does Not Improve Breast Cancer Survival, NYT Columnist Writes
Recent studies show that more women with cancer in one breast are opting for removal of both breasts, even though removal of the healthy breast does little to improve survival rates, New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope writes. In 2006, roughly 6% of women who underwent surgery for breast cancer chose to remove both the cancerous and healthy breasts, a procedure known as contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, Pope says...
Obama Makes Final Public Push For Health Reform As Democrats Consider Timeline
President Obama is delivering his "closing argument" for health care reform in St. Louis today as Democratic leaders strategize on moving the bill through the House and Senate.The Associated Press: "Obama is to speak Wednesday at St. Charles High School, his second health care address in three days. His speech comes as congressional Democrats stand on the brink of delivering the president a dramatic success with passage of his sweeping overhaul legislation - or a colossal failure if they can't get it done...
GOP Putting Strategies In Place To Thwart Dems On Reform
Politico: "When Mitch McConnell speaks these days, he expects House Blue Dogs to be listening." The Senate minority leader is "very much part of a newly launched Republican shadow war to block health care reform by playing on the nerves of wavering Democrats across the Capitol" with "his real goal of sowing doubts about the fiscal soundness of President Barack Obama's agenda - and with it health care reform. It's a change in Republican tactics that reflects the changed circumstances of the health care debate...
President Announces Plans To Crack Down On Health Care Fraud
The Boston Globe: "President Barack Obama said Tuesday he'll bring in high-tech bounty hunters to help root out health care fraud, grabbing a populist idea with bipartisan backing in his final push to overhaul the system. ... Obama's anti-fraud announcement was aimed directly at the political middle." "Waste and fraud are pervasive problems for Medicare and Medicaid. ... Improper payments -- in the wrong amounts, to the wrong person or for the wrong reason -- totaled an estimated $54 billion in 2009. ...
Senate Poised To Pass COBRA Subsidy Extension, Medicare 'Doc Fix'
The Senate is set to vote Wednesday on a jobs bill that would extend the COBRA subsidy program and Medicaid funding for states and prevent a Medicare reimbursement cut for doctors. The Associated Press: The bill "extends health insurance subsidies for the unemployed through December. It would add $132 billion to the budget deficit over the next year and a half. ... In states with the highest jobless rates people are eligible to receive benefits for up to 99 weeks. A 65 percent health insurance subsidy for the unemployed under the COBRA program adds about another $10 billion...
FDA Sponsoring Workshops To Increase Rare Disease Treatment Options
The Wall Street Journal: FDA is putting on workshops for pharmaceutical manufacturers to increase the pool of applicants for approved "orphan drugs," that treat rare diseases. Currently, there are about 7,000 so-called orphan diseases in the U.S. that have few or no FDA-approved treatments. "Getting an orphan-drug designation opens the door to incentives once the FDA approves a medicine for sale in the U.S., including seven years' marketing exclusivity and tax breaks. Last year, just 250 requests for orphan-drug designation were filed, and 160 received it...
Medical School Costs, Loan Rates Rise Sharply
NPR reports on the high cost of medical school, focusing on one student, Sarah Rosen. The interest rate on her school loans "shot up to eight and a half percent, almost twice the rate [her parents] are paying after refinancing their mortgage." "Tuition and fees at public medical schools, after all, have shot up 133 percent since 1990, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. ...
Non-Profit Operations Plugging Health Care Gap In Chicago
Medill Reports presents a story on community health centers in Chicago that try to fill access-to-care gaps for people too sick to get health care coverage or too poor to afford other care. "Community health centers ... are private, non-profit operations that fill a gap between for-profit health systems and free public health clinics. There are 36 of these federally qualified health centers in Illinois. Financial support comes from federal funds, Medicare, Medicaid, state programs, private insurance and philanthropies...
Comparative Research Lags Far Behind Approval-Driven Evaluations
A new study has found that few drug evaluations compare treatments in ways that help doctors make better decisions, Reuters reports. The study, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association and written by doctors from Harvard and University of Southern California, also found that private firms - the main sponsors of research that compare drugs to placebos - have little interest in drug-to-drug comparisons, and that even when researchers do compare drugs, they often fail to answer questions about safety and improving effectiveness (Fox, 3/9)...
