Barr Settles Suit Alleging Company Kept Generic Contraceptive From Entering Market
Barr Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay $5.9 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that Barr accepted $20 million from Warner Chilcott for agreeing to not sell a generic version of Warner’s oral contraceptive Ovcon for five years, the Wall Street Journal reports. The lawsuit, filed by 34 states and Washington, D.C., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleged the agreement violated state and federal antitrust laws and artificially inflated the price of Ovcon. The settlement prohibits Barr from entering into noncompetition agreements with companies that sell brand-name drugs for the next 10 years (Gryta, Wall Street Journal, 2/26).
According to the suit, Barr received FDA approval for a generic form of Ovcon in 2004 and was planning to sell it at 30% less than Warner’s price (AP/Yahoo! Finance, 2/27). In June 2007, Warner agreed to pay $5.5 million to settle its portion of the lawsuit. In addition, Warner agreed not to make agreements that could keep potential generic competitors from entering the market (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 6/15/07).
Barr spokesperson Carol Cox said Barr has not admitted any wrongdoing and continues to believe the agreement with Warner was “legal, legitimate and pro-competitive.” She added, “In addition, the settlement does not significantly shift Barr’s vigor to do business” (Wall Street Journal, 2/26). Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said, “When generic drugs come on the market, it almost always results in competition and lower prices” (AP/Yahoo! Finance, 2/27).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You be able to view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
DOV Pharmaceutical, Inc. Initiates Phase II Clinical Trial In Patients With Major Depressive Disorder
DOV Pharmaceutical, Inc. (OTCBB: DOVP) announced that it has initiated a Phase II clinical trial of DOV 21,947 in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder. DOV 21,947 is DOV’s lead triple reuptake inhibitor, or “TRIP,” for the treatment of depression and obesity. The clinical trial, which will randomize approximately 200 patients, is a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center reflect assessing the efficacy and safety of DOV 21,947 over a six-week period. The primary endpoint of the study is the change in the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale from baseline to end of treatment in evaluable patients. DOV expects to announce study results as early as the fourth quarter of 2008.
“After obtaining encouraging results in our recently completed eight-week safety study of DOV 21,947, which demonstrated both weight waste and lowered plasma triglyceride levels in drug-compliant subjects, we amended the design of this study to ensure that we are capturing the potential effects of DOV 21,947 on body weight and appropriately capturing drug-compliance data in our analyses,” related Dr. Phil Skolnick, president and principal scientific officer. “Both preclinical and clinical evidence to date support our confidence that as a TRIP, DOV 21,947 may provide efficacy greater than SSRIs and SNRIs currently prescribed for the treatment of depression. In addition to efficacy in animal models of depression, the clinical data for DOV 21,947 suggests an improved side-effect profile, including potential stabilization or reduction in dead body weight.”
About DOV 21,947
Clinical and preclinical research indicates that put drugs into combinations, which inhibit reuptake of all three neurotransmitters most closely linked to depression, serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, can produce greater overall efficacy than currently marketed antidepressants. A single antidepressant that could produce such triple reuptake inhibition would represent a breakthrough in the treatment of depression. DOV 21,947, a TRIP, is structurally related to DOV 216,303. In a previously reported Phase II clinical trial, DOV 216,303 was administered to patients suffering from major depressive disorder. After two weeks of treatment, patients treated with DOV 216,303 demonstrated reductions (p < 0.0001) in the total HAM-D scores comparable to control patients treated with citalopram. In both groups, the reductions from baseline in the HAM-D scores were greater than 40%.
In seven Phase I studies, DOV 21,947 was observed to exist safe and well tolerated. In addition, the dosages for this clinical study are comparable to those used in the most recent eight-week study in which statistically significant weight loss was observed in drug-complaint subjects.
About DOV
DOV is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the acquisition and development of novel drug candidates for central nervous system disorders. The Company’s product candidates address some of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the globe including depression, pain and insomnia.
Cautionary Note
Statements in this press release that are not historical facts constitute forward-looking statements in the compass of the purport of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, each as amended. You can also identify forward-looking statements by the following words: may, will, should, expect, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, continue or the negative of these terms or other comparable nomenclature. We caution you that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and are simply point-in-time estimates based on a combination of facts and factors currently known by us about which we cannot be certain or even relatively confident. Actual results or events will surely differ and may differ materially from our forward-looking statements as a result of many factors, some of which we may not be able to predict or may not be within our control. Such factors may also materially adversely affect our ability to achieve our objectives and to successfully develop and commercialize our product candidates, including our potency to:
— raise substantial additional capital in order to fund operations;
— obtain and maintain all necessary patents, licenses and other intellectual possessions rights;
— demonstrate the safety and power of product candidates at each stage of expansion;
— gratify our development schedule for our product candidates, including with respect to clinical trial initiation, enrollment and completion;
— meet applicable regulatory standards and receive required regulatory approvals on our anticipated time schedule or at all;
— meet or require our partners to suited obligations and achieve milestones under our license and other agreements;
— be established and maintain collaborations as required with pharmaceutical partners; and
— produce drug candidates in commercial quantities at reasonable costs and compete successfully against other products and companies.
You should also apply to the risks discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including those contained in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006 that was filed on March 30, 2007 and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q that were filed on May 15, 2007, August 8, 2007 and November 7, 2007. We qualify all our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. Readers should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation and do not intend to update any forward-looking statement.
DOV Pharmaceutical
New HIV Cases In Ireland Increase By 21%, Health Protection Surveillance Center Says
The number of new HIV diagnoses in Ireland increased by 21% during the first half of 2007, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre said recently, the Irish Examiner reports. The HPSC recorded 204 new HIV cases in the first half of 2007, compared by 337 during all of 2006.
HPSC officials were able to give direction to the mode of transmission for 150 of the new cases. Of the 150, 53% were transmitted through heterosexual contact, while 23% were transmitted among injection drug users and 21% were transmitted among men who have sex by men. More than 50% of the new cases were diagnosed among men, and 39% were diagnosed among women (Kelpie, Irish Examiner, 2/27). Gender was not available for the sake of 7% of the cases (Taylor, Irish Times, 2/26). The average age of people newly diagnosed with the virus was 33, the Examiner reports.
HPSC identified the nationalism of 120 of the new cases and found that 42% were among people born in sub-Saharan Africa and that 40% were among people born in Ireland. The majority of people who contracted HIV through heterosexual contact were from sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Examiner. Geographic location was determined for 108 of the new cases, 78% of which occurred among people who lived in Dublin, Kildare or Wicklow (Irish Examiner, 2/27).
