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 Back to Medical News Today Archives
Medical News Today: 02-06-2006
Twice-daily injection is the benchmark set by exenatide, the first GLP-1 analog launched in the US by Lilly in June 2005 and half-year sales of US$ 74.6 mln, which now faces competition by GLP-1 analog treatment modalities with less frequent dosing. The Business Intelligence firm La Merie S.L. reported today that twice-daily injection is the benchmark set by exenatide, the first GLP-1 analog launched in the US by Lilly in June 2005 and half-year sales of US$ 74... click link for more info.
The February edition of CancerWire focuses on the continued presence of a carcinogen that will stun many Americans - asbestos the well known carcinogenic mineral is still being used in the U.S. and this deadly mineral can be found in over 30 million homes and schools. These revelations and others were provided during a recent interview with Linda Reinstein of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO)... click link for more info.
Pregnancy and motherhood are the most vital and enriching phases in a woman's life. They are also the most trying times in terms of changes that a woman experiences. At this important period in life, looking and feeling good will work wonders. Even as recent as a few years ago, women had very few options in terms of what to wear during pregnancy... click link for more info.
If you are among those who have a petite frame, finding the right petite maternity clothes must be tough. To find appropriate clothes that minimize your growing waistline and bust line is necessary. This is where especially tailored maternity clothing comes as a blessing. Over the years, maternity clothes have diversified into a number of styles... click link for more info.
Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved CLARINEX-D® 12 HOUR (desloratadine 2.5 mg and pseudoephedrine sulfate, USP 120 mg) Extended Release Tablets for the relief of nasal and non-nasal symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis (outdoor allergies), including nasal congestion, in patients 12 years of age and older... click link for more info.
Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) reported that Health Canada has granted approval for TEMODAL(R)(temozolomide) Capsules for use in combination with radiotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a form of malignant brain cancer. TEMODAL is currently marketed in Canada for the treatment of recurrent or progressive GBM or anaplastic astrocytoma (AA), another form of brain tumor... click link for more info.
Roche announced today that its anti-influenza medicine Tamiflu (oseltamivir) has received approval from the European authorities for the prevention of influenza (prophylaxis use) in children aged one to 12 years. An approval for the same indication was received in the United States in December last year... click link for more info.
Novo Nordisk is a company of great people doing great things to advance the health and quality of life for millions of people around the world. We are making a difference yet diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. Twenty million people have diabetes, of which a full 65 percent are not in good glycemic control... click link for more info.
Results from a prospective, randomized clinical trial of small coronary vessels suggest that the CYPHER® Stent outperformed the Taxus Stent in three key endpoints that are utilized to assess efficacy: late lumen loss (primary endpoint), restenosis and target lesion revascularization (secondary). The ISAR-SMART Trial results appear today in the February issue of the European Heart Journal... click link for more info.
According to an open-label, Canadian study published by The Canadian Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, long-acting, once-daily CONCERTA® (OROS® methylphenidate hydrochloride) is significantly more effective than usual care with immediate release methylphenidate (IR-MPH) in achieving symptom remission in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)... click link for more info.
Patients Can Now Take a 4mg Dose Using the Convenient Imitrex STATdose System ®; Imitrex Injection Offers Fast Relief for Migraine, Starts Working As Early As 10 Minutes (1). The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new formulation of Imitrex Injection that allows a convenient way for patients to take a 4mg dose using the Imitrex STATdose System ®... click link for more info.
Biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid might help to predict progression to Alzheimer's disease in patients with mild cognitive impairment, according to an article published online (Monday February 6, 2006) The Lancet Neurology. Dementia is a rapidly growing socioeconomic and public-health problem that currently affects around 40% of individuals aged 90-95 years... click link for more info.
Leverkusen, Germany - Bayer HealthCare, Diagnostics Division, a member of the Bayer Group (NYSE: BAY), announced today that they have received FDA clearance on two new troponin-I assays (TnI-UltraTM). The TnI-Ultra assays are the first fully-automated troponin assays meeting the European Society of Cardiology/American College of Cardiology recommendation of a < 10% level of imprecision at the 99th percentile of a healthy population... click link for more info.
