Health and Medicine

A US population study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET reports how life expectancy of people with Down’s syndrome has doubled since the early 1980s. The study also highlights the unexpected finding that Down’s syndrome appears to reduce the risk of many forms of cancer.

Down’s syndrome (characterised by three copies of chromosome 21) occurs in around one in every 800 live births. It is the most frequently identified cause of mental retardation, but information about illness and causes of d

A medical team of the Basque Country has discovered a new technique to detect cardiac fibrosis. After a research carried out during several years, it has been discovered that serum leves of PIP peptide is an indicator of increased myocardial fibrosis.

Fibrosis is formed when scar tissue is accumulated in heart. As a consequence it causes stiffening of the heart and often heart failure. In order to fight against such disease, researchers started looking for an indicator substance in blood.

Scientists at the Royal Liverpool University Hospitals in the UK have found a way of testing whether certain abnormalities in a woman’s breast are likely to go on to develop into breast cancer, the 3rd European Breast Cancer Conference in Barcelona heard today (Wednesday 20 March).

Armed with information from the test, doctors could then consider whether the at-risk women should be offered prophylactic anti-oestrogen treatment such as tamoxifen or more frequent screening.

However, D

Research from the Cancer Registry of Norway has revealed that a higher proportion of women who discover they have breast cancer between mammographic screenings have also used HRT (hormone replacement therapy) at some point in their lives, the 3rd European Breast Cancer Conference heard today (Wednesday 20 March). In addition, these women tend to have denser breasts, and this may be why their tumours were not detected during screening.

Mrs Hege Wang, a researcher at the Cancer Registry of Nor

European clinical trials are under way in Denmark and the UK testing a new breast cancer vaccine targeted against the HER-2 growth factor.

HER-2 is overexpressed in about a quarter of all breast cancers and has become a key target for new treatments, such as the monoclonal antibody therapy Herceptin.

But, the development of a vaccine by Danish pharmaceutical company Pharmexa represents an entirely novel treatment paradigm, according to Pharmexa’s manager of preclinical development a

New drug could soon thwart smallpox outbreaks

An anti-smallpox pill could be on the way if a new compound that shows promise in animal tests proves safe and effective in humans. Such a pill could provide the best method for controlling an unforeseen smallpox outbreak, its developers claim.

The need for new ways to treat smallpox has only become an issue in recent years as the threat of a deliberate release of the virus intensifies. Smallpox – a highly contagious and often let