States' Legislative Health Initiatives Stall
The Boston Globe: "A group of Massachusetts mayors, fed up with what they say is legislative inaction on skyrocketing municipal health care costs, has launched a ballot initiative for 2012 aimed at giving cities and towns more flexibility in reducing expensive benefits for employees, retirees, and elected officials" (Murphy, 3/10)...
Lifesaving Bills Filed In Florida Legislature To Guarantee Patient Safety Improvements
National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida and National Nurses United today announce that the Florida Hospital Patient Protection Act of 2010 has been filed in the state legislature by authors Rep. Oscar Braynon and Sen. Tony Hill and will be known as HB 1283 and S 2316. The bill will improve conditions and outcomes for patients in hospitals, while also lessening Florida's nursing shortage by drawing RNs to work in safe and therapeutic conditions. The Florida Hospital Patient Protection Act will: - Guarantee a safe ratio of RNs to patients on every unit in every hospital in Florida...
AAMC Says Patient Safety Is A Top Priority For U.S. Medical Schools And Teaching Hospitals
AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., issued the following statement today on the Lucian Leape Institute's new report, Unmet Needs: Teaching Physicians to Provide Safe Patient Care: "The AAMC and its member institutions were pleased to participate in the roundtable discussions that produced this new report on medical education and patient safety-a top priority for the nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals for the last decade...
The American College Of Obstetricians And Gynecologists Supports Women's Access To Universal Health Care
During Cover the Uninsured Week, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reiterates its position that all women should be guaranteed a package of essential benefits that includes primary and preventive care, pregnancy-related and infant care, medically and surgically necessary services, prescription drugs, and catastrophic care. The essential principles for achieving universal care that meets women's lifetime health needs are defined in its Health Care for Women, Health Care for All: A Reform Agenda...
WHO's Updated Malaria Guidelines Include Rapid Diagnosis, New ACT
The WHO on Tuesday released new guidelines for the treatment of malaria, which recommend "parasitological testing before treatment begins" and add "a new artemisinin based combination treatment [ACT] to the list of prescribed drugs," BMJ News reports. According to BMJ News, WHO's guidelines are "expected to enhance earlier and accurate diagnosis, halt the emergence of drug resistance, and reduce the use of unnecessary treatment" (Zarocostas, 3/9)...
British Government, HIV/AIDS Advocates Warn Decreased Aid Budgets Could Lead To Reversals In HIV/AIDS Treatment Progress
Recent gains in the global fight against HIV/AIDS could be reversed as the "global economic downturn pinches poor countries' budgets and donors show signs of backing away from their promise to provide universal access to AIDS treatment," the British government together with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday, Reuters AlertNet reports...
New Patient Data Has The Power To Transform Health Care Management - New Report Published Today, UK
One year on from the NHS becoming the first national health system in the world to routinely collect patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), a new report highlights the potential for PROMs to transform the funding and management of health care. Getting the most out of PROMs, published today by The King's Fund and Office of Health Economics, is a guide for clinicians, commissioners, managers and others describing how to use data based on patient reports of their health-related quality of life and the benefits of doing so...
Congress Works On Tariff-Lowering Legislation For Haiti As Preval Meets With U.S. Leaders In Washington
The Senate Finance Committee's chair, Max Baucus (D-Mont.), and top Republican, Charles Grassley (Iowa), are working with colleagues in the House on legislation that would lower tariffs in an effort to help Haiti's apparel industry and help the country recover from the major January earthquake, CQ Politics reports. "The bipartisan effort comes as Senate Finance leaders consider ramping up their work to broadly overhaul multiple U.S. trade preference programs, which lower or eliminate U.S. tariffs on a wide range of products from many developing countries," according to the publication (3/9)...
Brain Mechanism May Explain Alcohol Cravings That Drive Relapse
New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention. Previous work has suggested that people, places, and objects associated with alcohol use are potent triggers for eliciting relapse and that cravings for both alcohol and drugs can increase across protracted abstinence...
Molecule Tells Key Brain Cells To Grow Up, Get To Work, Stanford Study Shows
About four out of every 10 cells in the brain are so-called oligodendrocytes. These cells produce the all-important myelin that coats nerve tracts, ensuring fast, energy-efficient transmission of nerve impulses. Mixed among them are proliferating but not particularly proficient precursor cells that are destined to become oligodendrocytes when needed but, for now, remain suspended in an immature, relatively undifferentiated state somewhere between stem cell and adult oligodendrocyte...
