Tracking down particulates
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For some years now, consumers have been making increasing use of wood as a fuel – and not only on account of the rising cost of heating oil and natural gas. “Comfort fireplaces” have become all the rage because open fires, tiled and wood-burning stoves give a room a snug and cozy feel. But using wood for heating has one distinct disadvantage. When pellets, logs or briquettes are burnt, fine dust particles that are hazardous to health are released into the atmosphere. These particles are known to cause coughs, place stress on the cardiovascular system, and are thought to be carcinogenic. Indeed, studies by the World Health Organization have found that fine dust particles reduce average life expectancy in Germany by approximately ten months.
According to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, there are now 14 million small, single-room combustion plants installed all over Germany – and that figure is on the rise. Wood use by private individuals has gone up by 60 to 80 per cent since the year 2000. In 2004, emissions from domestic heating systems exceeded road traffic emissions for the first time ever. Earlier this year, in an attempt to deal with this increase in pollution, the federal government passed an amendment to the First Ordinance on the Implementation of the Federal Immission Control Act, and new pollution limits for small combustion plants – which include both wood-burning stoves and wood-fired boilers – came into effect at the end of March. One significant change is that these limits now apply to heating systems with a rated heat output of 4 kilowatts or more, whereas previously only systems with a rated heat output of 15 kilowatts or more were affected. As a result, the number of stoves that will have to be inspected for dust emissions will rise dramatically.
Working together with the firm Vereta, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM in Hannover and the Institute for Mechanical Process Engineering at Clausthal University of Technology have now developed a measuring device that determines levels of fine dust emissions at source.
Pomegranate juice components inhibit cancer cell migration; in vivo testing planned
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Researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), have identified components in pomegranate juice that seem to inhibit the movement of cancer cells and weaken their attraction to a chemical signal that has been shown to promote the metastasis of prostate cancer to the bone, according to a presentation today at the American Society for Cell Biology’s 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
The researchers in the UCR laboratory of Manuela Martins-Green, Ph.D., plan additional testing in an in vivo model for prostate cancer to determine dose-dependent effects and side effects of the two components.
The effect, if any, of pomegranate juice on the progression of prostate cancer is controversial.
Human spermatogonial stem cells become insulin-secreting pancreatic cells in lab
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Insulin-secreting pancreatic islet cells have been generated from human spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) directly isolated from human testicular tissue, researchers reported today at the American Association of Cell Biology 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
When grafted into diabetic mice that lacked a transplant-rejecting immune system, the bioengineered cells functioned much like somatic β-islet cells, the Georgetown University (GU) Medical Center researchers said.
By decreasing the animals’ blood glucose levels, the human-derived islet cells demonstrated their potential to counter diabetic hyperglycemia in humans, added G. Ian Gallicano, Ph.D., who heads the GU research team.
Pertuzumab and trastuzumab combination improved efficacy for women with HER2-positive breast cancer
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The combination of pertuzumab and trastuzumab had superior antitumor activity in women with early HER2-positive breast cancer, according to Phase II study results of the NeoSphere neoadjuvant trial.
Details of these study results were presented at the 33rd Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec. 8-12.
“The findings establish that the addition of pertuzumab to trastuzumab and the chemotherapy drug docetaxel has an impressive rate of tumor eradication (46 percent), which is 50 percent more than achieved with docetaxel and trastuzumab, the standard therapy,” said Luca Gianni, M.D., director of medical oncology at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Tumori di Milano.
CTCs predict poor outcome from blood stem cell transplantation therapy for metastatic breast cancer
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Metastatic breast cancer patients who had circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in their blood before or after high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) followed by autologous stem cell transplantation had poor outcomes, according to researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Patients with CTCs in their blood before chemotherapy treatment had reduced survival and those with these cells in their blood after the stem cell transplant recurred faster and died earlier. These findings were presented at the 33rd Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec 8-12.
While it has been known that CTCs in metastatic breast cancer are linked to cancer recurrence and lower survival, this study adds several new insights, the researchers said. One is that the process of collecting hematopoietic progenitor cells appears to recruit CTCs from bone marrow into the blood, and the other is that these CTCs are likely to be responsible for cancer recurrence.
