A New Drug Combination Safe In Reducing Risk Of Blood Clots

A novel anti-clotting medicine and an antidote combination aimed to reduce the risk of blood clots have been proven safe in humans. Drugs currently used during medical procedures, such as bypass heart surgery, angioplasty and kidney dialysis, have certain limitations. It is often difficult to judge their current dose and intensity. Moreover, they have the risks of allergic reactions, heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism. The new combination will provide safe, patient-specific and even potentially disease-specific care. A study in 85 patients has shown that, the new drug combo - did not pose an increased risk of bleeding, produced a definite dose response (the higher the dose, the greater the effect) and reversed the anti-clotting effect within one to five minutes after injection. Thus the combination therapy was proven safe and more effective in reducing the risk of clotting during medical procedures.

The US researchers devised a new classification system to evaluate prostate cancer patients after radiation therapy. Hormone therapy is often offered to men at risk of prostate cancer recurrence in order to suppress hormones that promote cancer growth. To identify patient who will benefit from hormone therapy, physicians consider many factors including biochemical failure (BF). It indicates treatment failure by determining post-treatment prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels. Under the previous classification system, there were possibilities of misclassification. Whereas the new classification system, called the Phoenix definition, changes the method of determining BF and provides a better and robust evaluation method for predicting a patient’s clinical outcome. The new BF definitions could alter the course of treatment, start hormone therapy sooner and include more men. Ultimately it will improve predicting endpoints, including distant metastasis and cause specific mortality.

A preliminary research has found breath test was successful in finding cancer markers. Nowadays, lung cancer typically exists for a decade or two before it is diagnosed. About 70 percent of lung cancers are diagnosed in the late stages. However, if diagnosed early, around 92 percent could expect to live 10 years. Doctors have been searching for a reliable early detection method for many years. Advanced methods like CT scans can detect nodules in middle aged smokers. But studies show, 95 percent of the nodules are not cancer and are not going to be. The new breath test uses a commercially available device into which people are asked to breathe for 10 minutes.  The device cools the air and forms a condensed vapour. Next, an assay is applied that detects exhaled breath DNA methylation. This Methylated DNA from tumor suppressor genes is a known cancer marker. The new method is really interesting because it is not invasive. However, this tool may not be helpful in diagnosing disease at present, but surely a useful tool aiming to assess the risk of lung cancer.