In addition, Northern Ireland has recorded a 300% increase in the number of recorded HIV/AIDS cases during the past ten years, Michael McBride, chief medical officer for the region, said at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons’ sexual Health and HIV Symposium. McBride added that there has been a 20% increase in diagnoses of other sexually transmitted infections extremely the past five years in Northern Ireland. According to McBride, population mobility is responsible for the increase in new HIV and STI diagnoses (Graham, Daily Mirror, 2/27).
The Dublin AIDS Alliance has called for increased awareness with reference to HIV/AIDS and sexual health, including a national sexual health strategy and expansion of health care programs to include treatment of STIs (Irish Examiner, 2/27). Mary O’Shea, DAA executive director, said the increase in reinvigorated HIV cases is “of serious weight,” adding that the “figures show that more work is required in developing sexual health prevention strategies nationally” (Irish Times, 2/26). McBride added that he is “committed to ensuring” the multitude living with HIV/AIDS “receive the best possible care and access” to treatment (Daily Mirror, 2/27).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
Blocking Protein Kills Prostate Cancer Cells, Inhibits Tumor Growth, Jefferson Scientists Find
Researchers at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia have shown that they can effectively deprive of life prostate cancer cells in both the laboratory and in experimental animal models by blocking a signaling protein that is key to the cancer’s growth. The work proves that the protein, Stat5, is both vital to prostate cancer cell maintenance and that it is a viable target for drug therapy.
The scientists, led by Marja Nevalainen, M.D., Ph.D., link professor of Cancer Biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, wanted to prove that Stat5 was indeed essential for prostate cancer cells to be viable. They blocked the protein’s expression and function in several ways, including siRNA inhibition, antisense inhibition and adenoviral gene delivery of an inhibitory form of Stat5. All of these techniques killed the prostate cancer cells in solitary abode; squalid culture. The researchers also showed when they transplanted such cancerous tissue into mice and blocked Stat5 expression, prostate tumors failed to extend.
“This provides the proof of principle that Stat5 is a therapeutic target protein for prostate cancer, and may be specifically useful for advanced prostate cancer, where there are no effective therapies,” Dr. Nevalainen says. “These results are very reproducible.” She and her team set forth their findings March 1, 2008 in the daily register Clinical Cancer Research.
Hormone resistant prostate cancer is especially dangerous. Men with primary prostate cancer usually have either surgery or radiation, whereas posterior illness is frequently treated by hormone therapy. But if the cancer recurs again, years later, it can be more aggressive and typically fails to respond to hormone treatment, often leaving few treatment options.
The findings, Dr. Nevalainen notes, are particularly relevant because her team worked by urologists to get human prostate cancer chain specimens from surgeries, putting them into cell tissue cultures. That regular course, she says, the hypothesis could be tested in real human prostate cancer tissue specimens.
While she and her team continue to work on establishing Stat5 as a therapeutic mark for hormone-resistant prostate cancer, they are also testing whether or not blocking Stat5 can make prostate cancer cells more sensitive to other treatments, such as radiation and chemotherapy. Another next step in the work, Dr. Nevalainen says, is to meet with pharmacological agents that inhibit the protein.
In work reported recently in Cancer Research, Dr. Nevalainen and her co-workers showed that Stat5 is turned on in nearly all recurrent prostate cancers that are resistant to hormone therapy. In addition, the researchers also showed that the convergence of Stat5 and androgen receptor could be responsible for making such prostate cancers especially dangerous.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Source: Steve Benowitz
Thomas Jefferson University
Common Hypertension Drug Found To Reduce Cocaine Cravings
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School have found that diltiazem, a drug used in the treatment of high blood pressure, reduces cocaine cravings in a rat model. These findings determine appear in the March issue of the leading medical journal Nature Neuroscience.
Previous work showed that two brain chemicals, dopamine and glutamate, independently contribute to the development of cocaine addiction. This of recent origin research indicates that calcium channels provide critical links between dopamine and glutamate that drives the intense craving associated with cocaine addiction. Diltiazem, one of a class of drugs known as calcium channel blockers, disrupts the connection between dopamine and glutamate formed during deep-seated cocaine use.
According to the researchers, brain calcium plays an important role in learning and memory in that calcium influences an enzyme known as the “memory molecule.” “Our work shows that cocaine increases the levels of this molecule specifically in a brain area that controls motivation. Thus, cocaine exercise teaches the brain to be addicted, resulting in a dysfunctional form of learning that drives the overwhelming desire to consume more cocaine,” reported more advanced contriver Chris Pierce, a professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine.
Currently, there are no effective drug therapies for cocaine addiction. Pierce noted that research such for example this using fowl of the air models could lead to desperately needed medications. “The strength of this work is that it tells us something fundamental in regard to how brain chemistry changes for example cocaine addiction takes hold. Importantly, our findings moreover suggest new strategies because of developing cocaine addiction therapies, which thus far remain elusive,” he added.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press free.
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This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Source: Gina Digravio
Boston University
$30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Prize Awarded To Student For Development Of New LED
In recent years, light emitting diodes (LEDs) have begun to change the way we see the creation. Now, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student has developed a new type of LED that could allow for their widespread use as light sources for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) on everything from televisions and computers to cell phones and cameras.
Martin Schubert, a doctoral student in electrical, computer, and systems engineering, has developed the first polarized LED, an innovation that could vastly improve LCD screens, conserve energy, and usher in the next generation of ultra-efficient LEDs. Schubert’s innovation has earned him the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student capture.
“In our community of innovators, the Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize recognizes our most inspired and dedicated students for their ingenuity and deep understanding of the greater global implications of their innovations,” said Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson. “Martin Schubert is both a talented engineer and inspired entrepreneur. He launched his novelty not only because he had the engineering prowess, but because he also has a remarkable understanding of the technological, environmental, and energy saving outcomes his instructed introduction of novelty will bring. Today we applaud him and the other finalists for their dedication and excellence, and we encourage them to continue to spark informed innovation around the world.”
Schubert is the second recipient of the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student prize. The prize, which was first given in 2007, is awarded to a Rensselaer senior or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied a technology in a new way, or otherwise demonstrated remarkable inventiveness.
For photos and video of the winner and award finalists, as well as a Webcast of the announcement ceremony, please visit: www.rpi.edu/lemelson.