EULAR welcomes Council action to tackle chronic diseases
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The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) welcomes the outcomes of yesterday’s Council of the European Union (EPSCO Council). In its meeting on 7 December, ministers for health adopted Council Conclusions on chronic diseases, in which the Council calls on Member States and the European Commission to adopt concrete, coordinated measures to tackle chronic diseases in Europe. EULAR is pleased to note that the Council Conclusions reflect many of the recommendations made at the 19 October Presidency conference on Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal diseases. The conference was organised jointly by the Presidency and EULAR.
Prof. Paul Emery (EULAR President) highlighted the “political relevance of the Council Conclusions”, as the Council’s position “represents a clear message in favour of concrete initiatives at both EU and national levels, to address chronic diseases. This is particularly important for those disorders which represent a huge burden on our economies and health systems, such as musculoskeletal diseases.” According to Prof. Emery, it is now time to look into innovative approaches at Member States’ level. National action plans targeting musculoskeletal conditions could be an excellent way of making progress.
The Council invites Member States to “further develop patient-centred policies for health promotion, primary prevention and secondary prevention, treatment and care of chronic diseases”. Neil Betteridge, EULAR Vice President PARE (People with Arthritis and Rheumatism in Europe), welcomed this recommendation: “EULAR long ago adopted the call of its patient group members of ‘Nothing about us without us’, meaning that the sort of collaboration between clinicians and patient representatives recommended in the Council Conclusions is already recognised as a key component of managing rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases optimally. EULAR can be proud that its own best practice in this respect, as well as in the scientific and research fields, has been identified by ministers across Europe as an essential part of the new framework for managing chronic conditions generally”.
“Smart” Hospital Beds Could Enhance Patient Care
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A University of New Hampshire professor’s research into hospital bed technology could soon represent a giant leap forward in patient care.
John LaCourse, professor and chair of UNH’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is currently negotiating with hospital bed manufacturers to adopt his programmed algorithm technology, which could become the basis for “smart” computerized hospital beds.
As LaCourse explains, these smart hospital beds would communicate with and respond to medical devices that monitor a patient’s condition. “Perhaps a sleeping patient moves, causing a drop in blood pressure. The blood pressure monitor would communicate this change to the bed and the bed, in turn, would move up or down until the patients’ blood pressure is stabilized,” he says.
Detection of Cardiac Biomarker Associated with Structural Heart Disease, Increased Risk of Death
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With the use of a highly sensitive test, detection of the blood biomarker cardiac troponin T, a cardiac-specific protein, is associated with structural heart disease and an increased risk of all-cause death, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA.
Cardiac troponin T (cTnT) is a preferred biomarker for the diagnosis of heart attack, and increasingly it has been recognized that elevated troponin levels may be detected in several chronic disease states, including coronary artery disease (CAD), heart failure, and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Some research has suggested that troponin may be useful for detecting subclinical cardiovascular disease and assessing cardiovascular disease risk in the general population; however, the low prevalence of detection with standard tests would limit the use of troponin measurement for these clinical applications, according to background information in the article.
“Recently, a highly sensitive assay for cTnT has been developed that detects levels approximately 10-fold lower than those detectable with the standard assay,” the authors write. “In patients with chronic heart failure and chronic CAD, circulating cTnT is detectable in almost all individuals with the highly sensitive assay, and higher levels correlate strongly with increased cardiovascular mortality.”
Mayo Clinic finds long-term prognosis is excellent for most children with seizures
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Mayo Clinic researchers studied more than 200 children with epilepsy and found that even if the cause of focal-onset seizures cannot be identified and they do not fit into a known epilepsy syndrome, long-term prognosis is still excellent. This study was presented at the American Epilepsy Society’s (http://www.aesnet.org/) annual meeting in San Antonio on Dec. 4.
Epilepsy (http://www.mayoclinic.org/epilepsy/) is a disorder characterized by the occurrence of two or more seizures. It affects almost 3 million Americans, and approximately 45,000 children under age 15 develop epilepsy each year in the U.S.
“This study is important because even if we cannot identify a cause of focal seizures in children and they do not fit into a known epilepsy syndrome, most of the children outgrow the seizures, and very few have seizures that are unable to be controlled by medication,” says Elaine Wirrell, M.D., (http://www.mayoclinic.org/bio/14986779.html) a Mayo Clinic epileptologist and an author of this study.
