At the ASCO meeting, a study of 116 triple negative breast cancer patients found those given a PARP inhibitor with chemotherapy lived 3.5 months longer than those on chemotherapy alone. An AstraZeneca PARP inhibitor shrank tumors in 41 percent of BRCA mutation carriers.
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Health News
Drugs, disease, healthcare, government and lifestyle: health news beyond the plate.
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Lifestyle
Morbidity and Mortality Related to Tobacco Use
Fact-sheet figures on smoking: tobacco kills more than 5 million people a year worldwide and about 443,000 in the United States, where smoking costs over $193 billion a year and roughly 19.8 percent of adults still smoke.
Drug
Chemotherapy drugs help patients with non-small lung cancer
In a trial of more than 700 advanced lung cancer patients, adding Tarceva to Avastin delayed cancer progression to 4.8 months from 3.7, at the cost of more rash, diarrhea, hypertension and fatigue and eight deaths from adverse events. Continuing Alimta extended survival to 13.4 months from 10.6.
Disease
Surgery not neccessary for most late-stage colorectal cancers
Memorial Sloan-Kettering researchers reviewed 233 patients treated for metastatic colorectal cancer and found 93 percent never developed complications that would justify removing the primary tumor. Philip Paty says such patients do better starting chemotherapy right away.
Disease
Swine flu cases climbing
As of May 29, 2009 the WHO counted 15,510 H1N1 cases and 99 deaths across 53 countries, adding Venezuela, Hungary, Estonia, Bolivia and Lebanon. Canadian cases jumped nearly 20 percent in two days, Victoria led Australia's count, and almost half of US patients had underlying conditions.
Disease
Real-time science needed to stop new flu virus
IOM president Harvey Fineberg writes in Science that the 1976 Fort Dix response, a mass vaccination followed by more than 500 Guillain-Barre cases and 30 deaths, shows decision makers must ask what added information would change their course, and ask it while an epidemic unfolds.
Miscellaneous
Pregnancy and weight gain
With nearly two-thirds of US women of childbearing age overweight or obese, the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council issued new guidelines advising obese women, those with a BMI over 30, to limit pregnancy weight gain to 11 to 20 pounds.
Disease
Swine flu: What you need to know
A question-and-answer primer on the 2009 H1N1 virus: where it was first detected, why it was called swine flu, how its quadruple reassortant genes differ from viruses circulating in North American pigs, and which symptoms it shares with seasonal flu.
Disease
Cancer cells need normalcy to survive chaos they create
Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's researchers Ji Luo and Stephen Elledge report that cancer cells depend on normal cell function to survive the stress their own abnormality creates, needing what the authors call equal parts vice and virtue to keep growing.
Environment
E-Groups want “toxic tubs” cleaned up
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reported that 61 percent of 48 baby bath products it tested contained formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both probable human carcinogens per the EPA. It asked Johnson & Johnson to remove them; the company says trace levels are considered safe.
Disease
Childhood diabetes rates set to soar
A European study of 29,311 type 1 diabetes patients found cases in children under five rising 5.4 percent a year, with experts projecting the number will double between 2005 and 2020. Researchers suspect environmental triggers such as diet, viral infection or C-section delivery.
Disease
Type 1 diabetes -- living with the disease
Sonia Sotomayor has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was eight, and experts say the disease, well managed, should not affect her ability to serve. A French study of patients 50 years into the disease reports life expectancy continuing to improve as care gets better.
Lifestyle
Americans ditch “healthy lifestyle”
Comparing two National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey samples 18 years apart, researchers in the American Journal of Medicine found only 8 percent of adults aged 40 to 74 kept all five healthy habits, down from 15 percent, while obesity rose from 28 to 36 percent.
Drug
Chemotherapy can lead to new cancers
Copenhagen researchers followed 47,769 people diagnosed with cancer before age 20 between 1943 and 2005 and found them three times likelier than their peers to develop a new cancer, a risk persisting into their seventies. Lead author Jorgen Olsen blames the treatments, not genetics.
Lifestyle
Longer, slower walks most beneficial for heart health
In a Circulation study, 74 coronary patients assigned to walk 45 to 60 minutes 5 to 6 days a week lost 18 pounds, against 8 in standard rehab, and gained in cardiac function, fat loss, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure and cholesterol.
Miscellaneous
13-year-old Hauser back home for cancer treatment
Daniel Hauser, 13, and his mother flew home to New Ulm, Minnesota at 3 a.m. Monday after fleeing court-ordered chemotherapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma. The court holds legal custody, arrest warrants are to be lifted, and their attorney says his mother will abide by the court.
Lifestyle
Exercise doesn’t boost metabolism long
Research by Dr. Edward Melanson at the University of Colorado found that moderate exercise of under an hour has little effect on 24-hour fat oxidation. If you replace the calories you burn, he said, you are no better off for fat loss than if you had not exercised at all.
Drug
How Safe Is Your Asthma Medication?
Robert Davidson, a former clinical research subinvestigator at a Tucson allergy clinic, alleges trials of seven approved asthma and allergy drugs were corrupted by protocol violations and falsification, with unsuitable patients enrolled and staff unblinding studies.
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