Study finds newer breast cancer drugs save lives
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Women with breast cancer who switch from tamoxifen to a newer class of drugs called aromatase inhibitors live longer, Italian researchers reported on Monday.
Their study, published in the journal Cancer, adds to a growing body of evidence that the new drugs are far safer, preventing cancer with fewer side effects than tamoxifen.
Siestas may lower heart attack-related death rates
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Healthy working men who take time out for an afternoon nap are one third less likely to die of heart-related causes than their peers who skip a siesta, Greek researchers report.
These findings must be confirmed before naps can be recommended for all, Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
Intensive smoking cessation helps heart patients
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Even smokers who’ve already suffered serious heart problems can improve their outlook by quitting, researchers reported Monday.
In a study of more than 200 smokers hospitalized for heart problems, investigators found that intensive smoking-cessation therapy not only helped patients kick the habit, but also lowered their risk of dying over the next 2 years.
Simple 2-gene test sorts out similar gastrointestinal cancers
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A powerful two-gene test distinguishes between a pair of nearly identical gastrointestinal cancers that require radically different courses of treatment, researchers report this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“This simple and accurate test has the potential to be relatively quickly implemented in the clinic to benefit patients by guiding appropriate treatment,” says senior author Wei Zhang, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pathology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Secondhand smoke raises risk of heart disease
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Exposure to secondhand smoke greatly increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, UK investigators report in the journal Circulation.
Dr. Andrea Venn and Dr. John Britton, both from the University of Nottingham, analyzed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted between 1988 and 1994. Exposure to smoke was estimated based on blood levels of cotinine, a biological marker for nicotine. The researchers used blood levels of a clotting protein called fibrinogen and homocysteine, an amino acid, as a rough indicator of the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Vasectomy may put men at risk for type of dementia
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Northwestern University researchers have discovered men with an unusual form of dementia have a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal.
The dementia is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurological disease in which people have trouble recalling and understanding words. In PPA, people lose the ability to express themselves and understand speech. It differs from typical Alzheimer’s disease in which a person’s memory becomes impaired.
IVF babies at higher risk of birth defects
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Babies conceived through fertility treatments have higher rates of birth defects, but the overall risk is so small that it should not keep couples from having children this way, doctors say.
The news comes from a study of more than 61,000 births in Canada, the largest of its kind ever conducted in North America.
Vitamin D may cut risk of colorectal cancer
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Taking 1,000 to 2,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D each day may safely reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, according to pooled data from published studies.
The current findings contradict some prior individual studies that found that vitamin D intake did not seem to protect against colorectal cancer. However, it is possible that the dose may simply have been too low to provide a benefit, researchers say.
Stroke victims train brains to see again
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A new study bolsters evidence that people partially blinded by a stroke or brain injury may be able to improve their field of vision by teaching new parts of their brain to see, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
Using a computer workout program for the brain, about three-quarters of patients in the study could see better after six months of treatment with the therapy, which trains neighboring brain cells to take over for damaged areas.
First large-scale HIV vaccine trial in South Africa opens
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A large-scale clinical trial of a candidate HIV vaccine - which previously showed promise in smaller studies in the United States and elsewhere - has now opened in South Africa. The study plans to enroll up to 3,000 HIV-negative men and women, making it the largest African HIV vaccine trial to date.
Conducted jointly by the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), the trial is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study vaccine, provided by Merck & Co. Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ), contains copies of only three HIV genes, not the entire virus, so it is impossible for a trial volunteer to become infected from the vaccine.
A simple test permits to distinguish between bipolar disorder and depression
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Patients with bipolar disorder experience manic or hypomanic episodes (euphoria) and depression. Type II bipolar disorder (hypomanic) patients are especially difficult to diagnose since their manic episodes are not very marked and they are usually diagnosed as depression patients. Choosing an incorrect treatment can be counterproductive. A study led by IDIBAPS, with the participation of PSYNCRO and 10 more hospital centres and the support of GSK, demonstrates how the HCL-32 test identifies bipolar depression in a simple way and with success above 80%. This work has been done with the Spanish version of this test.
Type II bipolar disorder is an underdiagnosed disease which can be easily confused with depression. Contrarily to what happens in type I bipolar disorder, depressive symptoms and, above all, manic symptoms alternated in this form of the disease are not evident and difficult to identify. In fact, patients suffering from it usually go to the doctor because they are depressed, without thinking that they have also had slight manic episodes (euphoria and other cognition disorders). Medical centre lack tools to identify successfully this pathology, which can take 8-10 years to be correctly diagnosed. Furthermore, antidepressant treatment can be counterproductive in patients with type II bipolar disorder. Dr. Eduard Vieta, of the group Biological Basis of the Psychic Disorder and Nuclear Psychiatry of the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), has coordinated a study in order to validate the Spanish version of the test Hypomania symptom check list (HCL-32), which is being developed in an ample international collaboration.
International study points to new breast cancer-susceptibility gene
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A gene whose existence was detected only a couple of years ago may increase women’s risk of breast cancer when inherited in a mutated form, and may contribute to prostate cancer as well, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and colleagues in Finland report in a new study.
The gene, known as PALB2, may play a role in only about 1 percent of breast cancer cases in the select population that was studied (Finnish women), but its discovery sheds light on the complex web of gene interactions that underlies the disease, say the authors of the study, which is being published by the journal Nature on its Web site, http://www.nature.com/nature, and later in a print edition.
New Treatment For Psoriasis Is Highly Effective
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A new treatment for psoriasis that targets its key inflammatory mediators (IL-12 and IL-23) is highly effective, according to a study by University of Utah researchers to be published in the Feb. 8 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Current treatments for psoriasis include topical medicines and UV light therapy to treat the symptoms of the disease. Many of these treatments are messy, time consuming, have cumulative toxicities, and are not very effective, according to Gerald Krueger, M.D., principal investigator for the study. Krueger is a professor of dermatology and a Benning Presidential Endowed Chair at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Robotic therapy helps restore hand use after stroke
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A robotic therapy device may help people regain strength and normal use of affected hands long after a stroke, according to a University of California, Irvine study.
Stroke patients with impaired hand use reported improved ability to grasp and release objects after therapy sessions using the Hand-Wrist Assisting Robotic Device (HOWARD).
Weight loss surgery reduces heart disease risk
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Substantial weight loss after gastric bypass surgery is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), according to a report in the American Journal of Cardiology.
“Weight loss should stabilize the CHD process and reduce heart attacks and other events,” Dr. Peter A. McCullough told Reuters Health. “Obese patients with CHD—which is virtually all patients with this problem—should consider weight loss to reduce their chances of another CHD event.”