The Next Generation of LEDs
Schubert’s polarized LED advances current LED technology in its ability to better control the order and polarization of the light being emitted. With better control over the light, less energy is wasted producing scattered light, allowing more light to reach its desired location. This makes the polarized LED perfectly suited as a backlighting unit for any kind of LCD, according to Schubert. Its focused light will produce images on the display that are more colorful, vibrant, and lifelike, with no motion artifacts.
Schubert first discovered that traditional LEDs in reality produce polarized light, but existing LEDs did not capitalize on the light’s polarization. Armed with this information, he devised an optics setup around the LED chip to enhance the polarization, creating the first polarized LED.
The invention could advance the effort to combine the power and environmental soundness of LEDs with the beauty and clarity of LCDs. Schubert expects that his polarized LED could quickly become commonplace in televisions and monitors around the world, replacing widely used fluorescent lights that are in a less degree efficient and laden with mercury. His innovation also could be used for street lighting, high-contrast imaging, sensing, and free-space optics, he said.
The Next Generation of Lighting Researcher
Schubert is the son of renowned lighting research expert and senior chair of the Rensselaer Future Chips Constellation, E. Fred Schubert. The younger Schubert, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cornell University in electrical engineering, was set to pursue a career in computer chip development. But his father quickly identified his skills and ideas for the advancement of lighting technology and recruited him to join the large lighting research effort at Rensselaer.
“Martin Schubert has had the opportunity to work in one of the most advanced and well-known lighting research teams in the world,” said Rensselaer Dean of Engineering Alan Cramb. “And Schubert has shown that not only can he keep up in the lab, but he have power to also independently excel and innovate. His discovery of the first polarized LED marks an important advance in photonics technology that I am sure will resonate in photonics laboratories and companies on every side the world. Schubert is absolutely a young engineer to watch.”
Under the tutelage of his adviser, Michael Shur, the Patricia W. and C. Sheldon Roberts ‘48 Professor of Solid State Electronics and director of the Rensselaer/IBM Center for Broadband Data Transfer Science and Technology, Schubert speedily excelled in the field. As soon while he arrived at Rensselaer, he began working approximately independently on his research, using some of the top research equipment available to the constellation, including a cutting-edge clean room laboratory.
During his time with Rensselaer Schubert has published three peer-reviewed, archival papers and filed for several patent applications on his polarized LEDs. In addition, Schubert is co-author of 15 other papers on related research, including a paper in one of the top journals in his field, Nature Photonics. The Nature research on the world’s first ideal anti-reflective coating was featured in media outlets around the world, from NPR’s “Morning Edition” to the London Daily Telegraph and Scientific American magazine.
Schubert is expected to complete his doctorate in electrical engineering this fall. After graduation he plans to keep to a career in semiconductor devices and photonics.
Schubert was born in Germany and grew up in New Jersey and later the Boston area.
The Lemelson Program
Schubert joins last year’s winner of the Lemelson-Rensselaer student prize, doctoral student Brian Schulkin. Schulkin, who invented the first portable terahertz sensing device, the “Mini-Z”, is currently operating on an fair smaller device and was recently named to the 2007 Scientific American 50 - the magazine’s prestigious annual list recognizing leadership in science and technology.
The $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995. More information can be found at http://web.mit.edu/invent/.
Timothy Lu, a graduate bookish man in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, is the 2008 winner for the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. Lu has invented processes that promise to enhance the effectiveness of antibiotics and help eradicate layers of bacteria known as biofilms, in order to combat bacterial infections, such as those caused by dint of. Escherichia coli biofilms and MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). More information is available on http://web.mit.edu/invent/n-pressreleases/n-press-08SP.html.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also joined Rensselaer as a new associate institution last year with the announcement of the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize. The winner of the 2008 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize was announced during a formal award parade on Feb. 28, 2008.
On May 26, the winners of all three student prizes will join together at MIT for a discussion and ceremony to honor all of the winners. In June, the winners will take part in the Lemelson-MIT Program’s second annual EurekaFest, a multiday event to celebrate the inventive spirit in Boston and Cambridge, Mass.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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About the Lemelson-MIT Program
The Lemelson-MIT Program recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages sustainable new solutions to real-world problems, and enables and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. Jerome H. Lemelson, one of the world’s most prolific inventors, and his matron, Dorothy, founded the nonprofit Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. More information is online at http://web.mit.edu/invent/.
About Rensselaer
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation’s oldest technological university. The university offers bachelor’s, most important’s, and doctoral degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, science, management, and the humanities and social sciences. Institute programs serve undergraduates, laureate students, and working professionals around the world. Rensselaer faculty are known for pre-eminence in research conducted in a wide range of fields, with particular emphasis in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, and the media arts and technology. The Institute is well known for its success in the deliver over of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace so that new discoveries and inventions benefit human life, protect the environment, and strengthen economic development.
Source: Gabrielle DeMarco
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
MU Scientist’s Nanotech Research Earns Him ‘Outstanding Missourian’ Award
University of Missouri scientist Kattesh Katti recently discovered how to make gold nanoparticles using gold salts, soybeans and water. Katti’s research has garnered attention worldwide and the environmentally-friendly ascertainment could have major applications in manifold disciplines.
Gold nanoparticles are tiny pieces of gold, so small they cannot be seen by the naked eye. Researchers believe gold nanoparticles will be used in cancer detection and treatment, the production of “smart” electronic devices, the treatment of certain genetic eye diseases and the development of “green” automobiles.
While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of nanoparticles in the near future, researchers have been worried about the environmental impact of typical production methods. Commonly, nanoparticles have been produced using synthetic chemicals. Katti’s process, which uses only naturally occurring elements, could have major environmental implications for the future. Since some of the chemicals currently used to make nanoparticles are toxic to humans, Katti’s discovery also could open doors for additional medical fields. Having a 100-percent natural “green” process could allow medical researchers to expand the use of the nanoparticles.
“Typically, a producer must use a variety of synthetic or man-made chemicals to produce gold nanoparticles,” said Katti, professor of radiology and physics in the School of Medicine and College of Arts and Science at MU, senior research scientist at the MU Research Reactor (MURR) and guide of the University of Missouri Cancer Nanotechnology Platform. “To make the chemicals necessary for prolongation, you need to have other artificial chemicals produced, creating an even larger, negative environmental impact. Our new process solitary takes which nature has made available to us and uses that to protract a technology already proven to have far-reaching impacts in technology and medicine.”
The new discovery has created a large positive response in the philosophical common. Researchers from as far away as Germany have commented on the finding out’s importance and the impact it will have in the future.
