Five minutes of straight talk between doctors and problem drinkers could help reduce the toll of alcohol-related injuries, violence and accidents. Doctors have long questioned whether a single, short discussion with patients about their drinking could have significant effects on alcohol-related problems, despite dozens of studies supporting such “brief interventions.” However, a new review should lay those doubts to rest.
The American Association for Cancer Research, together with the Food and Drug Administration and National Cancer Institute, today announces the formation of the AACR-FDA-NCI Cancer Biomarkers Collaborative to facilitate the use of validated biomarkers in clinical trials and ultimately in evidence-based oncology and cancer medicine.
The Honourable Tony Clement, Federal Minister of Health, and the Honourable George Abbott, Minister of Health for British Columbia, announced that British Columbia will establish a Patient Wait Times Guarantee for radiation therapy by March 31, 2010, to be supported by $76.4 million in federal funding. British Columbia will also be eligible to benefit from the $400 million in new funding for Canada Health Infoway, and the $30 million for pilot projects as announced in Budget 2007.
Indian government committed to providing second-line drugs free of cost to people who develop resistance to the existing treatment for HIV /AIDS.
Reclast? (zoledronic acid) has received US regulatory approval as the first new treatment in nearly a decade for patients with a bone condition known as Paget’s disease, estimated to affect about one million people in the US alone.
While working to find novel ways to treat the life-threatening disease of cystic fibrosis, researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered that the rhythmic motion of the lungs during normal breathing is a critical regulator of the clearance of bacteria and other noxious materials.
Selenium may offer an intervention strategy for the treatment of prostate cancer according to results of a study from the laboratory of Allen Gao, PhD, which will be presented by Yan Hu, PhD, Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) at the 2007 centennial meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), April 14-18, in Los Angeles, CA.
Inex Pharmaceuticals Corporation reported that one of its collaboration partners, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , announced that it will advance a systemically delivered RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic, ALN-VSP01, for the treatment of liver cancer and potentially other solid tumors.
Access to antiretroviral therapy for advanced HIV infection in low- and middle-income countries continued to grow throughout 2006, with more than two million people living with HIV/AIDS receiving treatment in December 2006, a 54 per cent increase over the 1.3 million people on treatment one year earlier in these countries.
More than two million people in low- and middle-income countries now receive HIV therapy. Efforts must increase significantly to increase access to HIV treatment and prevention.