Fibroids Common, but Women Have Options
Small fibroids located just beneath the lining of the uterus (submucosal) are more likely to move to the endometrial cavity after uterine artery embolization (UAE) but usually don’t cause major complications, according to a new study.
The study included 49 patients with 140 fibroids who underwent an MRI examination before and after UAE. The study found that 39 of these were submucosal. Of these, 33% migrated to the endometrial cavity after UAE, said Sachit Verma, MD, lead author of the study. “At the beginning of our study, we suspected that all submucosal fibroids became endocavitary following UAE irrespective of their area of contact with the endometrium (ID ratio),” said Dr. Verma. “By further analyzing our results we realized that submucosal fibroids with an ID ratio greater than 0.55 at pre-procedural MRI have a higher risk of becoming endocavitary following UAE,” he said
Bone drug could help prevent the spread of breast cancer
Maintaining bone density could be a key to decreasing the spread of cancer in women with locally advanced breast cancer, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Bones are common sites for the spread, or metastasis, of breast cancer. Scientists here found that women treated for stage II/III breast cancer who also received a bone strengthening drug were less likely to have breast tumor cells growing in their bones after three months. The bone-strengthening drug used was zoledronic acid, a drug that decreases bone turnover and reduces bone fractures in patients with osteoporosis.
The findings will be reported June 3 at 11 a.m. CT at the 2008 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago.
Disabling mouse enzyme increases fertility
Changing the sugars attached to a hormone produced in the pituitary gland increased fertility levels in mice nearly 50 percent, a research group at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found. The change appears to alter a reproductive “thermostat,” unveiling part of an intricate regulatory system that may one day be used to enhance human fertility.
“To adjust for the right amount of key reproductive hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, we may someday alter the sugars that are added to this hormone or others like it,” says the group’s leader, Jacques Baenziger, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and immunology and of cell biology and physiology.
The report appeared recently in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Boyfriend’s gang membership boosts pregnancy risk
Teen girls whose boyfriends are in a gang are nearly twice as likely to get pregnant as their peers whose boyfriends aren’t gang-involved, a new study from San Francisco demonstrates.
“The significant role of partner’s gang membership in increasing pregnancy risk highlights the importance of addressing the reproductive health needs of gang-involved youth,” Dr. Alexandra Minnis, of RTI International in San Francisco, and her colleagues report.
The rate of teen pregnancy among Latinas is significantly higher than it is among African Americans and whites, and while the birth rate for U.S. adolescents overall fell between 1994 and 2004, the decline was smallest among Latinas, Minnis and her team point out in the May 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Many diet supplements may carry heart risk - study
Three quarters of weight-loss supplements bought online as part of a study contained ingredients that could cause lethal heart rhythm disturbances, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They tested 12 over-the-counter diet supplements and found eight contained at least one ingredient associated with life-threatening heart complications, such as ventricular arrhythmia and cardiac arrest.
While all of the products included a list of the ingredients, none came with a warning about the potential heart rhythm side effects, leaving most people in the dark about the dangers of their diet pills, the researchers said.
Rash most common side effect in Vectibix trials
The most common side effect observed in ongoing trials of Amgen Inc’s cancer drug Vectibix is skin rash, according to interim analyses of pivotal trials of the drug in colorectal cancer released on Thursday.
Vectibix is already approved in the United States for treating colon cancer patients who have stopped responding to chemotherapy, and Amgen is studying the drug in earlier stages of the disease, as well as in other types of cancer.
One Phase III study of Vectibix, also known as panitumumab, is looking at its effectiveness as a first-line treatment in combination with a chemotherapy regimen known as Folfox, compared with chemo alone.
Heart risks high in childhood cancer survivors
Children who survive cancer while they are young are five to 10 times more likely than their healthy siblings to develop heart disease, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
The finding comes from a study of more than 14,000 survivors of childhood cancers, and suggests that cancer survivors and their doctors need to be vigilant about heart risks.
“This study clearly shows for children, and particularly children treated with radiation therapy to the chest or certain drugs that are particularly toxic to the heart, there are significant risks of cardiovascular disease at a far younger-than-expected age,” said Dr. Richard Schilsky of the University of Chicago.
Vitamin D may lower breast cancer risk
Breast cancer patients with lower levels of vitamin D were far more likely to die and far more likely to have their cancer spread than women with normal levels, Canadian researchers reported on Thursday.
Women deficient in the “sunshine vitamin” when they were diagnosed with breast cancer were 94 percent more likely to have their cancer spread and were 73 percent more likely to die than women with adequate vitamin D levels, the researchers said.
More than three-quarters of women with breast cancer had a vitamin D deficiency, the researchers reported to an upcoming meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
