June 29, 2007

• Pathways Of Disease In Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
  (Medscape) -- I have read that there are different pathways in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). What are they?
  

•   Million New Donors Wanted
  (Daily Mirror) -- While 90 per cent of the population say they support organ donation, less than a quarter (23 per cent) are actually registered as potential donors.
  

• Teen Faces Double Lung Transplant
  (Robertson County Times) -- Faenza has been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. It is complicated by Scleroderma, a thickening of the skin that doctors believe is happening in her lungs.
  

• Antidepressants Called A Low Risk In Birth Defects
  (Bryan College Station Eagle) -- The latest studies do not consider that disorder, known as persistent pulmonary hypertension. But they suggest that the risk of other defects from an SSRI - even if confirmed - would add only a fraction of 1 percent to the overall danger, researchers said.
  

• Sperm Abnormalities Seen In Male Lupus Patients
  (EurekAlert) -- A new study published in the July 2007 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism examined gonad function in male SLE patients and found that they have a high frequency of sperm abnormalities associated with reduced testicular volume. In addition, the study identified intravenous treatment with the immunosuppressant cyclophosphamide (IV CYC) as the major factor in permanent damage to the testes.
  

• Aspreva Lupus Drug Fails To Meet Main Goal
  (Canada NewsWire) -- Although response rates were similar in both arms, the trial did not meet its primary objective of demonstrating that MMF was superior to IVC in inducing treatment response in this disease.
  

• Encysive Pharmaceuticals Appoints New Chief Executive And Announces Restructuring Of Company Operations
  (Encysive) -- STRIDE-3, the Company's ongoing study of Thelin(tm) in PAH, will be discontinued in the U.S. and Latin America.
  

• Encysive To Lay Off Most Of U.S. Employees
  (Yahoo/Houston Business Journal) -- At the nub of the dispute is that although Thelin has been given the green light for sale in Canada, Australia and Europe, U.S. regulators still have doubts about Encysive's statistical data related to one part of the clinical trial. Given claims the data is accurate.
  

• A Mother's Race For A Cure
  (CNN) -- It took a few years before Martine Rothblatt got used to describing her daughter's chronic lung disease as a lucrative market opportunity. "I choked every time I said it - it sounded so immoral," says Rothblatt, 52. But when she realized that the fastest track to a cure was to launch a biotech firm and then take it public, Rothblatt started United Therapeutics (unither.com).
  

• Donor Risk Remains A Challenge In Liver Transplantation
  (Medscape) -- With increasing shortages of available liver grafts from deceased donation, living donations have become an increasingly valuable commodity. These donations are associated with a considerable number of donor deaths and morbidity, although these deaths often go unreported by transplantation centers, with the risk–benefit ratio between donor and recipient in need of being reassessed, according to some experts in the field.

• Artificial Lung's Museum Showing
  (BBC) -- The prototype of a portable artificial lung that aims to give patients greater mobility has gone on show in London.
  

• Alexion Says Soliris Receives EC Approval To Treat PNH Patients
  (RTT News) -- Biotechnology company Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALXN) said its Soliris received European Commission's approval for the treatment of patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria or PNH. Alexion expects to launch Soliris in one or more major European markets by the end of 2007, with additional countries to follow in 2008.
  

• Critics Question EPA's Tighter Ozone Limits
  (Washington Post) -- The Environmental Protection Agency offered tighter standards for ozone pollution for the first time since 1997 but critics said on Thursday the proposal is more lax than what the EPA's own experts recommended.
  

• 3 Lawyers Plead Not Guilty In $65 Million Fen-Phen Case
  (Kentucky.com) -- Three suspended lawyers accused of taking $65 million from a diet-drug settlement that should have gone to their clients pleaded not guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Covington.
  

• Pulmonary Hypertension And Sickle Cell Disease
  (Medscape) -- Should patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) be screened for pulmonary hypertension (PH)?
  

• Wyeth Loses Pondimin Lawsuit
  (Houston Chronicle) -- The jury awarded the plaintiff Virginia Cavender $75,000 in the case, tried in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St Louis. She alleged heart valve injury from use of the drug.
  

• Belimumab Improved Symptoms In Almost Half Of Lupus Patients
  (Doctors Guide) -- Treatment with belimumab resulted in a sustained improvement of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE or lupus) disease activity in 46% of patients at week 52, according to a novel combined responder index in results presented here at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR).
  

• Encysive Says Will Dispute US FDA Thelin Decision
  (Reuters) -- Encysive said it plans to enter formal dispute resolution with the FDA, charging that regulators did not follow certain agreed-upon guidelines when they analyzed trial results.
  

