NMH cardiac patients already reaping benefits of new cardiovascular institute
Just 60 days into the launch of the Northwestern Cardiovascular Institute, patients are already benefiting from its unique offering of innovative diagnostic and treatment options, including a pain relief pump and a revolutionary new magnetic resonance (MR) technology.
Cardiac patients at the Northwestern Cardiovascular Institute are among the first in the country to benefit from a pump dispense sys
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have developed a blood test that can detect amplification of a certain gene found in circulating cells associated with breast cancer.
If further clinical studies bear out its effectiveness, researchers say the blood test could be used as a standard operating procedure to monitor genetic changes for which a treatment is available.
“Cancer is a moving target, and the oncologist has to know which bullet to put in his gun,” said
Early testing of an experimental human monoclonal antibody showed a striking benefit in patients with advanced melanoma, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, who presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Of 39 patients given a single injection of CP-675,206 (known as CP-675), tumors disappeared in three patients, shrunk in a fourth patient, and cancer stopped growing in five other patients. These response
A new and experimental breast cancer drug called lapatinib inhibited tumor growth in nearly half of women who took it for eight weeks in a national Phase I clinical trial, according to results of a study being presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in New Orleans.
Kimberly Blackwell, M.D., an oncologist from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, presented data showing that 46 percent of breast cancer patients who took the oral drug for eight weeks had stable d
Researchers at the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University and the Ireland Cancer Center at University Hospitals of Cleveland report progress toward the goal of employing gene therapy to help protect the bone marrow cells of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Stanton Gerson, M.D., professor of medicine, has been leading the effort to introduce a gene into bone marrow cells that would protect the cells a
Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have identified a biomarker that can predict how well individual colon cancer patients will respond to a common chemotherapy regimen. This finding is a significant step forward in the goal of personalizing cancer treatment. Medical oncologist Neal J. Meropol, M.D., director of the gastrointestinal cancer program at Fox Chase, presented the study today in New Orleans at the 40th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
The study invo
A potential vaccine candidate against chronic hepatitis C (HCV) infections is presented in a thesis from Karolinska Institutet. The new genetic vaccine can activate immune responses that are needed to clear HCV, a disease that today is difficult to treat effectively.
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. It is estimated that HCV affects approximately 170 million people around the world. Today, no vaccine is available to prevent or cure HCV infection
As surgeons develop ways to make breast cancer treatment less invasive and less disfiguring, mastectomy rates have remained surprisingly high, causing many researchers to suspect doctors are not giving their patients these options. But a new study shows it’s the patients who are choosing the more aggressive surgery.
Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and Wayne State University found that women with breast cancer who said they made their own treatment decis
A seminar in this week’s issue of THE LANCET highlights the frequency, diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an unexplained thickening of the heart in young adults that has a 1% annual risk of sudden death.
Dr. Perry Elliott from University College, London, UK and Professor William McKenna from The Heart Hospital, London state that this genetically transmitted disease affects 1 in 500 adults and is the commonest cause of sudden death in otherwise fit young people and athle
A new analysis of data on smoking and health finds that smokers who quit before the age of 35 have a reasonable chance to regain their health over time and to live as long and as well as people who have never smoked. The Duke University Medical Center researchers who performed the analysis said that smokers who quit can dodge the debilitating effects of smoking-related diseases and maintain a high quality of life into middle-age and beyond.
The Duke researchers suggest that smoking cessatio
Are there socioeconomic gradients in stage and grade of breast cancer at diagnosis? Cross sectional analysis of UK cancer registry data BMJ Online First
Women living in deprived areas of the United Kingdom tend to have more advanced breast cancer at diagnosis than those living in affluent areas, finds new research on bmj.com.
Researchers analysed data on stage and grade of cancer at diagnosis for nearly 23,000 women with breast cancer in the Northern and Yorkshire region of England
Despite a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs during the past 15 years, gene therapy has continued to attract many of the world’s brightest scientists. They are tantalized by the enormous potential that replacing missing genes or disabling defective ones offers for curing diseases of many kinds.
One group, consisting of researchers from the University of Wisconsin Medical School, the Waisman Center at UW-Madison and Mirus Bio Corporation of Madison, Wis., now reports a critical advanc
A neurosurgeon at the University of Illinois at Chicago is assessing how well an implanted electronic device that stimulates nerve fibers in the spinal cord relieves chronic pain.
The device, made by Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but is undergoing further evaluation at several sites throughout the United States for potential marketing overseas.
“Coping with chronic pain is one of life’s greatest challenges,” said Dr
Babies who arrive from eight to twelve weeks early and adults who suffer from Crohn’s disease are both at risk for developing short bowel syndrome, a condition that may tie them to an IV for feeding and greatly reduce the quality of their lives –medically, economically, and socially.
Now research in Kelly Tappenden’s laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers hope to patients who have had parts of their small intestine surgically removed, making it diffic
Patients given a class of anti-inflammatory drugs before and after minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery experienced less pain with fewer postoperative complications and an earlier return to normal activities, according to Duke University Medical Center researchers.
The class of drugs in question, known as cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitors, block a key enzyme in the cascade of immune system events leading to inflammation. Unlike other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), COX-2
Bone marrow stem cells, when exposed to damaged liver tissue, can quickly convert into healthy liver cells and help repair the damaged organ, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
In mouse-tissue cultures, scientists found that stem cells, in the presence of cells from damaged liver tissue, developed into liver cells in as little as seven hours. They also observed that stem cells transplanted into mice with liver injuries helped restore liver function within
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