UCB today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has issued a positive opinion to approve marketing authorisation of Keppra® (levetiracetam) Concentrate (100 mg/mL) as an intravenous administration and for use as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of partial onset seizures with or without secondary generalisation in adults and children of four years of age and older with epilepsy... click link for more info.
AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) announced today during their Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results meeting that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted fast track designation for the investigation of ZACTIMA? (ZD6474) in treating medullary thyroid carcinoma. For advanced thyroid cancer, there is currently no curative modality or approved chemotherapy... click link for more info.
The NHS has met a key target for giving patients the fastest everaccess to hospital treatment, Health Secretary Patricia Hewittannounced today. New waiting list figures released today show that by the end of lastyear the NHS had achieved the target of delivering a maximum wait ofsix months for treatment... click link for more info.
Women with asthma who are carrying a female fetus are more likely to experience worse asthma symptoms than asthmatic women carrying a male fetus, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the February issue of American Journal of Epidemiology."This is one of the first and largest studies to investigate the effect of fetal sex on the severity of the mother's asthma, and one of the largest to investigate the effect of fetal sex on any disease of the mother," said senior author Michael B... click link for more info.
Medicare's new drug coverage will havesignificantly lower premiums and lower costs to federal taxpayers and states,as a result of stronger than expected competition in the prescription drugmarket and lower drug costs, CMS Administrator Mark B. McClellan, M.D., Ph.D,announced Thursday. Beneficiary premiums are now expected to average $25 a month -- down fromthe $37 projected in last July's budget estimates -- and the overall cost totaxpayers for 2006 will drop 20 percent over the July 2005 estimate, accordingto the CMS Office of the Actuary... click link for more info.
Scientists have determined the detailed structure of an essential piece of the telomerase enzyme, an important contributor to the vast majority of human cancers. Understanding the physical shape of the protein has led to a better understanding of how it acts to immortalize cells - and should help scientists design broadly effective cancer drugs... click link for more info.
An increased focus on prevention and making services more responsive to patients and closer to them are welcome but there must be the capacity and resources to make this happen, says the British Medical Association as the Government today (30/1/06) launches its White Paper (for England) "Our health, our care, our say: a new direction in community services"... click link for more info.
Doctors in Italy are studying whether a new type of mouthwash will help alleviate pain for patients suffering from head and neck cancer who were treated with radiation therapy, according to a study published in the February 1, 2006, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology... click link for more info.
SNM recently awarded $75,000 in grants and awards, funded by its Education and Research Foundation, for molecular imaging/nuclear medicine researchers.Meixang Yu, Ph.D., associate professor and chief PET radiochemist at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, was named the first recipient of the SNM/Mallinckrodt Seed Grant in Molecular Imaging/Nuclear Medicine Research... click link for more info.
A Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care-led research team was today awarded one of four new national Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health. The $3 million, five-year award will be a joint effort between the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care), Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Harvard School of Public Health, Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, and the Argentine National Institute of Infectious Diseases... click link for more info.
A team led by UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Robin Bush will receive $1.5 million over the next five years to develop computer-based simulations of pandemic flu and other infectious disease outbreaks. The research could help officials better understand how to prepare for and contain the spread of such diseases... click link for more info.
Researchers worldwide are seeking to define ancient sections of our genetic code that may soon be as important to medical science as genes. A new wave of research is concerned with, not how genes work, but how small regulatory DNA sequences tell genes where, when and to what degree to "turn on." As part of this effort, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center scanned through the vast human DNA code to reveal for the first time 60 genes influenced by one such sequence, according to an article published today in the journal Genome Research... click link for more info.
Julia Duane Quinlan, mother of Karen Ann Quinlan, whose legal battle to remove her daughter from a respirator changed the use of life-support for the dying, will speak at the first annual conference of the New Jersey End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium hosted by the College of Nursing Center for Professional Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey... click link for more info.
The United Kingdom Department for International Development on Monday announced it had given $11.8 million in funding that was withheld from the Ugandan government to the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the U.N. Population Fund for HIV/AIDS, emergency health and nutrition programs in Northern Uganda, Agence France Presse reports... click link for more info.
