Post heart attack recovery may not be aided by stem cell injections, but trial demonstrates promise
|
|
University Hospitals Case Medical Center researchers could still be close to giving heart attack patients a second chance…just not as they originally thought.
LateTIME was a study of adult stem cells (autologous) harnessed from bone marrow that were believed to have the ability to improve heart function after an attack if injected into the heart within two weeks of the attack. Results are being released today at American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and published this week in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The results have shown the injections within that timeframe were not favorable, but the concept showed great promise, according to an accompanying JAMA editorial that assessed the trial.
The therapy still shows promise for recovering lost or damaged heart tissue resulting from a heart attack. Both UH Case Medical Center’s Drs. Dan Simon and Marco Costa, co-investigators in the LateTIME study, are currently participating in a similar trial, “TIME” that already has reduced the time between attack and stem cell injection.
Newly identified gene mutation adds to melanoma risk
|
|
A major international study has identified a novel gene mutation that appears to increase the risk of both inherited and sporadic cases of malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. The identified mutation occurs in the gene encoding MITF, a transcription factor that induces the production of several important proteins in melanocytes, the cells in which melanoma originates. While previous research has suggested that MITF may act as a melanoma oncogene, the current study identifies a mechanism by which MITF mutation could increase melanoma risk.
The report from researchers from the U.S., the U.K. and Australia is receiving advance online publication in Nature. It is expected to appear in a print issue along with a study from French researchers finding that the same mutation increased the risk for the most common form of kidney cancer, for melanoma or for both tumors.
“We previously knew that MITF is a master regulator for production of the pigment melanin; and several years ago we identified a chemical modification, called sumoylation, that represses MITF activity,” says David Fisher, MD, PhD, chief of Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), director of the MGH Cutaneous Biology Research Center and co-senior author of the Nature paper. “The currently discovered mutation appears to block sumoylation of MITF, and the resulting overactivity of MITF significantly increases melanoma risk.”
Early sexual abuse increases heart risks
|
|
Women who were repeatedly sexually abused as girls have a 62 percent higher risk of heart problems later in life compared with women who were not abused, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
The findings, presented at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Florida, underscored the lasting physical effects of early sexual abuse.
Much of the increased risk was related to coping strategies among abuse survivors such as overeating, alcohol use and smoking.
Study finds shifting disease burden following universal Hib vaccination
|
|
Vaccination against Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, once the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children, has dramatically reduced the incidence of Hib disease in young children over the past 20 years, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online. However, other strains of the bacteria continue to cause substantial disease among the nation’s youngest and oldest age groups.
“The Hib vaccine was successful in reducing disease among children 5 years and younger, and now the epidemiology has changed,” said lead author Jessica MacNeil, MPH, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who, with colleagues, analyzed data for the current epidemiology and past trends in the invasive disease over the past two decades following the introduction of the Hib vaccine in the mid-1980s. Most H. influenzae disease in the United States is now caused by other, non-type b strains of the bacteria.
The study authors warn that the highest rates of disease from non-b type strains are in the oldest and youngest age groups, those 65 and older and infants less than a year old. Among children younger than 5 years old, young infants are the most likely to be diagnosed with the disease. Many of these cases occur during the first month of life, and among those, premature and low-birthweight babies are the most vulnerable.
Dr. John F. Burke, Dies at 89; Created Synthetic Skin
|
|
Artificial skin had been the holy grail in treating burn victims for a century when Dr. John F. Burke began wrestling with some of the perennial obstacles to making it: finding a flexible material that would protect against infection and dehydration, that could be made from ordinary substances, that would not be rejected by a patient’s immune system and that would look like normal skin.
In 1969, Dr. Burke, a Harvard Medical School professor and a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, took those specifications to Dr. Ioannis V. Yannas, a professor of fibers and polymers in M.I.T.’s department of mechanical engineering.
Eleven years later, a team led by the two men developed a material — an amalgam of plastics, cow tissue and shark cartilage — that became the first commercially reproducible, synthetic human skin. It would save the lives of innumerable severely burned people worldwide.
Military retirees fret about healthcare fees
|
|
When Wayne Johnson flew missions in Vietnam in the 1960s, one of the allures of a military career was the pledge that those who risked their lives for the United States would be repaid with healthcare in old age.
Now, as the 65-year-old retired Air Force major nears an age when he may need to bank on that promise, support is building in Washington for changes that could make it more costly for military retirees and their dependents to receive healthcare. It is a move Johnson finds worrying.
“It’s something that was an unwritten contract when we joined the military back in the ‘60s,” said Johnson, who flew an OV-10 Bronco light strike aircraft as a forward air controller in Vietnam. “And now to change the rules when it’s time to use it, certainly it’s a violation of trust.”
Republican Cain says ad not promoting smoking
|
|
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on Sunday said he was not promoting smoking in an ad that showed his chief of staff puffing on a cigarette.
The ad stirred much debate over what message it was trying to convey. Cain, a non-smoker, appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and said there was no subliminal signal intended.
“One of the themes within this campaign is let Herman be Herman. Mark Block is a smoker and we say let Mark be Mark,” Cain said, referring to his chief of staff. “That’s all we’re trying to say because we believe let people be people. He doesn’t deny that he’s a smoker.”