• Nursing Homes Have High Rate of Warfarin-Related Adverse Events
  (Medscape/Reuters) -- "Concerns relating to the risks of anticoagulation therapy with warfarin are intensified in the long-term care setting, because elderly residents of nursing homes are among the most frail patients in the geriatric population," Dr. Jerry H. Gurwitz, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, and colleagues point out.
  

• At Long Term Follow-Up Over One Third Of Refractory Lupus Patients Remain Stable
  (Medical News Today) -- 36% of patients with refractory systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE or lupus) remain well after undergoing B-cell depletion therapy (BCDT) without needing further standard immunosuppressive agents, according to a study presented at EULAR 2007, the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Barcelona, Spain.
  

• U.S. Food And Drug Administration Approves Gilead's Letairis(TM)
  (Gilead) -- Letairis is an endothelin receptor antagonist (ERA) indicated for the once-daily treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (WHO Group 1) in patients with WHO Functional Class II or III symptoms to improve exercise capacity and delay clinical worsening. Letairis will be available in the United States early next week.
  

• FDA Issues Third Approvable Letter For Thelin
  (Encysive) -- In this third approvable letter, the FDA stated that Encysive's development program for THELIN did not demonstrate the evidence of effectiveness needed for approval. The FDA did note, however, that the THELIN development program provides some evidence that THELIN improves exercise tolerance in PAH.
  

• Weighing Various Lupus Bids: Rituxan A Winner Here, Too?
  (Bioworld Today) -- Finding a drug that can re-educate the body's confusion in lupus has proven a puzzler for biotech firms for years, and opinion is divided on which companies might be getting close to a fix for the devilish disease. Is there a way to teach the immune system the difference it once knew between foreign antigens and its own?
  

• Elevated Pepsin Levels Lead To Rejection Of Lung Transplants
  (Huliq.com) -- This research provides further evidence that lung rejection may be caused by factors other than alloimmunity, the attack the body mounts to protect itself against “foreign” cells.
  

• Three Fen-Phen Lawyers Indicted
  (Louisville Courier-Journal) -- A federal grand jury in Covington accused Melbourne Mills Jr., Shirley Cunningham Jr., and William Gallion each of one count of fraud and demanded that they forfeit $46 million in misappropriated funds and more than $21 million in fees that had parked in a charitable fund.
  

• Pulmonary Hypertension And Diabetes?
  (Medscape) -- Prior to this year, there had not been much information on this issue, but there are some emerging data suggesting a link between diabetes and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). At the recent International Society for Heart and Lung Transplant meeting in San Francisco in May 2007, researchers from Stanford University presented their data on the prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) in a population of patients with PAH.
  

• Human Genome's Drug Shows Lupus Activity
  (Forbes/AP) -- In the clinical trial, patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus given LymphoStat-B showed reduced disease activity after 52 weeks.
  

• Health Care Not Compromised by Multiple Conditions
  (HealthDay News) -- Having multiple chronic health conditions won't diminish the quality of health care you receive. In fact, having more than one chronic problem appears to slightly improve that care, a new study concludes.
  

• Release Of New Guidelines On The Management Of Arterial Hypertension
  (EurekAlert) -- The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) have released new Guidelines on the management of Arterial Hypertension, which can be found in the European Heart Journal, the official journal of the ESC and Europe’s leading cardiology journal.
  
  This is a very interesting 75-page pdf that is available if you register with the ESC (www.escardio.org).

• Ill Woman Keeps Leaving Grim Prognosis In Her Dust
  (Denver Post) -- Eight years ago, doctors in Seattle told Anderson that her life was also rushing - toward an abrupt end. She had been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, an incurable disease that sends blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs to incredibly high levels. They said she'd be dead in 18 months.
  

• LifeSharers An Incentive To Be Organ Donor
  (Ann Arbor News) -- Now that we know the man who received a double lung transplant at the University of Michigan was a longtime smoker, the debate around the dinner table has begun.
  

• Bosentan (Tracleer®) Receives EU Approval For Reduction Of Number Of New Digital Ulcerations In Systemic Sclerosis Patients
  (Actelion) -- As vasculopathy is a pivotal feature of many of the complications of systemic sclerosis, patients suffering from the condition are at high risk to develop digital ulcerations and pulmonary arterial hypertension.
  

• New Guidelines Recommend Sildenafil For Pulmonary Hypertension
  (EurekAlert) -- The recommendation is based on several reports of studies of patients with PAH who were successfully treated with long-term sildenafil therapy.
  
  (last article)

• Studies Show Efficacy And Safety Of Alexion's Soliris(TM) In Broad Population Of PNH Patients
  (Medical News Today) -- Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALXN) today announced results from three analyses of Phase III studies examining Soliris(TM) (eculizumab) for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) at the 12th Congress of European Hematology, organized by The European Hematology Association (EHA) in Vienna.
  

