Health News

Key Mechanism Discovered For Controlling The Body's Inflammatory Response

Date: Oct-02-2012
Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have discovered how a key molecule controls the body's inflammatory responses. The molecule, known as p110delta, fine-tunes inflammation to avoid excessive reactions that can damage the organism. The findings, published in Nature Immunology, could be exploited in vaccine development and new cancer therapies. A healthy immune system reacts to danger signals - from microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, or from the body's own rogue cells, such as cancer cells...

Age-Related Decline In Immune System May Be Halted By Blocking Key Protein

Date: Oct-02-2012
The older we get, the weaker our immune systems tend to become, leaving us vulnerable to infectious diseases and cancer and eroding our ability to benefit from vaccination. Now Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have found that blocking the action of a single protein whose levels in our immune cells creep steadily upward with age can restore those cells' response to a vaccine. This discovery holds important long-term therapeutic ramifications, said Jorg Goronzy, MD, PhD, professor of rheumatology and immunology and the senior author of a study to be published online Sept...

International Study Highlights Need To Support Patients With Psoriasis Suffering Feelings Of Isolation, Stigmatisation And Anxiety

Date: Oct-02-2012
Data from the Burden of Psoriasis patient research were presented this weekend at the 21st EADV Congress in Prague, Czech Republic. The results from the research, which included a quantitative online survey completed by 3,822 patients with psoriasis, showed 73% of patients surveyed scored their psoriasis as having a moderate to high impact on their lives1. People living with psoriasis experience flare-ups that can result in the appearance of thick, red, scaly skin lesions on any part of their body2...

New, First-of-its-Kind Virtual Repository For Newborn Screening Unveiled - New System Will Save Lives And Improve Newborn Testing

Date: Oct-02-2012
After one-and-a-half years of intense development and end-user testing and through a contract to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Newborn Screening Translational Research Network (NBSTRN) Coordinating Center has developed a centralized, web-based virtual repository of newborn dried blood spots (DBS) as an indispensable tool for newborn screening researchers...

BOTOX® Has Been Licensed By The MHRA For The Management Of Urinary Incontinence In Adult Patients With Neurogenic Detrusor Overactivity

Date: Oct-02-2012
Allergan, Inc. is pleased to announce that BOTOX® has been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for the management of urinary incontinence in adult patients with neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO) due to subcervical spinal cord injury (SCI) (traumatic or non-traumatic) or multiple sclerosis (MS), who are not adequately managed with anticholinergics1,2...

Subcutaneous VELCADE® Approved In The EU For The Treatment Of Multiple Myeloma

Date: Oct-02-2012
Janssen-Cilag International NV (Janssen) has announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for the subcutaneous (under the skin) administration of VELCADE® (bortezomib) in the European Union. Bortezomib is indicated for the treatment of multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer.1 The authorisation is based on data from a Phase III study demonstrating that subcutaneous administration of bortezomib is equally effective as intravenous (into the vein) bortezomib but is associated with a significant reduction in the frequency and severity of side effects...

New Data Demonstrate Stelra® (Ustekinumab) Is Effective, Well-Tolerated And Improved QOL In Patients With Moderate To Severe Plaque Psoriasis

Date: Oct-02-2012
A series of data presentations released at the 21st European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) congress, in Prague, Czech Republic, demonstrate that STELARA® (ustekinumab) is effective, well tolerated and improved quality of life in patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis...

Breast Cancer Recurrence Defined By Hormone Receptor Status

Date: Oct-02-2012
Human epidermal growth factor (HER2) positive breast cancers are often treated with the same therapy regardless of hormone receptor status. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research shows that women whose HER2 positive cancer was also hormone (estrogen and progesterone) receptor (HR) negative had an increased risk of early death, and that their cancer was less likely to recur in bone than those whose cancer retained hormone sensitivity. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease with many different subtypes...

Investigational Brain Cancer Vaccine To Be Tested In Phase I Roswell Park Study

Date: Oct-02-2012
A new clinical research study at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) will test a first-of-its-kind cancer "vaccine" that may prove effective against many forms of solid-tumor cancers. The vaccine, to be investigated in a trial involving patients with brain cancer, generates an immune response that appears to put the target molecule, the cancer survival protein survivin, into a bind it can't escape. The peptide vaccine, developed at Roswell Park by Robert Fenstermaker, MD, and Michael Ciesielski, PhD, is based upon a specially engineered small protein molecule called a "peptide mimic...

Physicians Identify Reasons For High Cost Of Cancer Drugs, Prescribe Solutions

Date: Oct-02-2012
A virtual monopoly held by some drug manufacturers in part because of the way treatment protocols work is among the reasons cancer drugs cost so much in the United States, according to a commentary by two Mayo Clinic physicians in the October issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Value-based pricing is one potential solution, they write...