Who’s at risk for fatty liver disease, from the Harvard Health Letter
If you get a chance to read the item in the health letter you'll be relieved to hear most cases of fatty liver disease will not result in serious liver disease, the treatment recommendation is to lose weight guys. Read the full-length article: “When the liver gets fatty”
Its Almost HERE !
The big news of the day....Mercks Boceprevir Granted NDA New Drug Application Priority review status. No word on Telaprevir, however yesterday we heard this buzz "The supply of the Hepatitis C drug to Vertex by Shasun Chemicals is set to take off earlier than anticipated. The product is set to launch in June-July next year. "Commercial supplies have already started and we are preparing for the launch this year," says Vimal Kumar, Managing Director of Shasun Chemicals, in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18's Udayan Mukherjee and Mitali Mukherjee.
While both drugs are encouraging, telaprevir has generated more impressive data in separate clinical trials.
Best Place To Read The Good News : US, EU Grant Accelerated Reviews Of Merck Hepatitis Drug
.
Other HCV Drug UpdatesInterim analyses announced by Pharmasset on the two drugs: PSI-7977 400mg QD with pegylated interferon and ribavirin was generally safe and well tolerated while demonstrating potent viral suppression in patients with HCV genotype 2 or 3 over 12 weeks of dosing- PSI-938 300mg QD monotherapy was generally safe and well tolerated over 14 days of dosing and demonstrated potent antiviral activity and no viral breakthrough.
.
From Medical News Today
Different Sources, Same Result For Liver Disease
Numerous patients suffering from chronic liver diseases are currently receiving inadequate treatment due to the lack of organs donated for transplantation. However, hepatocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells..
The Associated Press : Reported a second person has died who was denied transplant coverage in the state of Arizona. The patient was listed for a liver transplant due to hepatitis C .
"His condition has gotten more severe since he was taken off the list," said University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman.
The patient's worsening condition would have elevated his place on the liver donor list, she added. But the point was moot.
The patient could not afford the transplant and Arizona refused to pay for it. Arizona reduced Medicaid coverage for transplants on Oct. 1 under cuts included to help close a shortfall in the state budget enacted last spring.
Gellerman said the patient died Dec. 28. He had hepatitis C. Medical privacy requirements prevented the release of any information about the patient.
This is the second death linked to Arizona's controversial cost cutting. Last November, the Associated Press and others told the story of Mark Price, a Phoenix-area man desperately in need of a bone-marrow transplant. He couldn't afford it and state's Medcaid program wasn't angling to pay for it.
After the press coverage, anonymous donors offered to pay for the transplant, but Price died from complications in preparation for the surgery.
"I don't want to get into any of the politics involved in it, but it backfired because now suddenly it looks as if Arizona is making decisions as to life or death of patients," said Dr. Rainer Gruessner, chair of the University of Arizona Surgery Department
He predicts that nearly 30 Arizonans will die this year because of the state's decision to cut certain transplants."Failure to restore this funding is a death sentence for people who have committed no crimes," he said.
The state hopes to save $1.4 million from the transplant cuts. Arizona faces a projected $1.4 billion shortfall in its next state budget.
There is a certain irony here.
During last year's federal battle over President Obama's health care legislation, some Republicans claimed his program promoted "death panels" which they seemed to suggest would involve government bureaucrats deciding who lives and who dies.
The health care bill did include language which paid doctors to offer end-of-life counseling. That was eventually removed.
Facing a tough budget situation, however, Arizona has instituted what critics say is much closer to these so-called "death panels" than anything that ever appeared in the federal government's health care legislation.
"Can this really be happening in the United States?" Forbes columnist Rick Ungar wrote. "I cannot help but be struck by the emptiness of the argument put forth by those who suggest that government need not look out for these people because charitable Americans will always step up and help in these circumstances."
"It's something that probably needs to be discussed," Gov. Brewer said of the difficult choices. "Evey body is concerned about it, as I am. The bottom line is ... that was one of those areas that we could cut and we moved forward on that."
Ninety-seven people remain on Arizona's Medcaire transaplnt list. Their futures are uncertain.