The West Virginia Senate on Monday voted to approve several measures to expand health care for the uninsured but failed to consider a plan by the state House that would "push the state toward universal health care," the AP/Charleston Daily Mail reports (Bundy, AP/Charleston Daily Mail, 1/30). The West Virginia House last Wednesday approved a legislative package that combines three bills proposed by Gov... click link for more info.
The Feb. 13 issue of Forbes examined the challenges faced by Germany-based pharmaceutical company Schering AG -- "the world leader in fertility control" -- in efforts to market oral contraceptives outside of the U.S. and Europe. According to Forbes, the oral contraceptive markets in the U.S. and Europe are "mature," and Schering "must look beyond the Western world for opportunities and pitch oral contraceptives to women in fast-growing emerging markets," such as those in Russia and Turkey... click link for more info.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City on Thursday seperately upheld lower court rulings that declared unconstitutional a federal law banning so-called "partial-birth" abortion because it lacked an exception for the health of the pregnant woman, the New York Times reports (Preston, New York Times, 2/1)... click link for more info.
The debate about the existence of a placebo effect has heated up over the past year as more and more lab experiments are detecting immediate physiological responses to placebos. A new study takes placebo investigations out of the lab and into a clinical trial, showing a discernible placebo effect over time, according to an article in the Feb... click link for more info.
Chemotherapy and radiation can be effective at treating cancer of the larynx, or voice box, without removing the organ that controls speech and swallowing. But it doesn't work for everyone.Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that determining early into treatment which patients would benefit from the chemoradiation treatment and which would be better off having surgery led to better survival rates than typically expected for this type of cancer... click link for more info.
Mary Agnes Carey, associate editor of CQ HealthBeat, discusses federal action to reimburse states for the cost of ensuring access to medications for Medicare beneficiaries, enrollment in health savings accounts and congressional calls for further entitlement spending cuts in this week's "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork... click link for more info.
The New York Times on Tuesday examined how pharmaceutical lobbyists are active in all 50 states because "the industry knows that controlling drug costs is a subject with nearly universal popular appeal." All state legislatures have weighed legislation involving pharmaceuticals, and last year state lawmakers considered more than 600 bills that address prescription drugs... click link for more info.
The New York Times on Tuesday examined how pharmaceutical lobbyists are active in all 50 states because "the industry knows that controlling drug costs is a subject with nearly universal popular appeal." All state legislatures have weighed legislation involving pharmaceuticals, and last year state lawmakers considered more than 600 bills that address prescription drugs... click link for more info.
The executive board of the U.N. Population Fund last week approved a five-year, $27 million program to fund HIV/AIDS prevention and reproductive health services, Agence France-Press reports. The aid for 2006-2010 will target 30 Chinese counties that have tried to improve services and give reproductive freedoms to their clients (Agence France-Presse, 1/30)... click link for more info.
USA Today on Monday examined some experimental and potentially more effective screening methods to detect ovarian cancer in the early stages of the disease. For U.S. women, ovarian cancer is the fourth-leading cause of cancer deaths, and nearly three in four ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed after the disease has spread beyond the ovaries... click link for more info.
A "starry sky" map linking the myriad interactions between the influenza virus and its human host will help guide researchers in creating new anti-viral drugs, say researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center.The on-line map, part of a project called Reactome, is intended to teach scientists about parts of the influenza lifecycle they might not be familiar with, and to help researchers look at specific reactions and figure out ways to block them... click link for more info.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have found the first evidence of a physical abnormality underlying the chronic pain condition called reflex sympathetic dystrophy or complex regional pain syndrome-I (CRPS-I). In the February issue of the journal Pain, they describe finding that skin affected by CRPS-I pain appears to have lost some small-fiber nerve endings, a change characteristic of other neuropathic pain syndromes... click link for more info.
University of Michigan researchers who have studied the impact of out-of-pocket health costs on Americans' behavior are available to comment on new 'consumer-driven health care' proposals that President George W. Bush is expected to unveil in his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.While the details of those plans are not known, they are expected to involve more emphasis on individual cash accounts and cash expenditures for health care, in exchange for tax breaks or other incentives... click link for more info.
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