MicroRNA Identified As Possible Cause Of Chemotherapy Resistance
Scientists may have uncovered a mechanism for resistance to paclitaxel in ovarian cancer, microRNA-31, suggesting a possible therapeutic target for overcoming chemotherapy resistance. Mohamed K. Hassan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Hokkaido University in Japan, completed the research as a collaborative study with his colleagues when he was a professional assistant in South Valley University in Egypt. Results of this study were presented at the second AACR Dead Sea International Conference on Advances in Cancer Research: From the Laboratory to the Clinic, held March 7-10, 2010...
Hoyer Pledges To Work With Stupak To Address Abortion Coverage In Health Reform
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday pledged to work with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to resolve the dispute over abortion-coverage language in the Senate health reform bill (HR 3590), CQ Today reports. Hoyer said the issue "has to be resolved," adding, "I think it will be resolved one way or the other, and the bill will be passed." Stupak claims that there are about one dozen antiabortion-rights Democrats -- including himself -- who will vote against a final health reform bill if it includes the Senate reform bill's abortion-coverage language...
Ga. Bill To Ban Abortions Based On Race, Gender Fuels Debate Among Advocates
A Georgia bill (HB 1155) that would ban abortions based on race or gender is further fueling claims by antiabortion-rights groups that minority populations are being "targeted" by abortion providers, the Washington Times reports. The Georgia bill would make it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform or accept funding for abortions based on race or gender. The state Judiciary Non-Civil Committee has scheduled a hearing on the bill for Wednesday (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 3/10)...
Politicians Not Doing Enough To Improve Care For Older People, UK
Sixty per cent of people think politicians are not doing enough to improve care for older people according to a survey by Age Concern and Help the Aged. The poll also found that eight out of ten adults believe care reform is among the most important issues in the forthcoming election. The findings come ahead of a cross party care summit being attended by charity representatives including Alzheimer's Society's Acting Chief Executive, Ruth Sutherland...
American Red Cross Passes The $100 Million Mark In Aid For Haiti Earthquake Relief And Recovery
The American Red Cross announced it is allocating an additional $24.4 million for Haiti earthquake relief and recovery, increasing its total commitment to date to $106.4 million. The Red Cross made its funding announcement the same day that Haitian President Rene Preval is visiting the White House to discuss the urgent need for more aid from the international community to help that island nation recover from the January 12th earthquake. The latest allocation of funds by the American Red Cross includes $16...
Economic Models And Health State Utility Values
Although health care decision making is reliant on quality of life measurements, there is currently very little research and limited guidance on the most appropriate techniques to apply these data in economic models used to inform policy decisions Researchers at the University of Sheffield explored the potential difference on policy decisions based on cost per QALY thresholds when using different baseline health related quality of life profiles in conjunction with different methods to estimate values for health states describing multiple health conditions...
Evaluating Models Used To Consider Health Policy Alternatives
As computer-based decision modeling has become more sophisticated, policymakers have increasingly incorporated them into their assessment of potential policy measures in public health and medicine. Lead author Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert considers how to evaluate such models to enhance their credibility in the forthcoming paper to be published in Value in Health, "Empirically Evaluating Decision-Analytic Models." "The models being developed by researchers throughout the country have helped us to assess the long-term effectiveness and costs of various interventions...
CDC Analysis Shows Genital Herpes Rates Remain High
Roughly 16% of U.S. residents ages 14 through 49 are infected with genital herpes, making it one of the nation's most common sexually transmitted infections, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released on Tuesday, Reuters reports. CDC noted that infection rates for the lifelong and incurable infection varied by gender and race. Twenty-one percent of U.S. women are infected with genital herpes, compared with 11.5% of men. Blacks have a 39% infection rate, compared with 12% among whites...
U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Increases Over Last Decade
The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. appears to have risen over the past 10 years, reaching a rate that is four times higher than the federal government's 2010 goal, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. In 2006, the last year for which nationwide data are available, about 13.3 maternal deaths occurred for every 100,000 live births, compared with around seven deaths per 100,000 births one decade before. U.S. officials had hoped to decrease the rate to about 3.3 deaths in 2010. In California, the state that most closely tracks maternal mortality data, there were about 16...