Arizona's medical transplant controversy getting messier
Phoenix Business Journal - by Mike Sunnucks Date: Thursday, January 6, 2011, 1:46pm MST
Yesterday a second Medicaid patient died because they couldn't’t get the state of Arizona to cover a needed transplant.
The issue of what the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System covers in terms of transplants is even more complicated than the media narrative and politics around the stories.
HOBOKEN, NJ -- January 6, 2011 -- Researchers have determined that more than half of liver transplant recipients develop post-transplantation metabolic syndrome (PTMS), placing them at greater risk for cardiovascular disease.Prior to transplantation only 5% of the patients were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, but rates of obesity, hypertriglyceridemia, hypertension, and diabetes were significantly higher post transplantation.
From Natap :
Pharmasset Reports Positive Results from its HCV Clinical Programs: PSI-7977 & PSI-938
Anadys Pharmaceuticals starts Phase IIb trial of ANA598 in HCV patients
- (01/06/11)
Lower Recurrence Rate for HCC Treated With Resection Than Radiofrequency Ablation - publication study article below, pdf attached
- (01/04/11)
Liver Disease in the HIV-Infected Individual REVIEW- publication pdf attached
- (01/04/11)
Liver Cancer in Cirrhotic Patients Effectively Treated with Radiofrequency Ablation: Full-Text journal article and pdf follows press release
- (01/04/11)
07 Jan, 2011 01:00 AM
Needle and syringe programs are a success story and should be embraced at Maconochie, argues Lynne Magor-Blatch.
The Alexander Maconochie Centre was never going to be a Field of Dreams (''build it and they will come''). Unfortunately, it has more closely resembled a Field of Nightmares (''build it and they will be sent'').
The ACT used to have one of the lowest rates of incarceration, but these rates have increased with the opening of the AMC. This brings a set of problems that requires more than a correctional solution. In 2009, Australia had 27,000 prisoners. Thirty-seven per cent reported a mental illness, 71per cent had used illicit drugs in the 12 months prior to incarceration and 52per cent were drinking at risky levels.
Add to this a myriad of health-related concerns, including HIV and hepatitis C infection, and it becomes clear that we need to look to health, rather than corrections alone, for solutions.
.
Off The Cuff.....
From "The Health Blog"
The piece at Lancet on the evolution of HIV is fascinating.
A century of HIV: a Review article tracks the evolution and history of HIV in people from its primate origins.
Tracking a century of global expansion and evolution of HIV to drive understanding and to combat disease
The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages 45 - 56, January 2011
Tracking a century of global expansion and evolution of HIV to drive understanding and to combat disease
Summary
Since the isolation of HIV, multiple transmissions are thought to have occurred between man and other old-world primates. Assessment of samples from apes and human beings with African equatorial forest ancestry has traced the origin of HIV-1 to chimpanzees, and dated its most recent common ancestor to 1908. The evolution of HIV-1 has been rapid, which has resulted in a complex classification, worldwide spread, and intermixing of strains; at least 48 circulating recombinant forms are currently identified. In addition to posing a nearly insurmountable challenge for diagnosis, treatment, vaccine development, and prevention, this extreme and divergent evolution has led to differences in virulence between HIV-1 groups, subtypes, or both. Coincidental changes in human migration in the Congo river basin also affected spread of disease. Research over the past 25 years and advances in genomic sequencing methods, such as deep DNA sequencing, have greatly improved understanding and analysis of the thousands to millions of full infectious HIV-1 genomes.
Not Easy To Watch
This video will show you the importance of learning how you can be the difference between life and death in an emergency.
A rather dramatic video folks.
.
Healthy You
Protective Properties of Green Tea Uncovered
,
ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2011) —
Regularly drinking green tea could protect the brain against developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, according to latest research by scientists at Newcastle University.
.
,
Tomatoes contain nutrient which prevents vascular diseases
6. January 2011 17:22
They are the most widely produced fruit in the world and now scientists in Japan have discovered that tomatoes contain a nutrient which could tackle the onset of vascular diseases. The research, published in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, reveals that an extracted compound, 9-oxo-octadecadienoic, has anti-dyslipidemic affects.
No comments:
Post a Comment