Cancer Risk For Kidney Transplant Recipients Not Affected By Drug Choice
May 31, 2010
Kidney transplant recipients are known to have a higher risk of cancer, compared to the general population, due to the need to take immunosuppressive drugs to prevent organ rejection. Results published today from a significant, long-term study suggest that no single medication appears to increase this cancer risk.
Evaluating data from 1983 in a randomised trial, researchers were able review trends among 481 patients over 20 years – providing the strongest evidence to date on the issue. A total of 226 patients in the trial developed at least one cancer. By 20 years post transplant, 27% of patients developed non-skin cancer and 48% of patients developed skin cancer – no one treatment had a greater effect on cancer risk.
“We found that no particular immunosuppressive drug regimen appears to increase the risk of cancer among kidney transplant patients,” said lead author Dr Martin Gallagher, The George Institute.
One-A-Day Heart Polypill To Be Tested In New International Trial
May 31, 2010
Researchers will be exploring whether a new, very low cost, one-a-day combined ‘polypill’ could reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular problems across the world, in a major new international trial that launches today.
Cardiovascular disease is the world’s biggest killer and the leading cause of loss of healthy life years.
The new ‘Red Heart Pill’ contains low-dose aspirin, a statin and two blood pressure-lowering medicines in a single polypill. It is expected to be substantially cheaper than existing medications to combat cardiovascular problems.
Researchers are now recruiting 2,000 volunteers who are at high risk of heart attack or stroke, or who have already had such a cardiovascular event, for a two-year trial of the Red Heart Pill.
Drug Cocktails Cut Couples HIV Transmission Risk
May 31, 2010
In a study that supports the widespread use of drugs to help control the AIDS pandemic, researchers said on Wednesday that HIV patients who took the drugs were far less likely to infect their partners.
Using the drug cocktail reduced the likelihood of transmission by 92 percent, the researchers reported in the journal Lancet.
They said the findings mean the drug cocktails known as antiretroviral therapy, or ART, might be a useful prevention tool as well as a treatment.
“These results are … the strongest evidence to date that ART might decrease HIV transmission risk,” said Dr. Connie Celum, professor of medicine and global health at the University of Washington, who worked on the study.
Cancer Patients Try Out Psychedelic
May 28, 2010
Psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms,’ is used in a New York University study as part of psychotherapeutic treatment for anxiety caused by the disease. Patients react positively.
Reporting from New York The big white pill was brought to her in an earthenware chalice. She’d already held hands with her two therapists and expressed her wishes for what it would help her do.
She swallowed it, lay on the couch with her eyes covered, and waited. And then it came.
“The world was made up of jewels and I was in a dome,” she recalled. Surrounded by brilliant, kaleidoscopic colors, she saw the dome open up to admit “this most incredible luminescence that made everything even more beautiful.”
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Tears trickled down her face as she saw “how beautiful the world could actually be.”
That’s how Nicky Edlich, 67, began her first-ever trip on a psychedelic drug last year.
Genetic Differences May Influence the Severity of Joint Pain Among Millions of Women Taking Lifesaving Breast Cancer Drugs
May 27, 2010
Aromatase inhibitor-associated arthralgia (AIAA) is a major side effect in breast cancer survivors, producing joint pain so severe that as many as ten percent of women discontinue their therapy prematurely while undergoing treatment with these lifesaving drugs. New research presented by investigators from the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center at the 2010 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology reveals a possible genetic basis for why these side effects occur and shows promise for treating these symptoms without interfering with the drugs’ efficacy. Additional research will also be presented shedding light on the physical and psychological factors that influence women’s decisions to stop taking the drugs.
Jun Mao, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Family Medicine and Community Health who heads the Abramson Cancer Center’s integrative oncology program, led a team that studied individual genetic variations that could potentially influence both the onset and the severity of AIAA. (“Genetic variation in CYP19A1 and Interleukin-6 and aromatase inhibitor-associated arthralgia in breast cancer survivors,” Abstract #526) His team studied 390 postmenopausal women with stage 0 to III breast cancer receiving adjuvant therapy with aromatase inhibitors who reported joint pain related to their drug therapy. They found that among this group, women carrying at least one copy of a “7-repeat” genetic variant in the aromatase enzyme (CYP19A1, the target of aromatase inhibitors) had a lower chance of developing AAIA than those with at least one “8-repeat “ allele of the same gene. Having at least one copy of a specific IL-6 haplotype was also correlated with increased pain severity, while the presence of a different variant of that gene was associated with decreased pain. Both these findings support previous research that indicates an important role for host estrogen metabolism and inflammation in causing AIAA.
“Due to genetic differences, women respond differently to aromatase inhibitors with regard to estrogen levels and inflammatory processes, and as a result, some women are more likely to have this pain or have more severe pain,” says Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, an associate professor of Hematology/Oncology and Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a co-author on all three of the studies. “There are millions of women receiving AIs, as many as 50 percent of them experience some level of arthralgia, and up to 10 percent discontinue their treatment prematurely, so this is a significant issue.”
Few Receive the Shingles Vaccine Because of Cost to Doctors
May 26, 2010
It’s a classic good-news, bad-news story.
