QLT Inc. (NASDAQ: QLTI; TSX: QLT) today announced positive results of a Phase IV clinical trial of Aczone? in more than 50 patients with G6PD deficiency that was performed to meet a post-approval commitment requested by the FDA. The purpose of this study was to gather more information about the safety of Aczone, a prescription topical medicine, in treating patients with acne who have certain blood disorders.
Venom from a West Indian tarantula has been shown to cause pain by exciting the same nerve cells in mice that sense high temperatures and the hot, spicy ingredient in chili peppers, UCSF scientists have discovered.
Boehringer Ingelheim announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved pramipexole, a non-ergot dopamine agonist, for the treatment of moderate to severe primary Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS).1 This is an important milestone for pramipexole (Mirapexin? / Sifrol? / Mirapex?), which was already approved throughout the European Union in April 2006 for this second indication.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) today announced that two-year data from three Phase III pivotal trials demonstrate the long-term efficacy of ORENCIA? (abatacept) in adult patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have had an inadequate response to one or more disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) such as methotrexate and TNF antagonists. The data also demonstrate that ORENCIA provided clinically meaningful improvements in multiple aspects of health-related quality of life and physical function, sustained improvements in pain and had a consistent safety and tolerability profile through two years of treatment. These data will be presented at the upcoming 2006 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Scientific Meeting.
Systolic blood pressure, a readily available vital sign taken at hospital admission, has been found to be a key factor in predicting mortality risk and revealing important disease characteristics for heart failure patients, according to a team of academic researchers.
A new UCLA study has found that physicians discuss cost and aspects of obtaining newly prescribed medications only about one-third of the time during patient/doctor interactions.
In a study published in a recent issue of Brain Injury, researchers at the University at Buffalo found that discharge sheets from 14 of 15 hospitals that were reviewed lacked at least one important sign of a possible hemorrhage. Ten of the hospitals were located in Western New York; five were located in southern Ontario, Canada.
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Federal University of Cear? in Brazil have joined forces to study if the gene believed to contribute to Alzheimer’s protects children from the developmental stresses of early childhood diarrhea.
A study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that in women whose initial breast biopsies revealed certain rare, yet benign breast conditions, more extensive follow-up surgical biopsies found cancer up to 25 percent of the time. Most of the cancers were invasive, meaning the tumors had penetrated normal breast tissue and would require treatment.
University of Cincinnati (UC) environmental health researchers have determined that firefighters are significantly more likely to develop four different types of cancer than workers in other fields. Their findings suggest that the protective equipment firefighters have used in the past didn’t do a good job in protecting them against cancer-causing agents they encounter in their profession, the researchers say.