Health News

First pre-surgery breast cancer drug approved by FDA

Date: Oct-01-2013
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first drug to be used in early stage breast cancer treatment. Perjeta (pertuzumab) will be used as part of a complete treatment regimen for patients before surgery (neoadjuvant setting). Perjeta was approved by the European Union in 2012 for the treatment of patients with advanced or late-stage (metastatic) HER2-positive breast cancer. HER2-positive breast cancers have increased amounts of the HER2 protein that contributes to cancer cell growth and survival...

Mid-life stress linked to dementia risk

Date: Oct-01-2013
A large, long-term study reveals that dealing with stress during middle age may trigger lasting physiological brain changes, increasing the risk of developing dementia later in life. This finding comes from the Prospective Population Study of Women in Gothenburg, Sweden, which started in 1968 and followed over 800 Swedish women for around 40 years. Results of the study were published online in the journal BMJ Open. Researchers from the study looked at previous studies showing how stress can cause both structural and functional brain damage, as well as promote inflammation...

Breakthrough method gives infertile women hope

Date: Oct-01-2013
A study has detailed a new method of inducing egg growth in women suffering from infertility. Created by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine, this technique has already resulted in one woman giving birth, while another is pregnant. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Doctors from the St. Marianna University School of Medicine in Kawasaki, Japan, tested the method in women suffering from primary ovarian insufficiency, also known as premature ovarian failure...

Music practice can sharpen the brain

Date: Oct-01-2013
A new study by researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland concludes that people who practice playing musical instruments have sharper brains because they pick up mistakes in their performance and fix them more quickly than other people. Writing about their work in a recent issue of the journal Neuropsychologia, psychologist Doctor Ines Jentzsch and colleagues suggest playing music may help guard against mental decline, either through age or disease. The findings reinforce previous research that links mental ability to playing music. Dr...

Exercising in free time may keep blood pressure healthy

Date: Oct-01-2013
A new study finds that exercising during leisure time is linked to a lower risk for high blood pressure in people who do not do much exercise. Researchers came to this conclusion after carrying out a meta-analysis that pooled results from 13 studies examining links between exercise and blood pressure. They found people who did more than 4 hours per week of exercise in their leisure time, as opposed to work time, had a 19% lower risk of high blood pressure, compared with people who did not do much exercise at all...

Alternative TAVR approaches offer comparable outcomes for select patients

Date: Oct-01-2013
Patients with aortic stenosis who are ineligible for surgical valve replacement as well as the traditional approach to transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) may have comparable outcomes when the surgeon uses an alternative access TAVR approach, according to a study in the October 2013 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. "Our experience demonstrated that cardiac surgeons and cardiologists must utilize a multitude of access options in TAVR to achieve minimal morbidity and mortality with excellent outcomes," said Vinod H...

Study published in Blood highlights Axl inhibition as a novel therapeutic approach for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Date: Oct-01-2013
BerGenBio AS, an oncology biopharmaceutical company, announces that a paper entitled "Axl, a prognostic and therapeutic target in acute myeloid leukemia mediates paracrine cross-talk of leukemia cells with bone marrow stroma"[1] by Ben-Batalla et al., has been published in Blood, the most cited peer-reviewed research journal in the field of hematology. The paper reports research directed by Dr...

Study examining the link between rejection and risk of psychiatric illness

Date: Oct-01-2013
The factors which make some people more sensitive to rejection are being investigated by psychologists. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University are keen to know why some individuals are more likely to feel rejected by others - such as close family and friends - because of the role rejection has in contributing to psychiatric illness.  The researchers, from the School of Social Sciences, are aiming to identify the personal, social and emotional factors which play a part in people's sensitivity to rejection...

Evidence-guided tumour profiling offers new hope for clinicians managing difficult-to-treat cancers

Date: Oct-01-2013
Data from two studies presented at the 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC 2013), announced by Caris Life Sciences, demonstrate the potential of evidence-guided tumour profiling to immediately improve the treatment of patients with hard-to-treat cancers, including cancers of unknown primary (CUP) and rarer and refractory cancers...

Erbitux significantly extends survival by 7.5 Months in mCRC RAS wild-type patients when compared with Bevacizumab: New analysis of FIRE-3 AIO study

Date: Oct-01-2013
Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck, has announced that the German cooperative investigator group AIO (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internistische Onkologie) reported new data from the Phase III head-to-head clinical trial FIRE-3, which show a clinically relevant improvement from Erbitux® (cetuximab) plus FOLFIRI versus bevacizumab plus FOLFIRI as 1st line treatment in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) in patients with RAS wild-type tumors.[1] The new data, from a preplanned exploratory analysis, were presented at the European Cancer Congress 2013 (ECCO-ESMO-ESTRO)...