Body

PHILADELPHIA — A patient with advanced bladder cancer experienced a complete response for 14 months to the drug combination everolimus and pazopanib in a phase I trial, and genomic profiling of his tumor revealed two alterations that may have caused this exceptional response, according to a study published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

This information can help identify cancer patients who may respond to everolimus.

BOSTON -- A patient with advanced bladder cancer in a phase I trial had a complete response for 14 months to a combination of the targeted drugs everolimus and pazopanib, report scientists led by a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researcher, and genomic profiling of his tumor revealed two alterations that may have led to this exceptional response.

This information can help identify cancer patients who may respond to everolimus, according to the report published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Sophia Antipolis, 13 March 2014. At a time when the wider prescription of statins is under renewed public scrutiny, a substantial analysis of placebo-controlled randomised trials of statins has found that only a small minority of side effects reported by those taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs are actually attributable to them. Almost all the side effects reported in these trials "occurred anyway when patients were administered placebo", say the investigators.

Evolutionary analysis applied to the relationship between North American and Central Siberian languages may indicate that people moved out from the Bering Land Bridge, with some migrating back to central Asia and others into North America, according to a paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 12, 2014 by Mark Sicoli, from Georgetown University and Gary Holton from University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In what's thought to be the biggest review of academic literature into whether home care visits provide benefits for the elderly, researchers conclude there is 'no consistent evidence' to show they lead to the elderly living longer or having more independent lives than those without any visits. Researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford analysed 64 randomised controlled trials (RCTs), mainly in the United States, Canada and the UK.

Gas networks in Eastern European countries, such as Ukraine and Belarus are less resilient than the UK during conflicts and crises, according to new research from mathematicians at Queen Mary University of London.

The authors suggest that a decentralised approach to managing congestion on gas pipeline networks could be crucial for energy security during geopolitical conflicts or natural disasters, for example.

A 70 million year old fossil found in the Late Cretaceous sediments of Alaska reveals a new small tyrannosaur, according to a paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 12, 2014 by co-authors Anthony Fiorillo and Ronald S. Tykoski from Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Texas, and colleagues.

It has been more than 10 years since the clinical battle began with community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and doctors are still grappling with how to diagnose, treat and prevent this virulent form of staph infection, which is immune to many antibiotics.

MINNEAPOLIS – Anyone with blood pressure that's higher than the optimal 120/80 mmHg may be more likely to have a stroke, according to a new meta-analysis published in the March 12, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Los Angeles, CA (March 12, 2014) Researchers have found that sutures embedded with stem cells led to quicker and stronger healing of Achilles tendon tears than traditional sutures, according to a new study published in the March 2014 issue of Foot & Ankle International (published by SAGE).

How do you know that your pet is benefiting from its pain medication? A new clinical trial design from North Carolina State University researchers could help overcome pet owners' unconscious observation bias and determine whether the drugs they test are effective.

When animals are recruited for clinical trials, particularly for pain medications, researchers must rely on owner observation to determine whether the medication is working. Sounds simple enough, but as it turns out, human and animal behavior can affect the results.

SAN DIEGO, Calif., March 12, 2014 - A team of cardiovascular researchers from Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), the Cardiovascular Research Center at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the University of California, San Diego have identified a small but powerful new player in the onset and progression of heart failure. Their findings, published in the journal Nature on March 12, also show how they successfully blocked the newly discovered culprit to halt the debilitating and chronic life-threatening condition in its tracks.

One of the cytoskeleton components IRSp53 connects to is the tumor-promoting protein Eps8. IRSp53 is synergistically activated by the combined action of Cdc42 and binding of Eps8, which is upregulated in metastatic cancers.

The human relationship with microbial life is complicated. At almost any supermarket, you can pick up both antibacterial soap and probiotic yogurt during the same shopping trip. Although there are types of bacteria that can make us sick, Caltech professor of biology and biological engineering Sarkis Mazmanian and his team are most interested in the thousands of other bacteria—many already living inside our bodies—that actually keep us healthy.

Washington, DC— John F. Strang, PsyD, a pediatric neuropsychologist at Children's National Health System, and colleagues, found that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were more likely to exhibit gender variance, the wish to be the other gender, than children with no neurodevelopmental disorder, or a medical neurodevelopmental disorder such as epilepsy or neurofibromatosis.