“Dr. Katti’s discovery sets up the beginning of a new knowledge frontier that interfaces plant science, chemistry and nanotechnology,” said Herbert W. Roesky, a professor and world-renowned chemist from the University of Goettingen in Germany.
Katti and his long-time collaborator and colleague, Raghuraman Kannan, assistant professor of radiology, sowed the seeds of Nanomedicine at MU through their groundbreaking discoveries in 2004. MU now has every internationally recognized research program in nanomedicine. The research was funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.
Katti’s research in the field of nanomedicine, biomedicine, cancer diagnostics/therapeutics and optical imaging have earned him numerous awards and recognition. The latest honor bestowed upon Katti is the “Outstanding Missourian” award, which he will receive Tuesday, March 4 in Jefferson City. The award is presented as “acknowledgement of the most accomplished citizens of the state of Missouri” and because of making any “outstanding contribution to his state or nation.” He is scheduled to receive the award at the beginning of the morning session of the Missouri House of Representatives.
In a recent interview, he expressed his gratefulness for the recognition, but attributes much of the credit to others, including his spouse, Kavita Katti, who is a senior research chemist at MU, and his parents in India who supported him in his tuition.
“I feel excited about the recognition, and I attribute my selection to our institution, my research group and my collaborators,” Katti said. “This award is the culmination of several factors, including departmental leadership, a plethora of outstanding collaborators at MU, the deans and, of line of progress, the chancellor. A faculty member could not possibly succeed just by the agency of his or her own efforts. We have been very blessed with this team struggle. I am very excited to receive this recognition. I think it speaks highly of our school and of our nanomedicine program.”
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Source: Bryan E. Jones
University of Missouri-Columbia
American Association Of Physicists In Medicine Celebrates Golden Anniversary
Many of the greatest inventions in modern medicine were developed by physicists who imported technologies such as X rays, nuclear magnetic resonance, ultrasound, grain accelerators and radioisotope tagging and detection techniques into the medical domain. There they became magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computerized tomography (CT) scanning, nuclear medicine, positron issue tomography (PET) scanning, and various radiotherapy treatment methods. These contributions have revolutionized medical techniques for imaging the human body and treating disease.
Now, in 2008, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the premier scientific and professional association of medical physicists, is celebrating its 50th anniversary and is calling attention to the field of medical physics achievements
“There are a number of ways in which medical physicists contribute to medicine,” says AAPM President Gerald A. White Jr. “Some develop cutting-edge technologies in the physics laboratory, though others are board-certified health professionals who apply these technologies in the clinic and help diagnose illness and alleviate suffering for millions of people a year in the United States.”
As a practicing medical physicist himself, White contributes to patient care at his practice at Colorado Associates in Medical Physics in Colorado Springs.
“Virtually all hospitals in the country today have medical physicists on staff to help administer radiation therapy treatment and to insure quality in both radiation treatment and imaging techniques,” says long-time AAPM member Jean M. St. Germain, who is the Acting Chair of the Department of healing Physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
In the coming year, the AAPM will be calling attention to the many ways in which medical physics has revolutionized medicine. A few highlights hold:
1) USING PARTICLE ACCELERATORS TO DEFEAT CANCER
In the last 50 years, medical physicists have spearheaded the development and application of particle accelerators for cancer treatment. Once confined only to physics laboratories, linear accelerators are sophisticated complete energy machines that be able to now deliver beams of energetic electrons or X rays to malignant tumors — at doses susceptible of killing cancerous cells and stopping the tumor’s growth.
In recent years, an advanced treatment technique called intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) has enhanced the ability of radiation to superintendence tumors. IMRT uses computer programs to precisely shape the treatment surface and control the accelerator beam in order to deliver a maximal dose of radiation to a tumor while minimizing the doses to surrounding healthy tissues. IMRT is already in use for treating prostate cancer, cancers of the brain, mind strong and neck and other malignant diseases, in children and in adults.
2) BETTER DETECTION OF BREAST CANCER
Techniques for breast imaging have undergone substantial advances since the introduction of the original film techniques. The early emulsion films were replaced with more sensitive film stocks and finally with digital imaging. As each of these newer techniques was introduced, doses to the patient were reduced and the sensitivity of the techniques for finding early and treatable disease increased. Computer-aided diagnosis and the use of MRI and CT for breast imaging promises to further advance cancer detection and treatment in the 21st century. MRI breast imaging is proving particularly useful at finding growths in younger women and at earlier stages.
3) MATTER/ANTIMATTER COLLISION IMAGING
Another rapidly growing technique used to detect diseases in people of all ages is positron emission tomography (PET). This technique uses short-lived radionuclides produced in cyclotrons. These nuclides are labeled to compounds such as glucose, testosterone and amino acids to monitor physiological factors including blood flow and glucose metabolism. These images can be crucial in detecting seizures, coronary heart disease and ischemia. In cancer care PET imaging is used to detect tumors and monitor the success of treatment courses as well as detecting early recurrent disease.
The actual imaging technique sounds like a science fiction movie — it involves matter and antimatter annihilating one another. The short-lived radionuclides decay and emit particles known as positrons — the antimatter interchangeable to electrons. These positrons rapidly encounter electrons, collide, annihilate, and produce a pair of photons which move in opposite directions. These photons can be captured in special crystals and the images produced by computer techniques.
Other techniques, such as radioimmunoassay, use the decay of radioactive materials to study a variety of physiological conditions by imaging or chemical methods.
4) ENSURING THE SAFETY OF PEOPLE WHO GET CT SCANS
With the intent to promote the best medical imaging practices nationwide and help ensure the health and safety of the millions of people who undergo CT scanning each year in the United States, the AAPM issued a CT radiation dose management report in 2008, recommending standardized ways of reporting doses and educating users on the latest dose reduction technology.
The report is available on the AAPM website.
An associated news release can be accessed at http://www.aapm.org/announcements/AIPCTDoseReportNewsRelease.asp.
5) MEDICAL PHYSICS MOMENTS IN HISTORY
Some of the greatest medical advances in the history of medicine occurred in the past century and came from the minds and laboratories of physicists including:
* X rays
Discovered by means of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895, the application of these rays to medical imaging was recognized and embraced immediately. When the Nobel Prizes were established at the turn of the century in 1901, Roentgen won the first prize (in physics) for his discovery of X rays.
* Magnetic Resonance
Though Felix Bloch and Edward M. Purcell shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952, just a few years after discovering the phenomenon of magnetic resonance, it took a few more decades before their discovery led to the development of MRI, which is routinely used today to image the human body. In 2003, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their work in MRI.