Men's 'Barbarity' Should Not Be Used To Justify Mistreatment Of Women, Opinion Piece Argues
"'Feminism' is a loaded word in the United States," but the "simple fact is that 'the feminists' are absolutely right when it comes to the treatment of women in much of the developing world," Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg writes. He adds that a recent Washington Post opinion piece on the Cameroonian practice of "breast ironing" is just one of the many examples of women and girls "pay[ing] the price for the barbarity of boys...
Identifying Patient-Relevant Outcomes In Metastatic Prostate Cancer
While subjective patient-reported outcomes, such as scores from health-status questionnaires, have become an integral part of clinical trials, there is also a need to identify what specific outcomes are the most important ones to target in a given disease context. The objective of this study was to develop a framework of patient-relevant outcome issues in men being treated for metastatic, hormone-refractory prostate cancer in order to enhance and support the clarity of measurement in this population...
Abortion Holding Up Democrats' Endgame On Health Overhaul
Politico: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer "said Tuesday that the abortion fight 'has to be resolved.' The majority leader expressed confidence that the issue would be wrapped up, but he also cautioned reporters that he had not had any formal negotiations with Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who authored the House abortion restrictions. ... 'Congressman Stupak has not reached an agreement on abortion funding in the health care legislation,' his spokeswoman, Michelle Begnoche, said Tuesday...
Pro- And Anti-Health Reform Groups Wage Last Minute Attacks
Stephan Payne protested abuses by health insurance companies and pushed for health care reform during a rally Tuesday. The rally was organized by Health Care for America Now and coincided with an annual conference for health insurance executives in D.C. (Jessica Marcy/KHN) Thousands of protestors marched Tuesday to Washington's Ritz-Carlton hotel, where insurance company executives are meeting, The Washington Post reports. The protestors reinforced "the Obama administration's recent criticism of increasing health premiums...
Lincoln, Kucinich Weigh In On Health Bill Votes
Lawmakers weigh in on the health care overhaul debate. The Associated Press/The Washington Times: Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., "insisted Tuesday she remained opposed to pushing a health care bill through the Senate with a simple majority vote, despite saying she wanted to see what was in the legislation." Lincoln "said those comments didn't represent a change of heart on her stance against the controversial majority-vote procedure known as 'reconciliation.' 'I don't support reconciliation. All I said was I want to see what's in it,' Lincoln told reporters outside the Senate floor...
Mind Calls For Regulation Of Counsellors And Psychotherapists, UK
Mind today presents new evidence to illustrate the barriers people face when trying to make a complaint about counsellors and psychotherapists and urgently calls for independent statutory regulation to help protect clients from malpractice (1)...
California Rescission Settlement Benefits Few Consumers
The Associated Press reports on a new California state assembly report that found fewer than 200 people out of the more than 6,000 affected have taken advantage of benefits won by a settlement between state regulators and health insurers that dropped sick policyholders. "More than 6,000 Californians were subject to rescissions by the five largest insurance companies between 2004 and 2008, according to settlement agreements between the regulators and the insurers...
Age Concern And Help The Aged's Response To Today's Care Summit, UK
Following Age Concern and Help the Aged's care summit, Andrew Harrop, Director of Policy and Public Affairs for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: 'Our care summit did exactly what it set out to do. It provided all three main political parties the neutral platform that was needed to re-open dialogue about reforming the current care and support system. 'The three health spokespeople each spoke outlining their proposals on reforming care, and then participated in debate with older people, care users and experts...
ERT Launches 'Centralized Cardiac Safety 2.0': A Revolutionary New Approach To ECG Management In Clinical Trials
ERT (Nasdaq: ERES), a leading provider of centralized services to the biopharmaceutical, medical device and related industries, announced the launch of Centralized Cardiac Safety 2.0, a portfolio of new solutions that enable a significant new approach to cardiac safety in clinical trials. These new solutions overcome many of the perceived barriers to centralizing all ECGs in clinical trials. ERT's aim is to improve the science of cardiac safety while helping sponsors reduce overall costs with the adoption of a fully centralized approach...
