ESC releases the first European Guidelines on Percutaneous Coronary Interventions (PCI)
Sophia Antipolis, France, 22 March 2005: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) releases the first European Guidelines on Percutaneous Coronary Interventions (PCI), pre-published and accessible on the ESC Web Site(1). According to these Guidelines, PCI can now be regarded as the first option for a larger group of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) than before. Recent technical and...Severe injuries on the rise among children and adolescents riding motorbikes
CINCINNATI -- The use of motorbikes among children and adolescents is dangerous, on the rise and leading to a greater number of injuries, according to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study. In addition, the study shows that children often ride motorbikes on public roads and, most of the time, without wearing helmets, leading to significantly increased severity of injury. ........Elderly receiving inappropriate prescriptions from their doctor's office
New York, NY - A large review of data linked to over 175,000 older adults enrolled in HMOs indicates that potentially inappropriate medications are being prescribed in substantial numbers. The findings are published in the February . ...... In 2000-01, according to researchers, more than 28% of elderly individuals received at least one of 33 medications deemed potentially inappropriate by medica...Study shows lower than expected allergic-like events following second prescription of penicillin
(Philadelphia, PA) Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have concluded the world's largest analysis of penicillin allergy due to re-prescription of the popular antibiotic. Their initial findings may eventually lead to decreased use of alternative therapies, as initial results showed that actual allergic-like events to second prescriptions of penicillin for people wh...High-intensity physical training improves cardiovascular fitness in obese adolescents
After school lifestyle education and physical training programs can benefit obese children and adolescents by altering their body compositions and providing primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. In a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition of obese adolescents, Gutin et al. investigated whether lifestyle education by itself, or in combination with moderate- or with high-inten...Alcohol's damaging effects on adolescent brain function
The adolescent brain is designed to learn; yet the same plasticity that facilitates neuromaturation also renders it particularly vulnerable to the damaging effects of alcohol. Symposium speakers at the June 2004 Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Vancouver, B.C. presented both animal and human research that clearly implicates alcohol use as a source of brain damage during these critical f...Herb used to treat diabetes works like modern-day prescription drugs, study suggests
COLUMBUS, Ohio An herb used in traditional Indian medicine to treat diabetes seems to lower blood sugar and insulin levels in a manner similar to prescription drugs, a new study reports. ......Researchers gave extracts of the herb Salacia oblonga to 39 healthy adults, and the results were promising. The largest dose of the herb extract 1,000 milligrams decreased insulin and blood glucose level...U of T researchers describe 'Joe Canadian' tongue
New imaging research about tongue shape and volume before and after surgery should ultimately help surgeons decide how to best reconstruct tongue defects resulting from cancer surgery, says a team of researchers at the University of Toronto. ......Tim Bressmann, a professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology, and his colleague Jonathan Irish, a professor in the Department of Otolary...Over prescribing causing high rates of antibiotic resistance in south and east Europe
Resistance to antibiotics is more common in southern and eastern Europe than in northern Europe because the regions have high rates of antibiotic use, suggests a study published in this week's issue of THE LANCET....... Herman Goossens (University of Antwerp, Belgium) and colleagues compared antibiotic use with antibiotic resistance rates in 26 European countries from the beginning of 1997 to the...Herbal extract as effective as commonly prescribed anti-depressant
A specially manufactured extract from the herb St John's Wort is at least as effective in treating depression as a commonly prescribed anti-depressant, according to new research published on bmj.com today....... St John's Wort* and the anti-depressant drug Paroxetine** were used in a trial to treat patients with moderate or severe depression. The researchers asked 301 participants of both sexes...Parents comfortable with vaccination for sexually transmitted infections for adolescent children
CHICAGO Parents are generally accepting of the hypothetical scenario of vaccinating their adolescent children against infection, whether the infection is sexually transmitted or not, according to a study in the February issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ......Several vaccines for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs...Bone density appears to recover after adolescents discontinue injected contraceptive
Lower bone density appears to recover in adolescent females once they stop using the injected contraceptive depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), according to a study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health....... Previous studies had shown that women who use DMPA, marketed under the brand name Depo-Provera, experience a loss...Smoking causes cognitive impairment in adolescents
New Haven, Conn.--Adolescents who smoke show impairment of memory and other cognitive functions, according to a Yale study in Biological Psychiatry....... More than 4.5 million teenagers smoke cigarettes in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Census Bureau....... Leslie Jacobsen, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Yale School of Med...Middle ear infections: Prescribe antibiotics or not?