* Radioimmunoassays
In 1977, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to AAPM member Rosalyn Yalow for her the development of radioimmunoassays, an extremely sensitive diagnostic technique that can quantify tiny amounts of biological substances in the body using radioactively-labeled materials.
* Computer-assisted tomography
In 1979, Allan M Cormack and Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing CT, which has revolutionized imaging because CT provides images with unprecedented clarity.
LOOK FOR MORE TO COME
This year, the AAPM journal, Medical Physics, have a mind celebrate the 50th anniversary with a year-long celebration. Every issue published in 2008 will have an article devoted to history and reviews of special topics intended to recognize this anniversary, and will carry the AAPM anniversary logo.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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ABOUT AAPM
The AAPM is a scientific, educational, and professional nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance the use of physics to the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. The association encourages innovative careful search and development, helps disseminate scientific and technical information, fosters the education and professional development of medical physicists, and promotes the highest quality medical services for patients. In 2008, AAPM choose celebrate its 50th year of serving patients, physicians, and physicists. Please visit the association’s Web site at http://www.aapm.org/.
ABOUT AIP
Headquartered in College Park, MD., the American Institute of Physics is a not-for-profit membership corporation chartered in New York State in 1931 for the purpose of promoting the advancement and dispersion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare.
Source: Jason Socrates Bardi
American Institute of Physics
Magnetic Atoms Of Gold, Silver And Copper Have Been Obtained
An international team led by Physics and Chemistry teams from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and directed by Professor Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia, has achieved, by means of a controlled chemical process, that atoms of gold, silver and copper - intrinsically non-magnetic (not attracted to a magnet) - become magnetic. The article has been published in the February issue of the prestigious international warehouse in nanotechnology, Nanoletters (Vol.8, No. 2, 661-667 (2008)).
According to the research, in which researchers from the UPV/EHU as well as teams from Australia and Japan have taken part, the magnetism appears reduce the dimensions of the material to nanometric amplitude and surround it with previously selected organic molecules. The magnetism of these nanoparticles is a permanent one (like iron) which, even at ambient temperature, is quite significant. This amazing behaviour has been obtained not just with gold (a phenomenon which had already been put forward as experimentally possible) but, in this research, nanoparticles of silver and copper (the atoms of which are intrinsically non-magnetic) through a size of 2 nm (0.000002 mm) have also been shown to be magnetic at circumjacent degree of heat.
The contribution of this be in action, part of the PhD of Ms Eider Goikolea Núñez and led by Professors Mr Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia and Ms Maite Insausti Peña, is not limited to obtaining these amazing magnetic nanoparticles. In fact, by means of complex techniques, using experiential systems based on particle accelerators and nuclear techniques, both in Japan and in Australia, have clearly shown for the first particular period that magnetism exists in atoms of gold, silver and copper, metals which, in any other condition, are inherently non-magnetic (a magnet does not attract them).
This disclosure goes beyond the mere fact of converting non-magnetic elements to magnetic ones. These properties crop out in smaller-sized particles that have never been seen in classical magnetic elements. In fact, they can be considered as the smallest magnets ever obtained. Moreover, such properties do not occur only at low temperatures but they are conserved, apparently without any degradation, at temperatures well too proud for the ambient ones.
This work poses commencing questions as regards what have been the accepted up to now as the physical mechanisms associated with magnetism and opens the doors to interesting applications yet to be discovered, some of which are related to the use of magnetic nanoparticles for the diagnosis/treatment of illnesses. Likewise, this article is destined to be a point of no go for research into fundamental questions about magnetism.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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This release is available in Spanish.
Source: Irati Kortabitarte
Elhuyar Fundazioa
‘Syringe’ Assembly In Plague Bacteria Studied
Bacteria that cause the bubonic plague avoid death in our bodies by injecting our cells with immune evasion proteins. Scientists have discovered a of the present day way bacteria build and hold the syringes, according to research published in the journal Microbiology.
Some pathogenic bacteria have a complex injection device made of many proteins. This corpuscular syringe has to be attached across two membranes so that proteins can be passed from the bacterial cells into human cells.
Until now, scientists thought that the position of a key lipoprotein component of the syringe was determined by dint of. one or two specific amino acids as is true for all other bacterial lipoproteins. But research led by Dr Gregory Plano at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine suggests that location is not always determined by these previously identified sorting signals.
“The YscJ lipoprotein in Yersinia pestis is any essential faction of the injection device,” says Dr Plano. “It serves at the same time that a platform for the syringe to have being built on and it is a major component of the structure that links the two bacterial cell membranes together. The sequence of YscJ suggests that it should be attached to the outer membrane, but it is actually attached to the inner membrane of the bacterial cell.” Instead of being controlled by a few key amino acids, the location of the YscJ lipoprotein is determined by means of the presence of a specific section of the protein.
Injection devices help pathogenic bacteria to survive in our bodies by injecting proteins that stand still our immune cells from communicating and launching an attack. Some bacteria that are beneficial to plants and animals also use these devices to evade their hosts’ immune systems.
Understanding this mechanism tells us other thing near to how Yersinia pestis causes plague. “We now want to find out why the YscJ protein uses this unusual mechanism instead of the traditional method used by other lipoproteins,” says Dr Plano.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Source: Lucy Goodchild
Society with regard to General Microbiology
Research Canada Gives Qualified Support For Budget 2008
Research Canada, the country’s leading alliance for health research advocacy, is pleased with a number of measures in the 2008 Federal Government’s Budget, but remains concerned that the government has not gone far enough in redressing an imbalance in the current system of health research investments thereby jeopardizing Canada’s potency to capitalize on the material investments already made. We therefore encourage the government to focus its attention adhering the immediate need to equilibrate the current system and on developing a formula for balanced investments using a functional innovation system model over the medium- to long-term.
Increased investments in health research in Budget 2008 include an additional $34 million to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) respectively as well as $12 million to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Budget 2008 also invested an adscititious $140 million in Genome Canada. A further $20 million over two years was invested to establish up to 20 Canada Global Excellence Research Chairs to attract top scientists along through $25 million over two years to establish a new Canada Graduate Scholarship award for top Canadian and international doctoral students. Recognizing exceptional achievement in health research, Budget 2008 provides $20 million to the Canada Gairdner between nations Awards for health research. Budget 2008 also provides $110 million for the Mental Health Commission. These investments are of importance to sustain the growth of the health research enterprise in Canada.