The vaccine against shingles, already shown to be effective, is both safe and well-tolerated, researchers found after following more than 38,000 participants in the randomized trial that led to the 2006 approval of the vaccine.
On the other hand, few people are getting the vaccine, and for a variety of reasons — including its cost — researchers noted in a separate study. Both analyses appear in the May 4 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The findings highlight the lack of a comprehensive approach to adult vaccination in the U.S., according to James Donahue, DVM, PhD, and Edward Belongia, MD, both of the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wis.
Possible Increased Risk Of Fractures Of The Hip, Wrist, And Spine With The Use Of Proton Pump Inhibitors
May 25, 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is revising the prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) labels for a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors to include new safety information about a possible increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine with the use of these medications.
Proton pump inhibitors work by reducing the amount of acid in the stomach. Nexium, Dexilant, Prilosec, Zegerid, Prevacid, Protonix, Aciphex, and Vimovo are available by prescription to treat conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), stomach and small intestine ulcers, and inflammation of the esophagus. Prilosec OTC, Zegerid OTC, and Prevacid 24HR are sold over-the-counter (OTC) for the treatment of frequent heartburn.
The new safety information is based on FDA’s review of several epidemiological studies that reported an increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine with proton pump inhibitor use. Some studies found that those at greatest risk for these fractures received high doses of proton pump inhibitors or used them for one year or more (see Data Summary section).The majority of the studies evaluated individuals 50 years of age or older and the increased risk of fracture primarily was observed in this age group.
While the greatest increased risk for fractures in these studies involved people who had been taking prescription proton pump inhibitors for at least one year or who had been taking high doses of the prescription medications (not available over-the-counter), as a precaution, the “Drug Facts” label on the OTC proton pump inhibitors (indicated for 14 days of continuous use) also is being revised to include information about this risk.
Novel Anti-Malarial Drug Candidate Found
May 25, 2010
As part of a multicenter study, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a series of chemical compounds that might serve as starting points for the identification of new classes of anti-malarial drugs.
“Malaria remains one of the most globally significant infectious diseases that we face,” said Dr. Margaret Phillips, professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern and one of the senior authors of the study, which appears in the May 20 issue of Nature. Malaria affects about 40 percent of the world’s population and kills about a million people a year, she said. The parasite that causes the disease is spread by mosquito bites.
Drugs are the mainstay of malaria treatment, yet the malaria parasite is notorious for developing drug resistance, which compromises current chemotherapy.
“Novel chemical compounds with anti-malarial activity represent a potent tool in the process of developing new drugs to treat this disease,” Dr. Phillips said.
Radiation And Whether Cell Phone Towers Are Dangerous
May 25, 2010
Radiation. Powerful enough to turn Dr. Bruce Banner (Bill Bixby) into The Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno), or meek Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) into The Amazing Spider-Man (still Tobey Maguire, but more buff and spandexed). It also obliterated two cities in Japan, and continues to contribute to cancers near Chernobyl. It’s sciency, strong, and scary. No wonder it creates so much apprehension.
We’re all living every day surrounded by radiation sources, and bathed in radioactive rays. Cosmic rays are a significant and unavoidable source of radiation from above, and naturally occurring forms of radon, carbon, and many other elements in the earth’s crust bombard us with radiation from below.
Not all radiation is the same. The more-powerful, cell-damaging kind is called “ionizing radiation,” and we know that can strip atoms apart and disrupt DNA. This kind of radiation occurs in cosmic rays and diagnostic x-rays, and that’s why radiology technicians wear lead overcoats. It is a bad idea to be exposed to excessive ionizing radiation, though even that risk should be put in perspective, since you can’t possibly avoid it entirely. For comparison, a single chest x-ray exposes an adult to about the same ionizing radiation that you’d get in three days of living on the earth at sea level. Three days, that doesn’t sound so bad. But an abdominal CT scan? That’s about three extra years. Diagnostic radiology is a wonderful tool, but it should be used carefully.
How Pharmacists and the Internet Improved Hypertension Control
May 21, 2010
More than half of all Americans with high blood pressure and 30% of those taking medication for the condition don’t have their hypertension under control, the CDC says. Physicians and researchers are trying to figure out how to boost those rates, and a study presented today suggests one method that may work at least for some people.
Kaiser Permanente Colorado wanted to see if an easy home-based monitoring system would lead to better control. “The clinic- and office-based approach to control can be a barrier,” David Magid, a KP senior scientist, tells the Health Blog. The system he and his colleagues devised and studied: Users got a blood pressure cuff with a USB connection that transmitted readings to the American Heart Association’s Heart 360 website and a Microsoft HealthVault account via a home computer with a high-speed Internet connection. The data were uploaded to Kaiser and sorted into reports showing whose hypertension was under control and whose wasn’t.
Clinical pharmacists looked at the reports and used standard treatment algorithms to figure out whose drugs needed tweaking. (Doctors reviewed the recommendations.) Patients were contacted by phone or email with any changes. Initial data is scheduled to be presented today at an AHA meeting on quality of care and outcomes research, and it’s promising: the home-monitoring group had an average BP decline of 21 millimeters of mercury, compared to a 9 mm Hg decline for the control group, which received usual care.