Medical News

RSS

Scientific evidence on passive smoking is inconclusive

Scientific evidence on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS or so-called "passive smoking") is inconclusive and does not justify a total ban on smoking in public places, it was argued at a conference on public smoking in Edinburgh today.

17 Jan 2005

GenoMed files patent application on two genes linked to common cancers

GenoMed announced today that it has filed a patent application on two genes linked to common cancers. These are the first new disease genes the company has filed on since its multiple patent applications about ACE, a "master" disease gene.

17 Jan 2005

FDA licenses Sanofi pasteur vaccine for protection against meningococcal disease

Sanofi pasteur, the vaccines business of the sanofi-aventis Group, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has licensed Menactra (Meningococcal [Groups A, C, Y and W-135] Polysaccharide Diphtheria Toxoid Conjugate Vaccine) for protection against meningococcal disease in adolescents and adults aged 11-55 years.

17 Jan 2005

Major document on mobile phones and health

The Board of NRPB has published a major document on mobile phones and health. The review updates an earlier report published in 2000 by the UK Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones and Health (IEGMP, Chairman Sir William Stewart).

17 Jan 2005

Avastin available across Europe within the next few weeks

Roche has announced that the European Commission has approved Avastin (bevacizumab, rhuMAb-VEGF), the new innovative anti-angiogenesis drug, for the treatment of patients with previously untreated metastatic colorectal cancer.

16 Jan 2005

The UN Millennium Project

Every year, more than 11 million children die, six million of them from preventable diseases, like malaria, measles and diarrhoea. The UN Millennium Project, in its report to be released next week, outlines a plan to stop those children's deaths, cut poverty in half and change the lives of billions of poor people the world over by the year 2015.

16 Jan 2005

Committees will weigh up COX-2 benefits and risks

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a joint public meeting of the agency's Arthritis Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee to be held February 16, 17 and 18, 2005.

16 Jan 2005

Investigation of possible link between migraine and a common heart defect, called a patent foramen ovale (PFO)

Doctors have received approval to investigate the possible link between migraine headache and a common heart defect, called a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which research indicates is prevalent in up to 25% of the general population or 15 million people in the UK.

16 Jan 2005

High health care burden of acute chest pain

Chest pain accounts for almost three quarter of a million emergency care visits in England and Wales every year - around double previous estimates - indicates research in Heart.

16 Jan 2005

Heart attacks in women not being picked up

Women are still less likely than men to be correctly identified as having had a heart attack, despite the publication of new guidance designed to lower the index of suspicion, reveals research in Heart.

16 Jan 2005

Sex hormones modulate brain damage in multiple sclerosis

Abnormalities in sex hormone levels may contribute to the damage to brain tissue typical of multiple sclerosis, indicates research in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

16 Jan 2005

Prenatal exposure to industrial and environmental pollutants probably causes most childhood cancers

Most childhood cancers are "probably" down to prenatal exposure to industrial and environmental pollutants, most likely to have been inhaled by the mother during pregnancy, suggests research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

16 Jan 2005

How do you remember your own name?

How do you remember your own name? Is it possible ever to forget it? The memory trace, or engram, "feels" like it is stored permanently in the brain and it will never be forgotten.

16 Jan 2005

Scientists discover that microRNAs regulate thousands of human genes

For many years, DNA and proteins have been viewed as the real movers and shakers in genomic studies, with RNA seen as little more than a messenger that shuttles information between the two.

16 Jan 2005

Missing sequence of the human Y chromosome may contain genes controlling stature and tumor development

Scientists have reported in the journal Genome Research that they have successfully cloned and characterized a previously intractable DNA sequence: a 554-kilobase-pair genomic segment near the centromere of the human Y chromosome. This sequence contains eight putatively active genes that could be implicated in sex-associated height differences and gonadal tumor development.

16 Jan 2005

Tobacco smoke triggers the production of COX-2

Tobacco smoke triggers the production of COX-2, a cellular protein linked to the development and progression of cancer, according to research published in the January 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

16 Jan 2005

Discovery offers promise for treatment of age-related hearing loss

Researchers have discovered that deletion of a specific gene permits the proliferation of new hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear -- a finding that offers promise for treatment of age-related hearing loss. This type of hearing loss is caused by aging, disease, certain drugs, and the cacophony of modern life. It is the most common cause of hearing loss in older people.

13 Jan 2005

Researchers shed new light on the development of cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer

Researchers at Brown Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital have shed new light on the activation of a protein key to the development of cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States.

13 Jan 2005

Call for the creation of a World Institute for risk evaluation

A commentary in this week’s issue of The Lancet is calling for the creation of a new organisation to measure and prioritise all major global threats to human survival.

13 Jan 2005

High levels of homocysteine, an amino acid in the blood, may indicate an increased risk of stroke

Observational studies measuring homocysteine concentrations in healthy individuals have found that, on average, those with high levels of homocysteine in their blood are more likely to have a stroke. But other factors that increase homocysteine concentration and stroke risk— such as smoking and socioeconomic class—may be responsible for the relationship observed in these studies, confounding the result.

13 Jan 2005