A newly recommended treatment for latent tuberculosis (TB) infection can cause liver injury, and therefore needs to be used with great caution and frequent monitoring, according to a UCSF-led, multi-center study.
The research reporting the increased liver injury from the drugs, rifampin and pyrazinamide, was conducted by investigators at UCSF, Boston University, and Emory University and appears in the October 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The study is the first large
For the first time, researchers have shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict the risk of heart attacks or cardiac deaths in coronary heart disease patients, according to a report in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
MRI can be used to locate tissue damage in a heart attack or pinpoint blockages, but it has not been used to predict heart attacks.
“This study is the first to determine that MRI is a strong prognos
Serious streptococcus infections is the theme of a major EU project to be coordinated and led by researchers from Lund University. Associate Professor Claes Schalen and researcher Aftab Jasir, both at the Department of Medical Microbiology, Dermatology, and Infections, Section for Bacteriology, are the coordinator and project leader, respectively. Group A streptococci (GAS) are also called killer bacteria since serious GAS infections can develop with dramatic rapidity.
“Since the late 1980s
Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy may put their daughters at a higher risk of breast cancer, according to researchers at Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. Their findings were reported at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Prevention meeting in Boston.
“Previous studies have shown a strong link between alcohol consumption and increased breast cancer risk, and this may be caused by alcohol increasing levels of circulating estrogen,”
Mouse studies indicate successful pain relief, University of Pittsburgh researchers say
By “programming” a herpes simplex virus to deliver a gene-mediated pain-blocking protein at the cellular level, University of Pittsburgh researchers have been able to significantly reduce cancer-related pain in mice with tumors, the researchers report in the November issue of the journal Annals of Neurology. The paper, “Herpes vector-mediated expression of proenkephalin reduces bone cancer pain,” i
Researchers have found that immediately treating people who have early stage glaucoma can delay progression of the disease. This finding supports the medical community’s emerging consensus that treatment to lower pressure inside the eye can slow glaucoma damage and subsequent vision loss. These results are reported in the October 2002 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.
Scientists found that immediate treatment of newly-discovered primary open-angle glaucoma, the most common form of g
Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have devised a new gene therapy technique that appears to eliminate one of the major health risks linked to gene therapy. The technique, published in the Oct. 15 advanced online edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology, overcomes the need for viral vectors that have plagued gene therapy trials, while retaining the ability to insert therapeutic DNA into specific sites in the chromosomes.
“Our approach provides an alternative that didn’
Fatty acids from fish oils and fatty fish can destroy the power station – the mitochondria- in certain types of cancer cells, making the cells commit suicide.These are the conclusions in a new thesis that Hilde Heimli at the Institute for Nutrition Research at the University of Oslo, in Norway, presented in October 2002. The study was supported by the Norwegian Cancer Society.
Kreft.no: In her thesis, Hilde Heimli has examined how polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid is ingested by diff
Conventional estimates for life expectancy after cancer diagnosis have been too pessimistic, suggests a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.
There are two main ways of quantifying survival estimates after cancer diagnosis. The conventional method, known as the cohort method, is based on the survival experience of cancer patients whose diagnosis occurred many years ago. This method therefore fails to disclose recent improvements in cancer detection and treatment. A recently developed alt
Poor social circumstances in adulthood have been known for some time to increase heart disease risk but less attention has been paid to earlier life circumstances. A study in this week’s BMJ finds that adverse social circumstances in childhood, as well as adulthood, are strongly associated with increased risk of insulin resistance, and other heart disease risk factors.
Most people know that the hormone insulin is important for health. But the commonest type of diabetes (type 2 diabetes), whi
Atorvastatin shown to decrease heart disease and stroke in patients with hypertension and low cholesterol
A major European trial studying different blood pressure treatments and the effects of additional cholesterol lowering, announces today that it has stopped part of its trial earlier than expected because results collected already show a significant benefit to patients on one of its treatments.
It found that among 10,297 patients with hypertension and cholesterol levels lower t
Scientists at Jefferson Medical College have used gene therapy to reverse the progression of Parkinson’s disease in rats. They have found that by adding a gene for an enzyme, they were able to reprogram brain circuitry and halt the deterioration of dopamine producing brain cells, one of the key problems in the disease.
“It’s not just inserting a replacement for a missing or mutated gene as a treatment for a genetic disorder,” says Michael Oshinsky, Ph.D., research assistant professor of neu
Perhaps, bioterrorists will not be able to spread lethal bacteria of anthrax in envelopes all over the world. Siberian biologists and physics have thought up how to adapt electron accelerator that is usually used for sterilizing medical equipment for decontamination of letters. To optimize the power of the accelerator they calculated how many bacteria could get into a human body when touching the letter infected and how many bacteria should be destroyed to avoid the tragedy.
For their experi
The first clinical trial to compare directly two of the most widely-used drugs in advanced lung cancer, cisplatinin and carboplatin (both in combination with paclitaxel) – have concluded that the older drug, cisplatin, is the better treatment.
Patients given cisplatin and paclitaxel had better survival rates and their quality of life was just as good as patients receiving carboplatin and paclitaxel.
The phase III multi-national European trial involving 618 patients with advanced non
Companies that create HIV-AIDS drugs now have key information that could assist in making new medications with fewer side effects.
Researchers Henry Weiner, a professor of biochemistry at Purdue University, Steven Zollo of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Lauren Wood of the National Cancer Institute, noted the similarity between HIV-AIDS treatment side effects and naturally occurring diseases. Certain HIV-AIDS treatment side effects, such as fat loss and insulin resista
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered a new process by which HIV damages the immune system. They demonstrated that the portion of lymph nodes called the T cell zone is significantly damaged by chronic inflammation, which causes fibrosis. This is important because the T cell zone is where a significant portion of the human immune response occurs. The finding of accumulation of scar tissue in this portion of the lymph node may explain why aggressive anti-retroviral therapy (ART) do
Feedback