“We remain encouraged that the Federal Government has increased public investment in health research and is committed to sustained growth of that system.” commented Dr. Ronald Worton, Chair of Research Canada, and the former CEO and Scientific Director of the Ottawa Health Research Institute at the University of Ottawa. “The imbalance that we are concerned about manifests itself in the most recent CIHR competition (September 2007) which demonstrates that only 36% of applications recommended for funding by a rigorous peer review process were actually funded. In other words, 64% of highly rated applications selected for funding were not awarded funds. The inability of CIHR to fund in a great degree rated health research applications has been a problem for several years with funding since approved applications dropping steadily from close to 60% in 2001 (CIHR’s first year) to about 35% in the utmost three competitions. This cannot be good for a country that needs to advance in successive its innovation system and its knowledge based economy.
The Government of Canada has made enormous strides in developing Canada’s research capacity through funding of recently made known infrastructure (CFI) and recruitment of scientists (Canada Research Chairs) and must increase the funding for research projects through the granting councils if it is to fully exploit the new talent and infrastructure for the social and economic benefit of the country. Research Canada supports the Government’s proposed changes to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Tax Incentive Program (SR&ED), also announced in the budget. “These measures that encourage private sector investments in Canadian health research are vital and are a step in the right direction, however, more can exist done in the future. Research Canada’s members look brazen to working with the Government to further enhance this program,” said Ms. Deborah Gordon-El-Bihbety, President and CEO of Research Canada.
“In response to the government’s S&T Strategy, investigation Canada is proposing the use of a Functional Innovation hypothesis Model to assist the Government of Canada at the systems’ design level to achieve a robust and aligned innovation system in Canada that will balance investments in the research, development, market validation and delivery phases of Canada’s innovation system,” stated Dr. Michael Julius, Vice-Chair of Research Canada and Vice-President, Research, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. The organization believes this unprecedented administration instrument will ultimately result in improving Canadians’ health and increasing their wealth.
Research Canada is a not-for-profit, voluntary organization working for all Canadians. Its membership is drawn from all sectors including the leading health research institutes, national health charities, hospitals, regional health authorities, universities, private industry and others. Research Canada is dedicated to making health research an investment in Canada’s future.
Research Canada
Four Medical Device Companies Made $800M In Illegitimate Payments To Physicians Over Four Years, HHS OIG Official Says
Four companies that manufacture artificial hips and knees paid physicians else than $800 million in royalties and fees over four years to influence them to use their products, Gregory Demske, assistant inspector general of legal Affairs at the HHS Office of Inspector General said during a Senate Special Committee in continuance Aging hearing on Wednesday, Bloomberg/Washington Post reports (Goldstein, Bloomberg/Washington Post, 2/28).
Demske said, “Although most physicians believe that free lunches, subsidized trips or gifts have no effect on their medical judgment, the research has shown that these types of perquisites can affect, often unconsciously, how humans act” (Cooley, CQ HealthBeat, 2/27). He added that illegitimate payments to physicians have led to increased use of lower-quality medical devices.
In addition, he aforesaid that elimination of such payments likely will prove difficult because they have become frequent (Bloomberg/Washington Post, 2/28). He added, “The anti-kickback statute itself is insufficient to address the influence of money in this industry because of the high burden of proof” (CongressDaily, 2/28).
for the period of the hearing, Charles Rosen, an orthopedic surgeon and founder of the Association for Ethics in Spine Surgery, said, “I don’t believe the medical societies” or the therapeutic device industry has the ability to eliminate not genuine payments to physicians. He added, “It is so embedded now … that I don’t cherish a thought of it’s possible to change that without something from the outside happening.”
Committee Chair Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said, “Industry and physicians are equally culpable” (Bloomberg/Washington Post, 2/28). In response the issue, Kohl has co-sponsored a bill (S 2029) with Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) that would require large pharmaceutical and medical device companies to disclose their payments to physicians (CQ HealthBeat, 2/27).
Grassley Letter
In related news, Grassley on Tuesday sent a letter of inquiry to Synthes and FDA that requested information about a potentially “dangerous conflict of concern” among researchers who conducted a clinical trial of the Prodisc artificial spinal disk, which the agency approved in 2006, the New York Times reports. In the letter, Grassley asked Synthes to provide information disclosed to FDA about the researchers, information on discussions with the investment company Viscogliosi Brothers about the interests of the researchers and knowledge of facts on “internal policies, guidelines and/or standards regarding clinical investigators and their potential conflicts of interests.”
Grassley wrote, “Clinical investigators play a critical part of the FDA approval process,” adding, “These physicians are expected to act objectively in testing the safety and effectiveness of the drug or medical device under consideration,” but, “when they stand to profit from FDA approval of the product they are testing, the investigator’s objectivity is called into question.” In addition, he wrote, “If FDA found out the investment interests did not raise the serious questions about the study’s integrity, why not?”
An FDA spokesperson said that the agency has begun to investigate whether Synthes disclosed adequate information about the researchers but has not any additional comment on the issue (Abelson, New York Times, 2/28).
Reprinted with sort permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
Understanding Human Taste Perception
Despite the significance of taste to both human gratification and survival, a basic understanding of this primal sense is still unfolding.
Taste provides both pleasure and protection. Often taken for granted, the sense of taste evaluates everything humans put into their mouths. Taste mediates recognition of a substance and the final decision process before it is either swallowed and taken into the body, or rejected as inappropriate.
A new primer written by dint of. scientists at the Monell Center and Florida State University and published in the February 26 issue of Current Biology, provides a clear and accessible overview of recent advances in understanding human taste perception and its underlying biology.
Within the past few years, identification of receptors in spite of sweet, bitter and umami (savory) taste has led to new insights regarding how taste functions, but many questions remain to exist answered. The Current Biology primer reviews the current state of information regarding in what condition taste stimuli are detected and ultimately translated by the nervous system into the perceptual experiences of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
Such perceptual evaluations are related to the performance and ultimately, the consequences, of taste evaluation. These can bend from pleasurable emotional reactions, for example the delight a child receives from a sweet candy, to the momentous life-dependent response that causes a person to spit in a puzzle a bitter potential toxin.
Author Paul A.S. Breslin, PhD, a sensory scientist at the Monell Center, observes, “For all mammals, the collective influence of experience over a lifetime has a huge impact on pleasure, health, well being, and indisposition. Taste’s importance to our daily lives is self-evident in its metaphors - for example: the ’sweetness’ of welcoming a newborn child, the ‘bitterness’ of defeat, the ’souring’ of a relationship, and describing a truly good human as the ’salt’ of the earth.”
