Body

ATS 2009, SAN DIEGO—New research suggests that patients newly diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who use a short-course of the sleep aid, eszopiclone, when beginning continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, are more adherent with therapy in six months.

The findings will be presented at the American Thoracic Society's International Conference in San Diego on May 17.

ATS 2009, SAN DIEGO—Automated phone calling may help physicians solve a perennial problem: patients who don't take medicine prescribed for chronic health conditions.

Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, in Portland, Oregon, tested an automated calling service designed to encourage patients with asthma to fill or refill their prescriptions for inhaled corticosteroids (ICS).

The research will be presented on May 17 at the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego.

In technology that promises to one day allow drug delivery to be tailored to an individual patient and a particular cancer tumor, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have developed an efficient system for delivering siRNA into primary cells. The work will be published in the May 17 in the advance on-line edition of Nature Biotechnology.

CINCINNATI—After comparing two patient cancer registries—one featuring transplant patients and the other the general population—researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that transplant patients experience worse outcomes from cancer.

These results will be published in the May 15, 2009, edition of the journal Transplantation, which is currently in press.

(NEW ORLEANS) – Women with chest pain are less likely than male patients to receive recommended, proven therapies while en route to the hospital, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Despite evidence showing that the drugs aspirin and nitroglycerin are important early interventions for people who may be having a heart attack, women don't get them as often as male patients with the same types of symptoms, says a new study that will be presented Friday, May 15, 2009 at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's annual conference.

(Boston) - Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found a high frequency of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative rods (GNRs) in two of the largest neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in the city of Manila, Philippines.

Improved infection control methods could reduce the vast number of hospital acquired neonatal infections. The BUSM study appears online in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

ORLANDO (May 15, 2009)—Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have identified a genetic marker that is associated with an earlier onset of prostate cancer in Caucasian men who have a family history of prostate cancer. If the data are confirmed, the marker may help clinicians personalize prostate cancer screening.

Veda Giri, M.D., a medical oncologist and director of the Prostate Cancer Risk Assessment Program at Fox Chase, will present the data at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Saturday, May 30.

For many years, it has been known that aspirin is beneficial to patients suffering heart attacks and near-heart attacks. But which of the many different types of aspirin is likely to help the most?

Hanover, NH—Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have made new inroads into understanding the regulatory circuitry of the biological clock that synchronizes the ebb and flow of daily activities, according to two studies published May 15.

Research on the relationship between clocks and temperature, reported in Cell, offers insight into a longstanding puzzle of temperature compensation: why the 24-hour circadian rhythm does not change with temperature when metabolism is so affected.

(NEW ORLEANS) – The first long-term study following a large number of chest pain patients who are screened with coronary computerized tomographic angiography (CTA) confirms that the test is a safe, effective way to rule out serious cardiovascular disease in patients who come to hospital emergency rooms with chest pain, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine which will be presented Friday, May 15, 2009 at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's annual conference.

For modern implants and the growth of artificial tissue and organs, it is important to generate materials with characteristics that closely emulate nature. However, the tissue in our bodies has a combination of traits that are very hard to recreate in synthetic materials: It is both soft and very tough. A team of Australian and Korean researchers led by Geoffrey M. Spinks and Seon Jeong Kim has now developed a novel, highly porous, sponge-like material whose mechanical properties closely resemble those of biological soft tissues.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have developed a new method to study single cells while exposing them to controlled environmental changes. The unique method, where a set of laser tweezers move the cell around in a microscopic channel system, allows the researchers to study how single cells react to stress induced by a constantly changing environment.

BOSTON – Nearly 20 years ago, it was discovered that bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori were responsible for stomach ulcers. Since then, antibiotics have become the primary therapy used to combat the H. pylori infection, which affects approximately six percent of the world population and is also a primary cause of stomach cancer. But today the bacteria is growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

ORLANDO - When combined with a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs, two monoclonal antibodies, instead of one, appear to offer superior results in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, according to Mayo Clinic researchers working with the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG).

ORLANDO - A medication that helps stop the growth of new blood vessels has produced dramatic benefits for some patients with aggressive thyroid cancer, research from Mayo Clinic indicates.

At the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Mayo investigators report that cancer in about two-thirds of 37 patients with aggressive differentiated thyroid cancer treated with the drug pazopanib either stopped growing, or quickly shrank.