Promising cancer drug may endanger child’s bones
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A compound that looked promising for treating a brain tumor found mostly in children may damage growing bone—possibly making it too dangerous to use in young patients, researchers reported on Monday.
The drug fully eradicated medulloblastoma tumors in mice in 2004. But further testing showed it caused permanent bone damage in immature mice, Tom Curran of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and colleagues found.
Writing in the journal Cancer Cell, they said the drug, known by its experimental name HhAntag, will need to be developed with caution.
Disease Leads to Vision Loss More Often in Blacks
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Black people are more likely to lose vision as a result of idiopathic intracranial hypertension, or increased pressure in the brain, according to a study published in the March 11, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“The racial difference does not appear to be based on differences in diagnosis, treatment or access to care,” said study author Beau Bruce, MD, of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA. “The disease affects black people more aggressively. Doctors may need to monitor their black patients more closely and take steps to prevent vision loss earlier than with other patients.”
The cause of idiopathic intracranial hypertension is not known. Symptoms include headache, ringing in the ears, and vision problems such as blurriness and double vision. It is most common in young, obese women.
Magnesium associated with lower risk for some strokes in male smokers
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Male smokers who consume more magnesium appear to have a lower risk for cerebral infarction, a type of stroke that occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked, according to a report in the March 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Recent studies indicate that changes in diet may help prevent stroke, according to background information in the article. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a risk factor for stroke; therefore, dietary measures that reduce blood pressure may in turn affect stroke risk. Consuming more magnesium, calcium and potassium has been associated with lower blood pressure in previous studies, while sodium has been positively associated with hypertension.
Susanna C. Larsson, Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues analyzed the diets of 26,556 Finnish male smokers age 50 to 69 years who had not previously had strokes. In addition to the types of food they ate, the men reported other characteristics including medical, smoking and physical activity histories. Their height, weight and blood pressure were recorded, and a blood sample was taken.
Lung damage in babies with congenital heart disease under study
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Trying to understand and stop the collateral lung damage that can occur in babies with congenital heart disease is the focus of a new study.
When a baby’s heart defect results in too much blood in the lungs, more blood vessels are made, apparently to handle the increased volume, then new blood vessel growth is abruptly halted.
“You get this burst in the first month of life of blood vessel activity, then we think the system gets shut down and the lungs don’t get any bigger,” says Dr. Stephen M. Black, cell and molecular physiologist at the Medical College of Georgia Vascular Biology Center. “What we are trying to work out is what are the mechanisms.”
Malignant tumor or benign cyst?
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The results of a study presented today at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s 39th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer offer a promising development on the path toward better management of ovarian cancer. Researchers say testing women suspected of having ovarian cancer for a combination of proteins, or biomarkers in the blood called HE4 and CA 125, could be the key to predicting a woman’s risk for the disease dubbed the “silent killer.” Currently there is no adequate diagnostic test for ovarian cancer.
“Roughly 20 percent of women will be diagnosed with an ovarian cyst or tumor at some point in their life, and only a small percentage of these women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer,” said Lead Researcher Richard Moore, M.D., assistant professor at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a gynecologic oncologist in the Program in Women’s Oncology at Women & Infants’ Hospital of Rhode Island. “The problem is that current methods for distinguishing benign ovarian tumors from malignant ones are limited and as a result, women must undergo surgery without an accurate assessment as to their risk for having ovarian cancer prior to their surgery.”
Statins exert class effect in heart failure
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Research shows that statins, as a class and at relatively low doses, appear to reduce death among elderly people with congestive heart failure (CHF).
“We believe such results, given the cost differences among agents, have potentially important health policy implications,” Dr. Louise Pilote from the University of Montreal, Canada and colleagues write in the American Heart Journal.
They examined the relative effectiveness of different statins in elderly patients to determine whether statins exert a class effect on long-term survival in patients hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of CHF—a chronic condition in which the heart fails to pump blood efficiently to the body’s organs. It can be caused by a number of things including clogged arteries, heart attack and high blood pressure.
Finally, a reason to start drinking alcohol
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People who do not drink alcohol may finally have a reason to start—a study published on Friday shows non-drinkers who begin taking the occasional tipple live longer and are less likely to develop heart disease.
People who started drinking in middle age were 38 percent less likely to have a heart attack or other serious heart event than abstainers—even if they were overweight, had diabetes, high blood pressure or other heart risks, Dr. Dana King of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston and colleagues found.
Yoga program benefits breast cancer survivors
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In a small study of breast cancer survivors, researchers found that a tailored yoga program helped relieve severe hot flashes and other bothersome menopausal symptoms.
Women who participated in the 8-week “Yoga of Awareness” program not only had greater declines in the frequency and severity of their hot flashes than did a comparison “control” group, they also experienced less fatigue, joint pain, sleep disturbance, and symptom-related distress. They also reported increased vigor.
These improvements were still evident 3 months after the yoga sessions ended.
