Cap helps reduce chemo hair loss

Breakthroughs in the Medical Field

Medicine 4 the soul (Reflections on Faith)

April 21, 2006 BBC News

Cap helps reduce chemo hair loss

A new gel-filled cap has helped to reduce hair loss caused by chemotherapy in 80% of patients, a hospital said.

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital said the Chemocap was designed to cool the patient's scalp to prevent damage caused by chemotherapy drugs.

The cap is cooled and worn 15 minutes before treatment, during the process and for up to one hour after.

Up to 48 caps are available at the hospital for patients undergoing chemotherapy.

One of the first patients to benefit from the cap is Jane Billings, a 46-year-old mother of two from Newton Flotman, Norfolk, who underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer in June.

Satisfied customer

She said that three weeks into her treatment she had managed to keep most of her hair.

"As soon as I was offered chemotherapy I was concerned about losing my hair. Then the breast nurse suggested I try the Chemocap and I was happy to give it a go," she said.

"It's a little uncomfortable because it feels very cold, particularly round the ears, but that's a small price to pay for keeping my hair."

Consultant oncologist, Daniel Epurescu, said: "We're delighted to be able to offer the Chemocap to our patients as the psychological impact of losing your hair from cancer treatment can be very distressing."

But Dr Epurescu said the cap is not suitable for all patients.

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Friday, January 27, 2006 THE WINDSOR STAR

Icy head may reduce stroke
Cold could inhibit cell death and avoid physical impairment

BY SUSAN RUTTAN
CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
EDMONTON

When Randy Greene arrived at the emergency department last Oct. 2, paralyzed with a stroke, he got an unusual offer - spend the next 12 hours with an icy-cold helmet on his head.

He agreed. Today, Greene thinks the head hypothermia treatment helped him to overcome his paralysis and make a strong recovery.

Greene, 57, was part of a study at the University of Alberta Hospital that aims to help people survive a stroke without crippling after-effects.

"If it works," says the head of neurology for the Capital Health Region, Dr. Ashfaq Shuaib, "it could boost the number of people who make a full recovery from a stroke from the current 25 percent to, perhaps, 35 percent."

Shuaib is testing a combination treatment consisting of four drugs plus a head-cooling device, to try to slow the cell death that is triggered by an ischemic stroke. (Ischemic strokes are caused when a clot blocks blood flow to the brain. They make up four-fifths of all strokes.)

“As you cool the brain's temperature it slows the brain's metabolic activity,” Shuaib told reporters Thursday. “By doing that, it slows down the process that kills these cells.”

That slowing down of brain death will give the brain time to find an alternate blood supply through unblocked arteries, he said. It means patients may avoid the physical and speech impairments caused when parts of the brain die.

“If it works, it's very very exciting,” Shuaib said of the study.

However, he cautioned the study is far from complete yet. To date only three patients, including Greene, have had the full treatment and three others acted as a control group. Shuaib plans to do 37 patients on the combined treatment, plus 37 control patients.

Patients in the study start their therapy in the ambulance, with a paramedic administering the first drug, magnesium sulfate. In the ER, they get the cooling device wrapped around their heads and are given the other three drugs.

The cooling wrap works by circulating cold water inside small tubes in the wrap. It is normally used for migraine headaches or to help slow hair loss in chemotherapy patients, Shuaib said.

Made by the Cincinnati Sub-Zero company, it's not been used before for strokes, he said.

The experience of having one's head cooled to 34 C was painless but chilly, said Greene. “The staff just kept bringing nice warm blankets every half an hour.”

The important thing, he said, is that he went to hospital on a Sunday with his right leg paralyzed, and by Monday evening he could wiggle his toes. He's going back to work in March.

Shuaib said the drugs used are all familiar and relatively cheap.

What's new is the idea of putting them together in a drug cocktail, somewhat like the AIDS drug cocktail, that will protect the brain from cell death in a variety of ways.

The researchers hope the treatment will be effective as long as 10 hours after the stroke occurs.

Right now, the top treatment for strokes is a clot-busting drug, but it's not considered safe more than three hours after the stroke occurs because it may cause brain hemorrhage.

More trials coming
The study, called MINUTES or Multiple Interventions for Neuroprotection Utilizing Thermal Regulation in the Emergent Treatment of Stroke, has no big drug-company funding, he said.

“The industry does not fund these trials (of drug combinations),” he said. “They're all interested in their own drug.”

If the Edmonton trial goes well, a larger trial in other cities will be done, Shuaib said.

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TORONTO SUN NEWS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2005 31

Migraines real pain
3.1 million Canadian women suffer from debilitating headaches

SARAH GREEN
Toronto Sun

Don't tell Anne Fox it’s all in her head.