Biomarker Identified for Predicting Increased Risk of Developing Post Traumatic Epilepsy
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Approximately 5 – 30% of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) develop post traumatic epilepsy (PTE). The onset of seizures in patients who are susceptible to PTE can range from weeks or months to more than a decade after TBI. In a presentation today at the 64th American Epilepsy Society annual meeting, scientists report that the analysis of routine MRI scans can reliably quantify the disruptions in the blood brain barrier that are increasingly believed to be a prominent contributor to epilepsy development.
Investigators at the University of Colorado used MRI imaging to differentiate brain injured and sham injured laboratory animals. At three months post-injury, the animals were administered a substance known to provoke seizures. The investigators found that the degree of blood brain barrier disruption (BBBD) observed in the images was significantly correlated with the total number of seizures occurring in the first 60 minutes after the substance was administered, as well as correlating with how soon after drug administration the seizures began. (Platform A.05)
According to Dr. Lauren Frey, lead author of the report, “The significant correlation we found between the images and post-injury seizure susceptibility supports the presence of blood brain barrier disruption as a biomarker for posttraumatic epileptogenesis.”
Report Favorable Result of Pilot Feasibility Trial for Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation for Epilepsy
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External trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS), a novel form of neurostimulation, is an emerging therapy for drug resistant epilepsy. The results of a pilot feasibility study on the safety and tolerability of external TNS and its effect on the heart and blood pressure were reported here today at the 64th American Epilepsy Society Annual Meeting.
TNS involves stimulating the trigeminal nerve on the forehead with the use of adhesive electrodes to control seizures. The device offers the possibility of non-invasive stimulation through the skin to evaluate the therapeutic response. If effective in suppressing seizures, stimulators might then be implanted under the skin.
Investigators enrolled 13 patients whose seizures had proven intractable after exposure to two or more anticonvulsant drugs.
Protein protects cancer cells from oxidative stress
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High levels of a protein called thioredoxin-like 2 helps protect cancer cells from the oxidative stress that they generate as they grow and invade tissues throughout the body, said a consortium of researchers led by those at Baylor College of Medicine (http://www.bcm.edu) in a report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (http://www.jci.org).
When Dr. Ning-Hui Cheng, an instructor at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center (http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/) at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, and his colleague Dr. Xiaojiang Cui (then at BCM and now at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, Calif.) looked for the protein in human breast cancer cells, they found it exists there at high levels.
When they removed the protein from the cancer cells, the levels of oxidative stress (called reactive oxygen species or ROS) increased and an important signaling activity called NF-kB were reduced. As a result, the cells ceased growing and invading.
New Brain Tumor Vaccine to Be Tested in Humans
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For patients with low-grade gliomas, or slow growing brain tumors, a shot in the arm might soon lead to a new treatment therapy. A groundbreaking, first in humans vaccine will be tested in an early phase clinical trial that will soon begin at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Eighteen patients will be the first in the world to receive it.
“This study is looking at a very new form of treatment called a preventative brain tumor vaccine. The idea is to treat the low-grade glioma and to prevent it from growing back,” said Edward Shaw, M.D., a radiation oncologist. “In this early phase study, we are looking to see whether the patient develops an immune response against this kind of brain tumor, a necessary step for the vaccine to work.”
The trial is a bi-institutional pilot study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, and shared with the University of Pittsburgh (UP). Wake Forest Baptist and UP will enroll nine patients each. The vaccine will be administered to adult patients who have been diagnosed and had surgery for the removal of a low-grade brain tumor. They will receive the vaccine every three weeks for six months. A simple blood test will determine whether an immune response has developed.
Bayer expands research work to fight cancer in Asia
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Bayer AG said on Thursday it had entered into five projects with scientists in Singapore to work on earlier diagnosis and treatment of cancers that are most prevalent in Asia.
Senior researchers at the German pharmaceutical giant also said they had identified five compounds which they hope can fight liver, stomach and colorectal cancer.
“Five compounds that have survived early identification fit into these three cancers with high prevalence in Asia,” Ludger Dinkelborg, head of Bayer’s diagnostic imaging research, said in an interview.
