Study looks at radiation and breast cancer
HOUSTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Scientists at Houston's University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center report a sharp decrease in cardiac death risk after radiation for breast cancer.
The researchers said improvements in radiation techniques and delivery have greatly helped bring down radiation-associated cardiac mortality during the last quarter century.
"For a while now, physicians have been telling women that receiving radiation for breast cancer is so much safer today than it was before. People believed it, but there really was very little scientific evidence or studies examining the relationship between advancements in radiation therapy to ischemic heart disease," says Sharon Giordano, the study's lead author.
Results of the research were released Tuesday and published in the March 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Vitamin E may raise heart failure risk
HAMILTON, Ontario, March 15 (UPI) -- Vitamin E does not necessarily lower risks for cancer or heart attack but may increase chances of getting heart failure, Canadian scientists found.
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study released Tuesday, scientists tested nearly 4,000 patients to see if long-term use of vitamin E supplements decreased the risk of cancer and major cardiovascular events.
Study participants received either 400 international units of vitamin E daily or a placebo. After seven years, follow-up with more than 700 study participants uncovered no evidence vitamin E reduced the risk of heart attack or cancer. Researchers did find an unexpected increase in the number of people suffering heart failure.
Details of the study, led by Dr. Eva Lonn of the Population Health Research Institute and McMaster University of Hamilton, Ontario, appear in the March 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Vitamin E may raise heart failure risk
HAMILTON, Ontario, March 15 (UPI) -- Vitamin E does not necessarily lower risks for cancer or heart attack but may increase chances of getting heart failure, Canadian scientists found.
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study released Tuesday, scientists tested nearly 4,000 patients to see if long-term use of vitamin E supplements decreased the risk of cancer and major cardiovascular events.
Study participants received either 400 international units of vitamin E daily or a placebo. After seven years, follow-up with more than 700 study participants uncovered no evidence vitamin E reduced the risk of heart attack or cancer. Researchers did find an unexpected increase in the number of people suffering heart failure.
Details of the study, led by Dr. Eva Lonn of the Population Health Research Institute and McMaster University of Hamilton, Ontario, appear in the March 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Heart patient recovers after new procedure
DETROIT, March 15 (UPI) -- A 76-year-old Michigan man is back at work less than a week after receiving an artificial heart valve through a vein in his leg, the New York Times reports.
In the aortic valve implantation procedure done last Thursday at the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, doctors fed the valve through a vein in the left leg of Fernando Giangrande, instead of opening his chest and stopping his heart, the Times said.
Giangrande left the hospital Sunday and was back at work Monday customizing vintage cars at his Ford dealership.
Replacement of the valve through open-heart surgery normally requires a week in the hospital and a longer total recovery time, assuming the patient is strong enough to have the surgery in the first place.
Experts say the procedure could eventually extend the lives of many people who are too frail or ill to endure open-heart surgery.
Giangrande said two years earlier, surgeons had told him there was nothing they could safely do to counter the progression of his heart disease.
Other experts, however, warn even if the new technique is mastered, the heart repairs may not last as long as those achieved through conventional surgery.