• UPMC Organ Transplants Inspire TNT Drama
  (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) -- "Heartland," set at the fictional St. Jude Regional Transplant Center and starting actor Treat Williams, is based on the accomplishments of organ-transplant pioneer Thomas E. Starzl and his transplant team at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the hospital system said this morning.
  

• Beijing Proposes 13 Hospitals For Organ Transplant Surgery
  (People's Daily Online) -- The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau has listed the hospitals and the specific transplant surgery they can carry out on its official website (www.bjhb.gov.cn) until June 24 to solicit public opinions and submissions.
  

• OSA Symptoms More Common Among African-American Women Than Caucasians
  (EurekAlert) -- Elizabeth Beothy, of the University of Pennsylvania, who authored the study, administered a questionnaire to 269 subjects, with an average age of 48, and 49.4 percent of which were African-American. Further, 37.5 percent of women were pre-menopausal, 43 percent in the menopausal transition and 19.5 percent post-menopausal.
  

• Scholarship For Lung Patients Breathes Hope
  (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) -- Misty Jackson, 32, moved to Lake St. Louis from Arkansas last year to be closer to her doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Jackson was a high school math teacher until the weight loss drug Phen-Fen caused the blood pressure in her lungs to rise dangerously. Doctors told her she had primary pulmonary hypertension and could expect to live only three to six months.
  

• Pinning Down The Money Value Of A Person’s Life
  (New York Times) -- Economists are sometimes accused of knowing the prices of everything and the value of nothing. Now they are trying to answer what may be the most difficult question of all — the price of health.
  

• A Report From The International Society For Heart And Lung Transplantation Meeting
  (Medscape) -- The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) is the annual gathering of Transplant Surgeons, Cardiologists, and Pulmonologists. As such it offers sessions of interest in a number of niche areas including thoracic transplantation, congestive heart failure, and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
  

• Aspreva Announces Fast-Track Designation Granted By The FDA For CellCept In Lupus Nephritis
  (PharmaLive) -- The FDA noted that CellCept received Fast Track designation on the basis that, given the current development program in lupus nephritis, it may have the potential to address an unmet medical need in patients with this disease.
  

• Heroes Brought Life To Patients
  (Detroit News) -- The plane's crash into Lake Michigan left six people dead, dashed the hopes of a seventh man awaiting the transplant and rattled the transplant team at U-M, which performs 425 transplants annually but has never had to deal with this sort of tragedy.
  

• TV Star Greg Is The Heart Of Our Family Strength
  (ic Wales) -- At age two, he was diagnosed with Eisenmenger’s Syndrome, a form of pulmonary hypertension which is a progressive lung disease.
  

• BENEFiT Study Shows Tracleer (Bosentan) Improves Haemodynamics In CTEPH Patients Refused Surgery
  (PharmiWeb) -- Patients suffering from chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) who miss out on potentially curative surgery may respond to medical treatment with the dual endothelin receptor antagonist bosentan (Tracleer) according to results of BENEFiT, a multicentre phase III trial presented at this year’s American Thoracic Society meeting.
  

• Inhaled NO Neuroprotective In Preemies With Pulmonary Hypertension
  (Medscape/Reuters) -- In premature infants with persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN), inhaled nitric oxide therapy (iNO) may be more effective than 100% oxygen therapy in lowering the risk of cerebral palsy, results of a study conducted in Japan suggests.

• Get Involved In Clinical Research Because Lives Depend On It
  (News In Health) -- Are you playing your part in clinical research? Doctors and scientists are conducting clinical studies in every state of the union. They’re looking for volunteers of all ages, from all cultures, with different lifestyles. You may be able to help them learn how to improve the health of hundreds, thousands or millions of people.
  

• A Great Horse, But Who Takes The Winnings?
  (New York Times) -- Mr. Carter is among more than 400 plaintiffs in a civil suit who were found to have been defrauded by their lawyers out of $64.4 million — money intended to pay for injuries caused by the diet drug fen-phen.
  

• June is National Scleroderma Awareness Month
  (PRNewswire) -- "These events galvanize our patient communities while raising the public profile of a little known but often debilitating disease," said Frances Waldron, chief executive officer of the Scleroderma Foundation. "Though these walks raise money through pledged donations, the primary purpose of the walks is to educate the public on the effects of scleroderma."
  

• Journal Sleep: Longer CPAP Use At Night Can Normalize One's Daytime Functioning
  (EurekAlert) -- "From a population sense, functions for predicted probabilities of normalization show that more CPAP use is associated with greater relief of sleepiness, no matter how it's measured," said Weaver.
  

Advanced Search

Home

About PHC

Contact Us

Site Map

Disclaimer

Volunteer

Donate to PHCentral

Register for WebBoard - Online Support for Patients and Caregivers

Already registered? Log in here

Need Webboard help? Frequently asked Questions

Contact the Webboard Moderators