Virtual reality and computer technology improve stroke rehabilitation
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Israeli hospitals have recently started to use virtual reality therapy for stroke patients. One commonly used program has the patient watch his virtual image on a screen. For example, tennis balls are virtually thrown at the patient from all directions and the patients’ actual hand motions are recorded on screen. In the first stage of development of this new program, computer scientists Dr. Larry Manevitz of the University of Haifa, together with Dr. Uri Feintuch, a neuroscientist from Hebrew University and a research fellow at the Haifa’s Caesarea Rothschild Institute for Interdisciplinary Applications of Computer Science, and Eugene Mednikov, a computer science graduate student, fed video sessions of this virtual reality therapy into their newly developed program. With the new program, the computer “learned” to differentiate between different types of brain injuries: cerebrovascular accident (CVA) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). During further testing, the computer was able to accurately diagnose, between 90%-98% of the time, whether the patient was healthy, or had suffered a traumatic brain injury or a stroke.
Diagnosis, says Dr. Manevitz, is the most basic part of treatment – any doctor and many healthcare workers can correctly diagnose severe brain injuries. While this study is an important advance in the field of computer science, it will not directly help society.
Workouts boost function of insulin-making cells
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Sedentary older people at risk of developing diabetes showed significant improvement in the function of their insulin-making beta cells after just one week of exercise, University of Michigan researchers found.
Beta cell function is known to decline with age, although it is not clear why, Drs. Cathie J. Bloem and Annette M. Chang explain in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
As people age, they may also become less sensitive to the blood sugar-regulating effects of insulin and develop impaired insulin secretion, the researchers add. And while short-term exercise boosts insulin sensitivity, it has not been clear how it might affect beta cell function.
Strong link between smoking and stroke in Chinese men
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One in seven strokes among Chinese men is due to cigarette smoking, researchers in China and the United States said citing a large-scale study that identified the habit as a major risk factor.
Stroke is the second leading cause of death and the top cause of long-term disability worldwide. And in China, the world’s leading producer and consumer of cigarettes, stroke is a major public health problem, they said.
In an article published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, the researchers said prevention and kicking the smoking habit could reduce stroke deaths by almost 5 percent in the country.
Sleep apnea costly for older adults
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Elderly and middle-aged adults with obstructive sleep apnea may be a bigger drain on healthcare services than their counterparts without the common sleep disorder, new research suggests.
People with obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, stop breathing for short periods of time during sleep. It occurs when soft tissues in the back of the throat relax and temporarily block the airway. The condition is frequently seen in individuals who are obese and those who snore.
Research has suggested that adults with untreated OSA are high consumers of healthcare resources, investigators report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
New TB test means quicker and easier diagnosis for patients
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A new blood test could enable doctors to rule out tuberculosis (TB) infection within days rather than weeks, according to a new study published this week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
The study, by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, shows that doctors can determine that a patient does not have tuberculosis with 99% accuracy when using the new blood test, ELISpot-Plus, in conjunction with a skin test known as tuberculin skin testing, already in use.
TB is difficult to diagnose because many of its symptoms, such as fever, fatigue, and loss of appetite, are also commonly found in many other conditions. The combination of ELISpot-Plus and tuberculin skin testing is able to rule out TB within 48 hours, providing a much quicker result than existing testing methods, for which results take up to several weeks.
Alcohol Can Benefit the Hearts of New Drinkers
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A Medical University of South Carolina’s (MUSC) Department of Family Medicine study concluded that people who began moderately consuming alcohol in middle-age experience a quick benefit of lower rates of cardiovascular disease morbidity with no change in mortality after four years. In addition, the study found that those who consumed alcohol for the heart health benefits rarely drank more than recommended amounts. The study has been published in the March issue of the American Journal of Medicine, and was conducted by MUSC’s Dana E. King M.D., Arch G. Mainous III, Ph.D, and Mark E. Geesey.
“Most people are aware that moderate alcohol use can be part of a healthy lifestyle, yet current guidelines caution non-drinkers against starting to drink in middle age,” said King, lead author of the study. “We wanted to evaluate whether adopting moderate alcohol consumption in middle-age would lower cardiovascular risk. We were excited to find that moderate alcohol consumption, or one to six servings a week, lowered cardiovascular risk for our participants.”
Young Athletes Paying to Play?
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Soccer, football, baseball, tennis, gymnastics. Today the number of activities available to the young athlete serves up a smorgasbord of choices. “College-bound teenagers in the United States and around the world are way more active than ever before,” said Col. Tom DeBerardino, MD, the Sports Medicine Fellowship Director at Keller Army Hospital in West Point, N.Y.
“These days it seems in order to be a well-rounded student and gain admission into a good college, participating in at least one or even two extracurricular sports is a must on almost every student’s ‘to do’ list. However, increased exposure to sporting activities translates into increased risk of injuries sustained by these young student athletes,” Dr. DeBerardino noted. “Fortunately, operations and procedures to fix many of these problems are now good, too.”
Dr. DeBerardino cited the following statistics on newly arriving cadets at West Point:
• In 1998, 10 to 12 cadets reported having major reconstructive shoulder surgery
before college.
• By 2008, at least 50 cadets had already had this surgery before arriving on campus.