Pediatric Sports Injuries: The Silent Epidemic
At today's 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), two separate studies focus on the dramatic rise of pediatric sports injuries in recent years. However, despite this alarming trend, awareness, education, warning signs and early treatment can make a significant difference and help keep these athletes in the game, according to the study experts. Thomas M. DeBerardino, M.D...
Cempra Announces The Completion Of Phase 1 Studies For CEM-101, A Next-Generation Macrolide
Cempra Pharmaceuticals announced the successful completion of Phase 1 clinical trials of its oral formulation of CEM-101, which showed good tolerability in those studies. The company also announced plans to submit an IND to the FDA to begin a Phase 1 study with the company's intravenous formulation of CEM-101 in mid-2010. CEM-101 is a next-generation macrolide with potent activity against pneumococci, including macrolide- and quinolone-resistant strains...
Start Of Phase I/II Gene Therapy Clinical Trial For Hemophilia B
Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (Euronext: AMT), a leader in the field of human gene therapy, announced that the first patient has been dosed in the Phase I/II exploratory clinical trial with a gene therapy product for hemophilia B, a seriously debilitating and potentially lethal disease. The trial is an open label dose-escalation study using a vector-gene combination developed at the renowned St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Dr. Arthur W. Nienhuis of St. Jude is the principal investigator of the on-going trial. The work was initiated at St. Jude more than a decade ago by Drs...
AdMeTech Hails New Research That Shows Promise Of MRI To Discriminate Aggressive Prostate Cancer From Dormant Disease
New preliminary data from a pilot study in the Netherlands indicates that imaging tools may help address the most challenging clinical dilemma of prostate cancer care as identified by the hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and its expert witnesses last week: to treat or not treat, AdMeTech Foundation's President and CEO Dr. Faina Shtern said today. The preliminary study, done by a world-leading team of researchers led by Dr...
Tumors May Respond To Extreme And Moderate Heat
Aided by ultrasound guidance, treating tumors with extreme heat or moderate heat may provide a possible therapeutic option, according to early research presented at the second AACR Dead Sea International Conference on Advances in Cancer Research: From the Laboratory to the Clinic, held March 7-10, 2010. "Low temperature controlled hyperthermia and high temperature treatments are beneficial in curing both malignant and benign tumors using minimally invasive and noninvasive ultrasound techniques," said Osama M. Al-Bataineh, Ph.D...
Breast Cancer Incidence Among Iraqi Women Profiled
Breast cancer continues to rise in Iraq, and scientists have established the Iraqi National Cancer Research Program to better understand the underlying molecular and environmental causes in an effort to curb the incidence of cancer. "Breast cancer is the most common type of malignancy recorded in the cancer registries of almost all countries within the Eastern Mediterranean Region. In Iraq, the continuous rise in the incidence rate is associated with an obvious trend to affect premenopausal women," said Nada A.S. Alwan, M.D., Ph.D...
Seaweed Extract May Hold Promise For Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Treatment
Seaweed extract may eventually emerge as a lymphoma treatment, according to laboratory research presented at the second AACR Dead Sea International Conference on Advances in Cancer Research: From the Laboratory to the Clinic, held here March 7-10, 2010. Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system and is classified into Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's types, which are then further classified into B-cell and T-cell groups. "Some forms of B-cell lymphoma are especially resistant to standard treatment and thus new therapies are needed," said Mohammad Irhimeh, Ph.D...
The Dangers Of Daylight Savings Time
Daylight Savings Time can be hazardous for your health. On average, people go to work or school on the first Monday of Daylight Savings after sleeping 40 fewer minutes than normal. And recent studies have found there's a higher risk of heart attacks, traffic accidents and workplace injuries on the first Monday of Daylight Savings. "Many people already are chronically sleep-deprived, and Daylight Savings Time can make them even more tired for a few days," said Dr. Nidhi Undevia, medical director of the Sleep Program at Loyola University Health System...
New Drug Reduces Bad Cholesterol And Triglycerides Without Statin Side Effects
A new drug, eprotirome, has been shown to significantly lower bad cholesterol, triglycerides and Lp(A), without the side effects that statins cause in many people. Results of a study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Our study has shown a dramatic reduction in the dangerous fats that cause heart disease, the number one killer of Americans," said Dr. John Baxter, director of the Genomic Medicine Program at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and co-author for the study...
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