The 41-year-old Toronto woman said the migraine headaches she has suffered for the past 25 years often come with crippling pain.

“They can be very debilitating,” said Fox, who suffered 27 headaches in 35 days last March with fluctuating barometric pressure. “My mother used to take me to the emergency room.”

A survey for Headache Network Canada released yesterday found 75% of the 3.1 million Canadian women who suffer from migraines are treated with cynicism, not compassion.

Although Fox has supportive family and friends, she's heard others dismiss migraines as a “headache - no big deal,” she said. “They’re not something you make up.”

The survey found women who get migraines miss 20.8 days of work or school every year because of them.

Fox, an account executive, recently had to leave a meeting with a client as she felt a headache and the nausea that comes with it creeping in.

“It’s unpredictable,” said Dr. Gary Shapero, director of the Markham Headache and Pain Treatment Centre. “They can’t really plan their lives because a migraine can attack at anytime.”

Genetic
Women are three times more likely than men to suffer migraines. They can be triggered by everything from bright lights and physical activity to red wine, hormone fluctuations and changes in the weather, Shapero said. People are genetically predisposed to migraines, he said.

The survey found 38% of those who suffer from migraines have never seen a doctor for their pain.

Shapero urged women who get bad headaches to see their doctors and keep a diary to help identify their triggers.

sarah.green@tor.sunpub.com

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breakthroughs in the medical field

THE WINDSOR STAR
Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Cancer drugs

As many as 100 patients younger than 60 with a form of aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma died between March 2001 and April 2004 in provinces that delayed paying for a new drug called rituximab, according to an article in the group's annual report card on cancer care.

The article says at least 20 lives were probably saved in the same period in British Columbia and New Brunswick, which approved the drug in 2001. Rimximab costs $20,000 to $34,000 per treatment course.

Dr. William Hryniuk, a medical oncologist and chairman of the cancer advocacy group, cited a study by the B.C. Cancer Agency published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology last August, that found adding rituximab to standard chemotherapy for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, increased survival rates by 50 per cent. Before the drug was added, about 50 per cent of patients survived more than two years. The B.C. study showed the new treatment protocol developed in B.C. improved the survival rate to 75 per cent.

The report calls for the creation of national catastrophic drug strategy to ensure fewer differences between provinces on how patients get access to expensive new drugs that can cost up to $70,000 per patient.

It says governments should develop a "policy framework" to ensure "coast-to-coast" consistency on the thorny issues of how to pick up exorbitant drug costs, and which drugs are worth covering. Many new cancer drugs, especially those used for palliative care, offer only "modest or marginal" benefits, the report says.

The report also warns Canada is falling behind other countries in screening women for cancer of the breast and cervix. In Canada, screening mammography for women aged 50 to 69 is free. But only about half of eligible women are being screened through provincial programs. By contrast, the U.K., Australia and the U.S. are reaching about 70 per cent of targeted women.

According to the report, Ontario had the lowest rate of breast-cancer screening, with only 27 per cent of eligible women having a mammogram every two years.

THE WINDSOR STAR
Saturday, March 18, 2006

Lifelong vaccine may end booster ordeals

Breakthrough could save lives, millions of dollars

By: NIC FLEMING
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
LONDON

Booster jabs could soon become obsolete following the discovery by a British scientist of the world's first effective way to control the speed at which vaccines are released in the body.

The breakthrough has the potential to save health services billions of dollars, eliminate dangers to children by removing the need for top-up injections and prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in developing countries.

Scientists have demonstrated that the technique works in preliminary experiments and today the Department of Trade and Industry will announce the award of a $2-million CDN grant to make the new vaccines available to doctors within five years.

The introduction of slow-release vaccines would avoid the need for a total of seven boosters - for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, haemophilus influenza B, meningitis C and measles, mumps and rubella.

The slow vaccine release technique is an ingenious combination of a method used by plants to stay alive in arid conditions and the harnessing of the body's natural mechanism for mending and reshaping broken bones.

A fern called the resurrection plant is able to remain alive in a desiccated state in North American deserts for years by preserving moisture in a solidified sugar solution.

Dr. Bruce Roser, the lead scientist at Cambridge Biostability, devised a way to create stable vaccines that can be kept at room temperature by suspending tiny, water-soluble particles in an inert liquid.

Using calcium phosphate - the compound from which bones are made - to make the particles allows the material to be broken down naturally by the body. Amino acid speeds up the reaction, allowing scientists to control the rate of release by varying the amount.

"A serious problem with vaccines is the need for boosters to achieve effective immunization," Rosen said.

That costs an enormous amount of money and is not always possible because people do not always come back for their repeat injections.

"Initial studies are promising and we would hope to see the first booster-free vaccines available by 2011."

