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FDA Approves Effient To Reduce The Risk Of Heart Attack In Angioplasty Patients
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the blood-thinning drug Effient tablets (prasugrel) to reduce the risk of blood clots from forming in patients who undergo angioplasty, a common procedure to unblock a clogged coronary artery.
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Protecting The Heart With Glucocorticoid Drugs
Glucocorticoids are steroid hormones that have numerous functions; for example, they regulate the response to stress and suppress inflammation. Synthetic glucocorticoids are used clinically in many situations, most famously to treat asthma, allergies, and autoimmunity. They have also been shown in animals and humans to help protect the heart from the damaging effects of heart attack, and this has been attributed to their anti-inflammatory effects. However, Motoaki Sano and colleagues, at Keio University School of Medicine, Japan, have now determined another mechanism by which glucocorticoids protect rodent hearts from the damaging effects of heart attack. Specifically, glucocorticoids, acting via the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), induced mouse and rat heart muscle cells to produce PGD2, and this was responsible for the ability of glucocorticoids to reduce damage to mouse hearts in both an ex vivo and an in vivo model of heart attack. The authors therefore suggest that GR-selective glucocorticoids might be more beneficial to humans following heart attack than glucocorticoids that activate both GR and the MR protein, activation of which occurs in response to stress and might have unwanted consequences.
News of the day
Researchers Develop Vaccine Candidate That Is Successful In Blocking Simian Version Of HIV
Researchers have successfully blocked SIV, the simian version of HIV, using a new technique that could help lead to the development of an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine, the reports. The research, published online in the journal Nature Medicine, was led by Phillip Johnson, chief medical officer at the Children"s Hospital of Philadelphia. The team also included scientists from Nationwide Children"s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and the New England Primate Research Center in Boston.Johnson and colleagues developed a genetically altered virus that carried the vaccine candidate and injected it into the muscles of monkeys. The vaccine prompted the muscles to produce a protein that is designed to bind to SIV and prevent it from infecting cells (Goldstein, Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/18). After treating nine monkeys with the vaccine candidate for one month, the researchers injected them with SIV. Six monkeys were not administered the vaccine candidate before being injected with SIV. None of the immunized monkeys developed AIDS, while three showed indications of SIV infection. Researchers detected high concentrations of the proteins in their blood one year later. All six non-immunized monkeys became infected with SIV, and four died during the trial (Schmid, AP/Austin American-Statesman, 5/18). The DNA used in the carrier virus can deliver DNA into the cells of both monkeys and humans, according to the Inquirer. Johnson said that the results of the trials were so encouraging that he plans to request approval from FDA to begin clinical trials in humans, the Inquirer reports. However, he said that there is "no guarantee that things that work in monkeys will work in humans," adding that an HIV/AIDS vaccine could be 10 years away (Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/18). Recent HIV/AIDS vaccine failures prompted the researchers to try a different route that involved "bypassing the natural immune system that was the target of all previous HIV and SIV vaccines candidates," Johnson said. "Some years ago I came to the conclusion that HIV was different from other viruses ... and we might not ever be able to use traditional approaches," he added (AP/Austin American-Statesman, 5/18). Peggy Johnson -- head of the HIV Vaccine Research Branch at NIH"s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the study -- said, "As a concept, I think this is very promising." She added, "We need to make the genes as humanized as possible so that the human body doesn"t react to that." According to Peggy Johnson, tests will be needed to prove that the vaccine candidate can protect against sexually acquired HIV (Fox, Reuters, 5/17). Beatrice Hahn, an HIV/AIDS researcher with the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said that the study"s findings indicate that there is "a light at the end of the tunnel," adding, "It shows thinking outside the box is a good idea and can yield results, and we need perhaps more of these nonconventional approaches" (AP/Austin American-Statesman, 5/18). Hildegund Ertl, a virus expert at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, said, "It is a very innovative approach but currently, in my mind, still far from clinical use." Ertl added that because most people have been exposed to adeno-associated viruses through cold viruses, they would be "likely to mount an immune response" to the vaccine. According to Phillip Johnson, most people have not been exposed to the strain of the adeno-associated virus that the researchers used as the carrier. He added that they "will be certainly looking at that as part of our Phase I testing in humans" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/18).
Sexual Health

Breast MRI Detects Additional "Unsuspected" Cancers Not Seen On Mammography Or Ultrasound

Nearly 20% of patients with recently diagnosed breast cancer had additional malignant tumors found only by MRI, according to a study performed at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. A total of 199 patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer underwent breast MRI. "We found additional, unsuspected cancers in the ipsilateral breast (the one that had already been diagnosed with cancer) in 16% of patients; we found cancers in the contralateral breast (the one that had not been diagnosed with cancer) in 4% of patients," said Petra J. Lewis, MD, lead author of the study. "These patients had already had bilateral mammography and these tumors had not been apparent on mammography," said Dr. Lewis. "The detection of an unsuspected tumor is critical. These additional tumors in nearly a fifth of patients are tumors that can potentially grow and not be diagnosed until they are much larger affecting the health and survival of the patients," she said. "This study has been particularly helpful to us as clinicians because it gives us data we can discuss with patients when recommending breast MRI," said Dr. Lewis. This study appears in the May issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. About ARRS The American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) was founded in 1900 and is the oldest radiology society in the United States. Its monthly journal, the American Journal of Roentgenology, began publication in 1906. Radiologists from all over the world attend the ARRS annual meeting to participate in instructional courses, scientific paper presentations and scientific and commercial exhibits related to the field of radiology. The Society is named after the first Nobel Laureate in Physics, Wilhelm Rē¶entgen, who discovered the x-ray in 1895. American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS)


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