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Arthritis medications (methotrexate and leflunomide) commonly used in adults are safe and effective in children

An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Earl Silverman of The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids), has found that two arthritis medications (methotrexate and leflunomide) commonly used in adults are safe and effective in children. This research is reported in the April 21, 2005 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

20 Apr 2005

Discovery of brain's first known 'safety circuit' gives new perspective on anxiety disorders

Scientists at Columbia University Medical Center have made a surprising finding about positive emotions that should change the way people think about anxiety disorders.

20 Apr 2005

Electroshock therapy speeds improvement in schizophrenia patients

Shock therapy, a controversial practice conjuring frightening images of behavior control, still has a place in schizophrenia treatment, a newly updated research review shows.

20 Apr 2005

Brain-injury rehabilitation depends on acetylcholine circuitry

The ability of the brain to recover from such injury as stroke or trauma depends on a particular circuitry of neurons that "talk" to one another using the brain chemical acetylcholine, researchers led by James Conner and Mark Tuszynski in the Neural repair Group at UCSD have discovered.

20 Apr 2005

Researchers find ovarian cancer patients who appear to respond better than others to gefitinib, or Iressa

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia have identified a subset of ovarian cancer patients who appear to respond better than others to gefitinib, or Iressa. The research was presented today at the 96th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Anaheim, Calif.

20 Apr 2005

New method for obtaining sequence information from thousands of genomes simultaneously

One of the world’s leading scientists, Nobel Prize winner, Dr Sydney Brenner, has devised a new method for obtaining sequence information from thousands of genomes simultaneously. Current technologies can only analyse one genome at a time.

20 Apr 2005

Heart attack victims face increased risk of death with Natrecor

In a recent study Jonathan Sackner-Bernstein, a doctor at North Shore University Hospital in New York says that Natrecor, heart failure treatment produced by drug company Johnson & Johnson may be linked to a greater risk of death when compared with standard therapy.

20 Apr 2005

New era drug gives hope to Gleevec resistant leukaemia sufferers

Gleevec, a drug regarded by many as having "wonder drug" capabilities in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML) and other cancers, has been revealed as having shortcomings in that some patients have undergone a relapse after building a resistance to the drug. For others with the advanced stage of the disease, the drug has failed to produce durable remissions.

19 Apr 2005

Best school drug prevention programs teach life skills, studies find

Programs that teach middle-school students how to resist peer pressure, to become more assertive and to make better decisions are the most successful kind of drug use prevention programs in schools, according to a new review of recent studies.

19 Apr 2005

NSAIDs okay for tonsillectomy, new study finds

When children have their tonsils removed, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can be used for pain relief with no significant increase in bleeding and with less nausea and vomiting, according to a systematic review of current evidence.

19 Apr 2005

Combination chemotherapy shows small survival benefit in advanced stomach cancer

Patients with advanced stomach cancer have the best chance of prolonging their survival with a combination of chemotherapies instead of just one, according to a new review of previous studies.

19 Apr 2005

Searching for the right pharmaceutical agent: survival as the indicator

Tumor cells divide fast. They thus require a high supply of components for their DNA, like purines. The biosynthesis of purines could now be a new point of attack for chemotherapy. However, without a natural model, the search for an inhibitor for a cellular process is like the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. An American research team has developed a clever way to quickly conjure the desired "needle" out of the hay, presenting several candidates to act as starting points for the design of a purine synthesis inhibitor.

19 Apr 2005

Researchers find promising cancer-fighting power of synthetic cell-signaling molecule

Novel anti-cancer compounds called Enigmols suppress the growth of human cell lines representing cancers of the prostate, breast, colon, ovary, pancreas, brain and blood, and reduce tumors in three animal studies, new research shows.

19 Apr 2005

New chemical reaction that could greatly accelerate pharmaceutical production

University of Toronto researchers have a developed a new chemical reaction that could greatly accelerate pharmaceutical production, while also cutting costs and toxic by-products.

19 Apr 2005

Short segments of sugar chains useful in search for new drugs for Alzheimer's

Heparansulfate, which is needed for normal fetal development among other things, is also important for the build-up of amyloid, morbid protein deposits that appear in several serious diseases. This is shown by Uppsala scientists in an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

19 Apr 2005

Survey finds four in ten seniors do not take medications as prescribed

Four in 10 seniors told researchers in a recent national survey that they haven’t taken all the drugs their doctors prescribed for them in the past year – either because the costs were too high, because they didn’t think the drugs were helping them, or because they didn’t think they needed them.

19 Apr 2005

Patients' lives at risk from substandard drugs

Global action is needed to counter the dangers of substandard life-saving drugs that are putting patients' lives and health at risk, according to heart specialists writing in the new (19 April) issue of Europe's leading cardiology journal, the European Heart Journal.

19 Apr 2005

Dramatic difference between breast cancers in US and Africa

A study comparing, for the first time, breast cancers from Nigeria, Senegal and North America has found that women of African ancestry are more likely to be diagnosed with a more virulent form of the disease than women of European ancestry.

19 Apr 2005

Drugs targeted at muscle cells can be of use in the treatment of diabetes patients with insulin resistance

Type 2 diabetes is a clinical disease characterised by disruption to the metabolism of glucose and lipids as well as to the production of and physiological reactions to insulin.

19 Apr 2005

Compound derived from cottonseed oil could help improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy at treating head and neck cancer

The findings, which will be presented Tuesday, April 19, at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, could lead to a treatment that provides an effective option to surgically removing the cancer, helping patients preserve vital organs involved in speech and swallowing.

19 Apr 2005

Drugs News and Research

Arthritis medications (methotrexate and leflunomide) commonly used in adults are safe and effective in children

Discovery of brain's first known 'safety circuit' gives new perspective on anxiety disorders

Electroshock therapy speeds improvement in schizophrenia patients

Brain-injury rehabilitation depends on acetylcholine circuitry

Researchers find ovarian cancer patients who appear to respond better than others to gefitinib, or Iressa

New method for obtaining sequence information from thousands of genomes simultaneously

Heart attack victims face increased risk of death with Natrecor

New era drug gives hope to Gleevec resistant leukaemia sufferers

Best school drug prevention programs teach life skills, studies find

NSAIDs okay for tonsillectomy, new study finds

Combination chemotherapy shows small survival benefit in advanced stomach cancer

Searching for the right pharmaceutical agent: survival as the indicator

Researchers find promising cancer-fighting power of synthetic cell-signaling molecule

New chemical reaction that could greatly accelerate pharmaceutical production

Short segments of sugar chains useful in search for new drugs for Alzheimer's

Survey finds four in ten seniors do not take medications as prescribed

Patients' lives at risk from substandard drugs

Dramatic difference between breast cancers in US and Africa

Drugs targeted at muscle cells can be of use in the treatment of diabetes patients with insulin resistance

Compound derived from cottonseed oil could help improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy at treating head and neck cancer

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