DRUG MAY HELP SHIFT WORKERS
Researchers at Stanford University are testing a potential treatment for shift workers who suffer a sleep disorder due to their irregular or nocturnal hours on the job. Patients with Shift Work Sleep Disorder may experience excessive on-the-job sleepiness, making it difficult to focus. In addition, they often have difficulties sleeping during off hours, which can compound the problem. "The problem is that shift workers are often fighting their own internal clocks," said Jed Black, director of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and principal researcher for the trial. During the day, the region of the brain that controls the body's circadian clock, which in part controls sleep cycles, sends out powerful alerting signals. At night, the same region sends out signals for the body to sleep. Black and colleagues are testing the non-stimulant drug Modafinil to see if it might enable patients to remain alert while at work, without feeling over-stimulated or unable to sleep during off-hours. Modafinil is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for excessive sleepiness associated with narcolepsy. Black said researchers are hopeful the drug may prove useful in treating SWSD as well.
BACTERIA TARGET CANCERS IN MICE
Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical Center have created bacteria that target large advanced tumors in mice. In the study, reported in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found a way to direct special microbes to target pockets of dead and dying cells within large tumors. These advanced tumors generally have areas of poor blood circulation and thus little oxygen. The lack of oxygen renders them relatively resistant to conventional chemotherapy and radiation but open to bacteria that can grow without oxygen. "The idea is to selectively attack these tumors from inside with the bacteria and from the outside with chemotherapy," said Dr. Bert Vogelstein, Clayton Professor of Oncology and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
GIRLS CURED OF HODGKIN'S MAY FACE BREAST CANCER
Researchers have found that after the successful treatment of children who have Hodgkin's disease, girls face a higher risk than do boys of getting a second malignancy. Breast cancer appears to be a girl's greatest threat for a secondary cancer. Dr. Louis Constine of the James C. Wilmot Cancer Center led the research, which was reported at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology Inc. The secondary cancer risk to girls seems to increase 10 years after the initial diagnosis and treatment of Hodgkin's disease. Constine thinks physicians should be especially alert to cancer prevention and detection for this group of children. "It is critical that health care providers establish early surveillance programs for any young woman who survives Hodgkin's disease," Constine said. "Girls really require greater surveillance and should begin having mammograms 10 years after treatment."
PILL FOR PULMONARY ARTERIAL HYPERTENSION
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a pill for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Tracleer (bosentan) belongs to a new class of drugs known as Endothelin Receptor Antagonists. It has been approved to treat the life-threatening lung disorder and delay clinical worsening of the chronic disease. In clinical trials, PAH patients given Tracleer significantly increased the distance they could walk. Tracleer may serve as treatment for patients who traditionally have had limited options, doctors said. Patients had to choose between a continuous intravenous treatment administered by pump through a permanent catheter placed in the chest or a lung transplant. Tracleer offers a new choice -- a tiny pill taken twice daily, doctors said.
(EDITORS: For more information about SHIFT, call 650-723-3900; about BACTERIA, call 410-955-1287; about BREAST, call 716-275-7954; about PILL, call 41-61-487-34 58
