Taking HIV patients off medications during periods when the disease appears to be under control is a risky – and sometimes fatal – treatment strategy, according to a large international study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Thailand Health Ministry has issued its first compulsory licence to make a cheaper version of Efavirenz, a life-saving medicine sold by a major international drug company, Merck & Co Inc, which holds the patent on the drug also known as Stocrin.
There is as much as a four- to five-fold increased relative risk for late thrombosis, or blood clot formation, in patients with drug-eluting stents compared to those with bare-metal stents, according to a Cleveland Clinic-led meta-analysis appearing in the December issue of the American Journal of Medicine. This is the first published analysis of its kind.
Northwestern University is launching an experimental program for young women who may be at risk to lose their ovarian function and fertility following treatment for cancer. In the program, a woman’s ovary is removed and frozen for possible future use. The long-term goal is to be able to extract and mature eggs from cryopreserved (frozen) ovarian tissues to initiate pregnancies once cancer treatment has been completed. Thus far, pregnancies resulting from this research are in mice.
The 2006 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting will feature hundreds of new studies on brain and behavior from the world’s leading scientists. Presentations include innovative research on potential new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, autism, nicotine addiction and treatment resistant depression.
Results from one of the largest HIV/AIDS treatment trials ever conducted show that a specific strategy of interrupting antiretroviral therapy more than doubles the risk of AIDS or death from any cause. In the study, the investigators used two predetermined levels of CD4+ T cells, the primary immune cell targeted by HIV, to guide them in respectively suspending or restarting the study participants on antiretroviral therapy.
Violent video games activate regions of the brain linked to emotional response, but limit activity in areas which govern self-control, a recent study in the United States has found. The study led by Vincent Mathews, professor of radiology at Indiana University School of Medicine, and was presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
Results from a brain-imaging study conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in collaboration with Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York indicate that levels of a brain protein proposed as a diagnostic marker for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are not positively correlated with the disease.
A biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his collaborators have identified the factor in mammalian brain cells that keeps cells in synchrony so that functions like the wake-sleep cycle, hormone secretion and loco motor behaviors are coordinated daily over a 24-hour period.
Going to church might help you breathe easier. A new study by Temple University’s Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., found that religious activity may protect and maintain pulmonary health in the elderly.