Twenty-seven million of the 132 million children born each year are not immunized against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, says the World Health Organization.

In 2002, about 1.4 million died of diseases that could have been prevented by vaccines.

This is partly because of the cost of sending doctors into remote and impoverished parts of the world.

THE WINDSOR STAR
Saturday, January 28, 2006

FDA approves inhaled insulin

Pfizer drug yet to get nod in Canada

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington

The first inhaled version of insulin won federal approval Friday, giving millions of American adult diabetics an alternative to some of the regular injections they now endure.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the Pfizer Inc. insulin, to be marketed as Exubera, is the first new way of delivering insulin since the discovery of the hormone by Canadians Frederick Grant Banting and Charles Best in the 1920s. Pfizer jointly developed the drug and dispenser with Sanofi-Aventis and Nektar Therapeutics.

Use of rapid-acting inhaled insulin will not replace the need to occasionally inject the hormone, according to the FDA. And diabetics will have to continue pricking their fingers to test blood sugar levels.

The FDA delayed its decision by three months so it could review chemistry data on the diabetes treatment. The European Commission approved Exubera for use in adults Thursday.

The drug is not approved in Canada, said a spokeswoman for Pfizer Canada.

Analysts have said the inhaled insulin could eventually become a $1-billion-a-year seller for Pfizer, which recently agreed to pay Sanofi-Aventis $1.3 billion US to obtain full worldwide rights to the drug for use by both type 1 and 2 adult diabetics.

"Until today; patients with diabetes who need insulin to manage their disease had only one way to treat their condition," said Dr. Steven Galson, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "It is our hope that the availability of inhaled insulin will offer patients more options to better control their blood sugars."

Clinical trials found that Exubera managed blood sugar levels just as well as injected insulin, but an independent FDA panel in September stressed that use of inhaled insulin will not mean diabetics can toss out the needles, pens or pumps used to inject the hormone.

Inhaled insulin is a welcome advance, said Dr. Nathaniel Clark, the national vice-president for clinical affairs for the American Diabetes Association. But he added that needles still will allow a patient to better control dosage.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Lakeshore News - www.windsoressexnews.com

Medicine 4 The SOUL (Reflections on Faith)
By: Roger Campbell

In his helpful book, “Strength of Soul,” W. Phillip Keller says one of the most compelling invitations ever extended by God to man came when the Lord said quietly, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Matthew 11:28).

He then explains that we don’t have to go far to find those laboring along with profound personal problems, carrying heavy loads which weigh them down in despair, frustration and grief.

Our responsibility is to be alert to their needs and respond to them.

Earlier this week, I received a call from someone facing an urgent financial need. I was glad for the opportunity to help. Let me tell you why.

An interesting part of my work is writing sermon outline books for ministers, each containing 104 sermon outlines (two for each Sunday of the year). There are six of these books available in bookstores in both English and Spanish. I'm now working on the seventh which will contain a series of outlines based on-the Book of Proverbs.

Preceding the call, I had read Proverbs 3:26-27: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, 'Go and come back and tomorrow I will give it,' when you have it with you.”

This clear Biblical text reminded me of my responsibility to be a load lifter, loosening my grip on funds that could help and allowing me to be part of a miracle; actually two of them: later in the day a man placed a check in my hand amounting to nearly the amount I had given earlier.

September 18, 1957, found us serving our first church. We had three children and were awaiting the birth of another but had no health insurance and didn't know how we would pay the hospital expenses for the birth of this fourth child.

On that very day, a letter arrived from people in another community, who knew nothing about the soon arrival of another child, saying they had sold their farm and that God had let them know we had a special need.

These caring ones had thoughtfully enclosed a generous check.

The baby was born that night and the check sent was within five dollars of the amount of the hospital bill; making them our heaven sent load lifters.

Yesterday, when concluding a telephone conversation with a customer service representative of a bank, I said, “Have a wonderful day and remember God loves you!”

“Thank you for saying that," she replied, her voice trembling.

"Are you going through a tough time?" I asked.

She was.

And within moments we were praying together.

Today, I'll mail a helpful book to her; one intended to replace loads with love.

Tired and troubled people are everywhere. We meet them every day. Some are standing in checkout lines or at cash registers. Others deliver mail or drive fire trucks.

Some show their sorrows or stresses in their appearance and others are in happy disguises, choosing to keep their problems to themselves.

We're deputized by our loving Lord to always be looking for these weary ones so we can personally pass on His load-lifting invitation to come and find rest.

When we're at a loss for words and have no money to give, we can simply say, "Have a wonderful day and remember God loves you!"

Roger Campbell can be reached by e-mail at rcministry@ameritech.net

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Prevent hair loss, inhibit stroke paralysis, relieve migraine headaches, and sinus pain / pressure