Prescription Drug Patches Gaining Ground, Tackling New Therapies
Created as an alternate route of drug administration to improve patient compliance and reduce drug side effects, prescription skin patches are rapidly becoming an important healthcare product category. While quietly gaining market share for the treatment of chronic conditions such as angina, hypertension and HRT, the technology is set to make further inroads as transdermal patches for a host of n...Hopkins AIDS experts issue warning about global efforts to provide drug therapies
Johns Hopkins infectious disease specialists who have spent more than two decades leading efforts to combat HIV and AIDS worldwide are warning that limited international relief supplies of antiretroviral therapies currently being distributed in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean will not get to those who can least afford to pay for them. In an article appearing in the American Journal of Publi...Promising therapies for haemophilia & heart disease
Haemophilia is a hereditary blood disease, primarily affecting males, where the blood fails to clot causing potentially life-threatening 'bleeds'. About one in 6000 Australian males is born with haemophilia in severe, moderate or mild form. People with haemophilia rely on intravenous infusion of recombinant Factor VIII clotting protein. Professor Denisa Wagner and her Harvard colleagues ha...Powerful technique for multiplying adult stem cells may aid therapies
Adult stem cells may be free of the ethical concerns that hamper embryonic stem cell research, but they still pose formidable scientific challenges. Chief among these is the doggedness with which adult stem cells differentiate into mature tissue the moment they're isolated from the body. This makes it nearly impossible for researchers to multiply them in the laboratory. And because adult stem cel...Gene-specific Ebola therapies protect non-human primates from lethal disease
Scientists have developed a successful strategy for interfering with Ebola virus infection that protected 75 percent of nonhuman primates exposed to the lethal disease. This is the first successful antiviral intervention against filoviruses like Ebola in nonhuman primates. The findings could serve as the basis for a new approach to quickly develop virus-specific therapies for known, emerging, and...Gender hormones may lend to social disorder therapies
Social disorders such as autism constitute one area where those differences come to the fore: around 80 percent of all autism cases, for example, occur in men. Social play behaviors also differ greatly between the sexes - just about everyone agrees that young boys play "rougher" t...New Way to "See" Genes, Evaluate Effectiveness of Gene Therapies Discovered
This technology essentially renders the body transparent and will allow physicians to determine whether gene therapies reach targeted cells and work as they should. "The technology is expected to help patients with cancer and other illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease. The discovery is outlined in the August 2000, issue of the journal Nature Medicine. UCLA researchers plan to tes...Alternative therapies popular with Parkinson's patients
Nearly half of people with Parkinson's disease are using one or more type of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), such as vitamins, message or acupuncture. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the US have carried out a survey of more than 200 people with Parkinson's disease. Forty per cent use one or more forms of CAM - and 12 per cent use five or more different ones. There...Prolonged survival not assured by psychological therapies for cancer patients
"The lifespan of people with cancer cannot be prolonged by psychological interventions", says a recent study by researchers. Does mind play a role in cancer? Yes. People with cancer can benefit from counselling and therapy// at the time of diagnosis to help them cope with treatment and the illness itself. But whether psychological intervention actually improves the survival prospects o...First head-to-head trials of once weekly Fosamax and Actonel therapies
The drug major Merck has launched the first two head-to-head clinical trials that compare the efficacy and tolerability of Fosamax (alendronate) once weekly 70mg and Actonel (risedronate) once-weekly 35mg. Fosamax and Actonel, both bisphosphonates indicated for the treatment of osteoporosis in post menopausal women are co-marketed by Aventis and Procter & Gamble through the Alliance for//...Preventive Therapies Found to be More Effective in Managing Migraines
More than 25 million people in the United States suffer from migraine headaches.According to studies, patients who wait to treat migraines and overuse medication may actually// worsen their conditions. Patients often aggravate the severity of their migraine by taking too much acute medication, which only treats symptoms after a migraine starts. The International Headache Society define...