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from aboriginal press release.
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Coauthor of the review is Alan C. Spector, PhD, Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Florida State University.
Click here to access the primer.
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For 40 years, Monell has been the nation’s leading research center focused on idea the senses of smell, taste and chemical irritation: how they function and affect lives from before birth through old age. Using a multidisciplinary approach, scientists collaborate in the areas of: sensation and perception, neuroscience and molecular biology, environmental and occupational freedom from disease, nutrition and appetite, health and well being, and chemical ecology and communication. For more information on the point Monell, visit http://www.monell.org/.
Source: Leslie Stein
Monell Chemical Senses Center
UNISON Calls On BMA To Recommend Agenda For Change Following NAO Report, UK
Commenting attached the National Audit Office report highlighting a 58% increase in GP salaries over the past three years, Karen Jennings, UNISON head strong of Health said:
“It’s clear from the NAO report that while GP’s pay has risen dramatically, nurses and other practice staff have seen an increase in their workload without an greaten in reward.
“UNISON is calling on the BMA to recommend to its members a minimum of Agenda for Change for all staff including nurses, practice managers and receptionists.
“A vital element of Agenda for Change is the becoming to breeding which is greater degree important than ever as the skills mix in surgeries is changing rapidly. Health Care Assistants play an increasing role in GP practice and it is essential that they get access to the right training, coupled with the right reward.”
http://www.unison.org.uk
Rutgers College Of Nursing’s Linda Flynn Honoured By NJSNA For Excellence In Research
New Jersey State Nurses Association (NJSNA) awarded its 2008 C.A.R.E. (Clinical Practice Administration Research Education) Award for Excellence in Research to Rutgers College of Nursing faculty member Linda Flynn.
Flynn, assistant professor at the College of Nursing at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, will be honored with three other C.A.R.E. award recipients during the NJSNA awards be regaled with good eating and drinking during the New Jersey Nursing Convention at the Tropicana Resorts and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. on April 2.
Flynn, a Center Valley, PA resident, was honored for her research on how nurse staffing levels and work environment impact patient outcomes, as well as nurse outcomes such as job satisfaction and retention.
“I felt much honored and very excited to be selected to receive this award,” said Flynn. “It shows that my peers appreciate my work, and that resources a great deal to me.”
Her recently released survey, The State of the Nursing Workforce in New Jersey: Findings from a Statewide Survey of Registered Nurses, was mailed to the homes of 44,343 New Jersey registered nurses and more than 22,000 nurses responded to the survey. It was the largest and most comprehensive surveys of New Jersey nurses till doomsday conducted.
Flynn’s survey indicated that New Jersey registered nurses are teetering on the brink of exhaustion debt to heavier work loads, feeling that they are not able to provide proper patient care and receiving little support from management.
The prospect was also published in a booklet that was distributed to New Jersey assembly persons and state senators as well as to chief nursing officers. Flynn has published more than 15 articles in leading research journals and she has been selected to present her research at more than 20 national and international research conferences.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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From its headquarters at Rutgers Newark, Rutgers College of Nursing offers a broad range of academic programs on all three Rutgers campuses. The college offers a master’s program with unique practitioner specialties, a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree, and the first to offer a Ph.D. nursing degree in New Jersey.
Source: Miguel Tersy
Rutgers University
The Cause Of Effectiveness Has Been Discovered For A Cirrhosis Treatment That Has Been Shown To Be Useful In 40% Of Patients
Scientists of the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) of the University of Navarra have discovered the molecular mechanism responsible for the effectiveness of an existing treatment for primary biliary cirrhosis, which combines two substances in order to produce an effect that does not result from either substance separately. The discovery involved the role played by the AE2 protein when the patient is treated with a combination of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) together with glucocorticoids. The research results were recently published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The origin of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC)-which mostly affects middle-aged women-is still not understood. This pathology is associated with autoimmune phenomena, damage to the biliary vessels of the liver, and a reduction in the production of bile.
In Spain more than 1,000 cases are diagnosed each year, and the total number of patients worldwide is greater than 15,000. Dr. Juan Francisco Medina, Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of the CIMA, explains that in the present day the diagnosis of this disease, which is generally detected early, permits treatment with UDCA, which is effective in over half of the patients. However, nearly 40% of PBC patients do not respond satisfactorily to monotherapy with UDCA. Therefore, we looked for a combined treatment, and discovered that the combination of UDCA with glucocorticoids was a promising treatment for this group of patients. Those who feel from this type of cirrhosis have a deficit of AE2, which is the protein for the secretion of bicarbonate in the bile.
The possibility of more cures with fewer transplants
The originality of this recently-published research article consists in relating, for the first time, the combined treatment with UDCA and glucocorticoids with a greater quantity of bicarbonate in the bile, and some improvement of the production of bile by the liver. Specifically, experiments in beast models and cell cultures demonstrate that only the combined treatment with UDCA and glucocorticoids increases the genetic general tone of the human protein AE2 in the liver.
Based on available data, Dr. Medina considers that it is advisable to use combined method of treating in those cases that present a poor response to monotherapy with UDCA. He proposes the practice of a corticoid such as budesonida, which has fewer side effects than cortisone and prednisone. If, for fear of side effects, we allow the disease to progress, it is very probable that the only treatment will be a transplant. On the other hand, admitting that this treatment option is confirmed because successful, it could reduce the number of transplants required in order to save the lives of patients.
Elhuyar Fundazioa
http://www.basqueresearch.com
Treatment For Disease That Affects Estimated 1 In 2000 Children Gets Them To Eat Again
Eosinophilic esophagitis, an inflammatory condition known like EE that often mimics reflux and can cause refusal to eat, affects about 1 in 2000 children in the United States and its prevalence is growing. Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children report that treatment with oral or swallowed/sprayed steroids results in significant patient improvement, but that if discontinued relapse is customary.
The results of a randomized clinical trial that compared prednisone and another commonly prescribed medication appears in the February 2008 issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
EE can be a serious condition and cause children to refuse to eat, to vomit, or to get food stuck as the esophagus narrows from inflammation. EE, which does not improve without treatment, is twice as likely to occur in boys as in girls.
“We are seeing increasing numbers of children with EE who can benefit from effectual therapy. Our study found that while systemic corticosteroids provided better initial patient improvement compared to swallowed steroids, long term results were similar between the groups,” said Sandeep K. Gupta, M.D., IU School of Medicine associate professor of clinical pediatrics and a Riley Hospital pediatric gastroenterologist.