More than half of all children experience at least one episode of otitis media (middle ear infection) yet whether to "watch and wait" or prescribe antibiotic treatment remains an ongoing debate. ......Le Saux and colleagues report on a randomized controlled trial in which 512 children aged 6 months to 5 years in whom a new episode of acute otitis media was diagnosed received either amoxicillin o...Preschoolers not getting enough fiber
A Penn State analysis of the diets of a nationally representative sample of U.S. preschoolers, ages 2 to 5, shows that more than three-quarters of the children are not getting enough fiber.... Children who consumed the most fiber also had the most nutrient-rich diets. However, all children in the study ate fewer dairy servings than recommended by the Food Guide Pyramid.... Dr. Sibylle Kranz, a...Mandated parental notification laws concerning prescription contraception would affect teenagers
Rachel K. Jones, Ph.D., and colleagues with the Alan Guttmacher Institute, New York, N.Y., conducted a study in which 1,526 female adolescents younger than 18 years (minors) seeking reproductive health services at 79 national family planning clinics were surveyed between May 2003 and February 2004. ...... Legislation has been proposed that would mandate parental notification for minors obtaining...Collaborative care, training boosts adolescent depression treatment in primary care clinics
A model program featuring primary care physicians, nurses, and mental health providers working collaboratively to bring best-practice depression treatments into primary care clinics significantly improves health outcomes, quality of life, and depression care for adolescents (age 13-21), research team led by a UCLA investigator reports in the Jan 19, 2005, edition of the Journal of the American Me...Added sugar displaces food groups lowering quality of preschooler diets
American preschoolers get about 14 to 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day, on average, mostly from fruit-flavored drinks, high-fat desserts and cola-type soft drinks which displace the grain, vegetable, fruit and dairy food groups and lower the quality of their diet, a Penn State study has shown. ... Dr. Sibylle Kranz, assistant professor of nutritional sciences who led the study, says, "In contr...Happy home and social life makes living in a poor neighbourhood more bearable for adolescents
Individual and family attributes may make some adolescents more 'resilient' to the effects of living in a disadvantaged community, according to new research sponsored by the ESRC....... How inner city young people feel about their own psychological and social health and the area where they live is influenced by differences in home and social life as well as the physical environment, says a study...Researchers describe how human blood stem cells transform themselves to repair injured animal hearts
HOUSTON - Regeneration of damaged hearts using blood stem cells now appears to be clinically promising, say Texas researchers who show that in mice, human stem cells use different methods to morph into two kinds of cells needed to restore heart function - cardiac muscle cells that contract the heart as well as the endothelial cells that line blood vessels found throughout the organ....... (which...Very high prevalence of virus linked to cervical cancer found in adolescent women
Exceeding rates observed in previous research, a new study found four out of five sexually active adolescent women infected with human papillomavirus, a virus linked to cervical cancer and genital warts. Darron R. Brown and colleagues of Indiana University School of Medicine studied 60 adolescent women, ages 14 to 17, at three primary care clinics in Indianapolis. They reported their results in t...Pharmaceutical marketing tactics hold little sway with prescribing physicians
Pharmaceutical drug companies spend upward of $25 billion per year on promoting new drugs and distributing free samples to doctors, but new research shows such marketing devices have little impact on physicians and their prescribing behavior.... ...Direct-to-physician activities accounted for the bulk of spending, with $5.3 billion spent on a practice called "detailing" visits to physicians by...Psychological support helps adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome
Psychological support, in the form of cognitive behaviour therapy, is an effective treatment for adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome, finds a new study published on today. ...... Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have debilitating unexplained severe fatigue that is not alleviated by rest. Trials have shown that cognitive behaviour therapy is effective in adults, but there have been n...Stem cells to the rescue - or not?
