Acrimonious debate over the use of bare metal stents (BMS) versus drug-eluting stents (DES) is ending. Four new studies presented during a Monday news conference are quickly turning what had been open warfare between BMS and DES advocates into more measured discussions.
The National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health, is funding five new research projects that will shed light on antidepressant medications, notably selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and their association with suicidal thoughts and actions (suicidality).
Six percent of obese kidney transplant patients die in the first year and 14 percent suffer transplant failures. The figures for non obese patients are three percent and eight percent. Experts from seven university hospitals in the Netherlands studied 2067 patients. Their finding appear in the November issue of Transplant International.
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.
The high consumption of sweetened food and drink increases the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet. A heavy intake of fizzy drinks, creamed fruit and sugar in coffee are three common ways of increasing the risk.
Pharmion Corporation (Nasdaq: PHRM) announced today the enrollment of the first patient in AVIDA(TM), a registry for patients treated with Vidaza(R) (azacitidine for injectable suspension). Vidaza was approved in May 2004 for the treatment of all five French-American-British (FAB) subtypes of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS): refractory anemia (RA) or refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts (RARS) if accompanied by neutropenia or thrombocytopenia or requiring transfusions; refractory anemia with excess blasts (RAEB), refractory anemia with excess blasts in transformation (RAEB-T), and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMMoL). Myelodysplastic syndromes are a serious and life-threatening group of diseases in which the bone marrow does not function normally, resulting in the production of malformed or immature blood cells.
At the 11th biennial meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS) underway in Santa Monica, CA, the potential impact of widespread adoption of HPV vaccination among girls in Mexico was described. In a study, “HPV-Vaccination Impact on Cervical Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Mexico: A Cancer Registry Based Model,” a team from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (Instituto Mexicano Del Seguro Social), the Mexican Institute of Public Health (Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) concluded that HPV vaccination targeting HPV subtypes 16 and 18 could reduce cervical cancer cases and deaths by 60 percent.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released a long range plan that will help to guide research in type 1 diabetes for the next decade. Advances and Emerging Opportunities in Type 1 Diabetes Research: A Strategic Plan identifies goals and objectives to exploit recent scientific advances in combating this autoimmune form of diabetes.
About a third of patients who took the anti-acne drug Accutane developed elevated cholesterol levels, and over 40 percent showed raised levels of blood fats called triglycerides, a new report warns.
Even as fertility procedures such as in-vitro fertilization and donor insemination become more commonplace day-by-day, a new study has researchers warning people that even after thorough screenings of sperm donors, genetic disorders can be transmitted to the child conceived through such procedures.