Today, Erivedge (vismodegib) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat adult patients with basal cell carcinoma, the most common type of skin cancer. The drug is intended for use in patients with locally advanced basal cell cancer who are not candidates for surgery or radiation and for patients whose cancer [...]
In the two largest clinical studies ever conducted on the molecular genetics of lung cancer, an international team led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has demonstrated that an available molecular test can predict the likelihood of death from early-stage lung cancer more accurately than conventional methods. The work may eventually [...]
A research team led by University of Massachusetts Amherst resource economist Sylvia Brandt, with colleagues in California and Switzerland, have revised the cost burden sharply upward for childhood asthma and for the first time include the number of cases attributable to air pollution, in a study released this week in the early online version of [...]
Teaching children with autism to ‘talk things through in their head’ may help them to solve complex day-to-day tasks, which could increase the chances of independent, flexible living later in life, according to new research. The study, led by Durham University, found that the mechanism for using ‘inner speech’ or ‘talking things through in their [...]
Preoperative MRI helps surgeons make more informed decisions about nerve-sparing procedures in men with prostate cancer, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. Excluding skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in American men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Open radical prostatectomy, or removal [...]
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have created synthetic nanoparticles that target lymph nodes and greatly boost vaccine responses, said lead author Ashley St. John, Ph.D., a researcher at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. The paper was published online in the journal Nature Materials on Jan. 22. Currently all other adjuvants (substances added to vaccines to [...]
Accelerated growth in the first three months of life, but not fetal growth, is associated with an increased risk of asthma symptoms in young children, according to a new study from The Generation R Study Group at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. “We know that low birth weight is associated with an increased risk [...]
Patients with metastatic melanoma taking the recently approved drug vemurafenib (Zelboraf®) responded well to the twice daily pill, but some of them developed a different, secondary skin cancer. Now, researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, working with investigators from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, Roche and Plexxikon, have elucidated the mechanism by [...]
Two years after pharmaceutical giant Roche promised the BMJ it would release key Tamiflu trial data for independent scrutiny, the safety and effectiveness of this anti-influenza drug remains uncertain, warn experts today. A new report by the Cochrane Collaboration says Roche’s refusal to provide full access to all its data leaves critical questions about how [...]
Using two drugs that inhibit the growth factor HER2 for preoperative treatment of early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer appears to have better results than treatment with a single agent. In a report in the January 17 issue of The Lancet, an international research team reports that a protocol adding lapatinib (Tykerb) to trastuzumab (Herceptin) was more [...]