The use of stem cells obtained from bone marrow for the treatment of some skeletal or heart diseases is an attractive long-term strategy to deliver normal stem cells, capable of developing into any cell type of the body, to injured tissue in order to effect repair. A subset of bone marrow cells, called bone marrowderived side population (BM-SP) cells, make up only 0.01-0.05% of whole bone marrow....Jefferson scientists use gene therapy to rescue failing hearts in animals
Heart researchers at Jefferson Medical College have used gene therapy to bring failing rat hearts back to normal. ...Scientists led by Walter Koch, Ph.D., director of the Center for Translational Medicine in the Department of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, used a virus to insert the gene for a protein called S100A1 into failing rat hearts. ....CT helps find cause of puzzling cough in WTC rescue workers
CHICAGO Radiologists are one step closer to solving a mysterious condition affecting World Trade Center (WTC) rescue and recovery workers.... ...Air trapping, a manifestation of obstructed lung airways often seen in smokers and the elderly, was identified in 25 of 29 rescue and recovery workers suffering from "WTC cough," according to early research results presented today at the annual meeting...Risk of muscle-damaging disorder low for most commonly prescribed statin drugs
Patients taking the lipid-lowering medications atorvastatin, pravastatin, and simvastatin to reduce cholesterol levels, have a relatively low risk of developing rhabdomyolysis, (a disorder that causes the breakdown of muscle), according to a new study in the December 1 issue of JAMA. However, older patients with diabetes mellitus taking combined statin-fibrate therapy appear to be at an increase...Researchers recommend vaccinating adolescents against whooping cough
Experts are recommending that adolescents and some adults be vaccinated against whooping cough to help prevent infection and potential transmission to infants, according to the December 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.... ...Worldwide, about 300,000 people--mostly infants--die each year from whooping cough, known scientifically as pertussis. The disease is caused by...Adolescent gamblers often suffer psychiatric problems
New Haven, Conn.--The younger a person is when they begin to gamble, the more likely they are to develop psychiatric and substance use problems, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in The Archives of General Psychiatry....... The report is believed to be the first to compare adolescent, early-onset adult, and adult-onset gamblers in terms of psychiatric health and gambling...Safer drug prescribing for seniors in nursing homes: Canada leads the way
Toronto, CANADA -- Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care is the first long-term care facility in Canada, and one of the first in North America, to take a major leap forward in the use of health information technology to improve prescribing and follow-up of medications to institutionalized elderly.... ...Troubling evidence has emerged in recent years from Canadian and American studies that many senio...Overweight men spend more on prescription drugs than normal-weight men
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 7 As middle-aged men's weight goes up, so do their monthly costs for prescription drugs to treat heart disease risk factors and weight-related conditions, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2004. ...In a study of 328 men who participated in a health screening, normal-weight men spent an average of $22.84 per month at the phar...Study casts doubt over widely prescribed beta blocker
This release is also available in <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/staticrel.php?view=LancetSlZ...">German. Results of a study in this week's issue of THE LANCET suggest that atenolol--one of the most widely prescribed beta-blockers for reducing blood pressure--may not be effective in reducing heart attacks or death from cardiovascular causes....... Atenolol is one of the most commonly used be...White physicians slower to prescribe HIV medications for African-Americans than for whites
A new UCLA study shows that African-American HIV patients treated by white doctors receive life-saving HIV medication less than those who have an African-American doctor. ...... "Does Racial Concordance Between HIV-Positive Patients and Their Physicians Affect the Time to Receipt of Protease Inhibitors?" is published in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. ...... The cl...Pediatricians often underestimate substance abuse problems in adolescents
Adolescents who have problems with substance use often aren't identified during routine pediatric visits, according to a study to be released in the November issue of Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).... ..."We found that most pediatricians significantly underestimate the severity of adolescent substance use," said the study's primary a...Gambling among adolescents and young adults associated with psychiatric problems
CHICAGO Adolescents and young adults who gamble are more likely than nongamblers to have substance use disorders and psychiatric problems, according to an article in the November issue of , one of the JAMA/Archives journals....... According to the article, approximately 68 percent of the U.S. adult population gambled legally in the past year. Although most adults gamble responsibly, about 9 mi...Cognitive behavioral therapy combined with antidepressant effective in treating adolescent OCD
(Philadelphia, PA) According to current epidemiological data, approximately 1 in 200 young people suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD patients 'obsess' about thoughts of bad things that can happen (obsessions) and perform repetitive, destructive actions (compulsions) as a means of dealing with those thoughts. OCD can cripple their lives, disrupt their learning, and drive a wed...Family therapy reduces stress symptoms in adolescent survivors of childhood cancer
Family therapy and other psychological treatments may help reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress among teenaged survivors of childhood cancer--as well as among their parents.... ...In studying a group of 150 families, researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found that participants had significantly fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress after a one-day treatment program, compar...Changing prescribing behaviour through the mail
Colin Dormuth and colleagues present research in this issue of CMAJ showing the effect that a series of letters from a trusted source on evidence-based drug therapy had prescribing behaviour of physicians. ... ...While a systematic review in The Cochrane Library concluded that printed education materials for health care professionals had negligible impact, the authors point out that effect of reg...Long-term study demonstrated ADDERALL XR is an effective option to treat adolescents with ADHA
Washington, DC, October 20, 2004 Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc (NASDAQ: SHPGY, LSE: SHP.L, TSE: SHQ CN) announced today that ADDERALL XR (an extended release, mixed salts amphetamine product) is effective and generally well-tolerated for adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The short- and long-term study results of the multicenter Phase 3 study were presented toda...Prescriptions for antibiotics to prevent anthrax uncommon after the 2001 anthrax attacks
, one of the JAMA/Archives journals....... According to the article, nationwide, more than 10,000 affected workers and others were given 3.75 million prophylactic antibiotic pills through official dispensing campaigns between October 2001 and January 2002. However, media reports suggest that even more pre...