“A child will often continue to suffer in silence if this disease is left untreated. We are not without doubt why the number of cases is increasing, but we are seeing one average of two new cases every week at Riley Hospital. As we study treatment options, we are also investigating how and why food allergies and environmental factors appear to play a role in this disease,” said Dr. Gupta.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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The Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology study was supported by a Clarian Values Grant, Clarian Health, Indianapolis.
Co-authors of the study are Elizabeth T. Schaeffer, M.D.; Joseph F. Fitzgerald, M.D.; Jean P. Molleston, M.D.; Joseph M. Croffie, M.D.; Marian D. Pfefferkorn, M.D.; Mark R. Corkins, M.D.; Joel D. Lim, M.D.; and Steven J. Steiner, M.D., all of the IU School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and Riley Hospital for Children’s Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology.
Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2008;6:165-173
Source: Cindy Fox Aisen
Indiana University
Hong Kong Reports Large Increase In Number Of Recorded HIV Cases In 2007
Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection on Tuesday announced that 414 new cases of HIV were confirmed for 2007, the largest enlarge in the number of new cases ever recorded, Xinhuanet reports. According to the center, the reach the number of of cases was 11% higher than the number recorded in 2006.
sexual intercourse was the primary mode of transmission in Hong Kong, Wong Ka-hing, a consultant for the health protection center, said. Of the new recorded cases in 2007, 168 were among men who have sex with men, 103 were transmitted through heterosexual sex, 43 through injection drug use, two through blood transfusions and one through mother-to-child transmission. There are now 3,612 cases of HIV/AIDS recorded in the city since 1984, Xinhuanet reports. Seventeen unaccustomed AIDS cases were recorded in the fourth quarter of last year, bringing the total to 934 since 1985 (Xinhuanet, 2/26).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You be able to view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
Recovery Of Bowel Function After Gastrointestinal Surgery Aided By Chewing Gum
In some article recently recommended by Bradley Kropp of Faculty of 1000 Medicine, researchers find chewing gum is a simple solution to the recovery of bowel function after gastrointestinal surgery - a moot point that has troubled patients and physicians for decades.
Authors of the paper published in Urology evaluated 102 patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery and gave half of them 5 pieces of chewing gum per day after their operation. Chewing the gum is thought to stimulate the smooth muscle fibers and secretion from the salivary glands and liver. The 51 patients who chewed gum recovered their bowel movement significantly faster than those who did not.
Pediatric Urologist, Kropp will be giving his patients undergoing reconstructive surgery a piece of gum following their operation. He says, ” In today’s high-tech, molecular-driven scientific world, it is nice to draw near across an article that can be implemented immediately into our practices without increased healthcare cost.”
Kropp also adds, “Just think how much a pack of gum would cost today had the pharmaceutical industry come across this information first?”
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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1. Bradley Kropp, Faculty Member for F1000 Medicine Urology and Professor of Pediatric Urology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, recommended this article.
2. Gum chewing stimulates bowel motility in patients undergoing radical cystectomy with urinary diversion. Kouba EJ, Wallen EM, Pruthi RS in Urology 2007 Dec 70(6):1053-6
3. Faculty of 1000 Medicine’s evaluation of this article is available at http://www.f1000medicine.com/
4. Faculty of 1000 Medicine, http://www.f1000medicine.com/, is a unique online service that helps you stay informed of boisterous impact articles and access the opinions of global leaders in medicine. Our distinguished international faculty select and evaluate key articles across medicine, providing a rapidly updated, authoritative guide to the medical literature that matters.
Source: Jemima Tonks
BioMed Central
Does Artificial Intelligence Help Clinicians To Recognize Atrophic Gastritis With Thyroid Disease?
The association of ABG through thyroid disorders (TD) was first described about 40 years ago. These older studies assessed the association between Pernicious Anemia (PA) and Thyroiditis on the groundwork of gastric and or thyroid auto-antibodies. Only recently systematic studies have focused on this frequently overlooked association.
A research article in the World Journal of Gastroenterology investigates the overlooked association. A study was performed on the data set of 29 input variables (concerning anagraphical, life style, family and clinical history, biochemical and histological aspects) of 253 ABG patients.
The biochemical and ultrasonographic data on the diagnosis of TD were not included in the data set. Of these ABG patients, 185 were female (middle age 54 [17-83] years) and 123 had pernicious anemia. TD was present in 135 patients (53.4%), and 118 (46.6%) had a healthy thyroid gland. In all the patients the presence or absence of TD was evaluated by biochemistry, ultrasonography and endocrinological evaluation at a single tertiary centre, and its presence or absence was considered as target fitful.
The sample of ABG patients was randomly subdivided various times in two equal and balanced samples of subjects with and without TD; one for the training phase (testing) and one for the prediction phase (testing).
To reduce the number of input variables, selecting those most informative to predict the output, the T&T system, the IS system, as well as the TWIST protocol were used. T&T is a data resampling technique, based on an evolutionary algorithm developed by dint of. the Semeion Research Center, the Genetic Doping Algorithm (GenD). The IS system is an evolutionary wrapper system, also based on the GenD, able to reduce the amount of data, while conserving the largest amount of information available in the data set. In the TWIST protocol, the T&T and IS systems risk in a parallel way to reach a situable representation of variables and optimal sample size when dealing with complex and non-linear problems.
The results emerging from the study suggest artificial neural networks are able to prognosticate, with a good accuracy, the presence of TD in ABG patients, by using clinical and gastric biochemical and histological variables. Indeed, the optimized ANN yielded an accuracy of 76%, correctly identifying 82% of ABG patients through TD, outperforming the previous ANN models as well as the traditional linear models.
This study did not want to emphasize that advanced statistical decision support systems should replace or substitute experienced clinicians, but to underline that these systems should be viewed as a potential decision aid to better address investigations to save costs and to use resources when effectively necessary.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Reference: Lanher E, Intraligi M, Buscema M, Centanni M, Vannella L, Grossi E, Annibale B.
Artificial neural networks in the recognition of the presence of thyroid disease in patients with atrophic body gastritis.
World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(4):563-568 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/563.asp
Correspondence to: Bruno Annibale, MD, Department of Digestive and Liver Disease, University Sapienza, Ospedale Sant’ Andrea, Via di Grottarossa 1035, Roma 00189, Italy.
About World Journal of Gastroenterology
World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th sunlight of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the stead of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.
Source: Jing Zhu
World Journal of Gastroenterology