In The News This Week … Mar 23–29, 2008: Cancer, Dementia, Parkinson's, Preemies, Girls, Singulair, & Social Security

Finding the Source of a CUP

An article published online on March 23 in Nature Biotechnology has shown the potential of microRNA to be used as biomarkers for diagnosing the primary tumor site in patients with cancer of unknown primary (CUP) origin. (CUP is the diagnosis when a metastatic cancer is found, but the primary site can't be determined; about 2% to 4% of patients have a CUP.) Researchers examined 400 samples of 22 different tumor tissues and metastases, and were able to identify the source in two-thirds of the cases. For more information, see the press release from Rosetta Genomics.

Hormone Replacement Therapy & Breast Cancer

For some time, people have known that HRT increases the risk of breast cancer, but now researchers have found that there's also a greater risk of recurrence of disease in breast cancer survivors. Research published online on March 25 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute concluded that after extended follow-up, there was a clinically and statistically significant increased risk of a new breast cancer event in survivors who took HRT.

Obese Women & Cancer Screening

A review of 32 cancer studies (10 breast cancer studies, 14 cervical cancer studies, and eight colorectal cancer studies) has found that obese women are less likely to have some types of cancer screening. For breast cancer, obesity was associated with decreased screening among white women but not among black women. For cervical cancer, there was an inverse relation between decreased screening and increasing body size, and several studies reported that the association was more consistent among white women than among black women. The results on a relationship between screening and weight were mixed for colorectal screening. The researchers wrote, "Overall, the results indicated that obesity most likely is a barrier to screening for breast and cervical cancers, particularly among white women; the evidence for colorectal cancer screening was inconclusive. Thus, efforts to identify barriers and increase screening for breast and cervical cancers may be targeted toward obese women, whereas outreach to all women should remain the objective for colorectal cancer screening programs." The paper was published online on March 24 in Cancer.

Big Belly at 40 Increases Risk of …

If you're like most people, you may have thought "risk of …" metabolic syndrome, or diabetes, or cardiovascular problems, but did you think "dementia"!? An article published online on March 26 in Neurology concludes that: "Central obesity in midlife increases risk of dementia independent of diabetes and cardiovascular comorbidities." The findings were based on 6,583 people in northern California, who were tracked for an average of 36 years, starting when they were ages 40 to 45.

Cloning to Treat Parkinson's in Mice

A brief communication published online on March 23 in Nature Medicine reports that researchers have treated mice with Parkinson's using their own cloned cells, and that the mice showed significant signs of improvement after treatment. According to a March 23 news release, "The scientists used skin cells from the tail of the animal to generate customized or autologous dopamine neurons – the missing neurons in Parkinson's disease. The mice that received neurons derived from individually matched stem cell lines exhibited neurological improvement. But when these neurons were grafted into mice that did not genetically match the transplanted cells, the cells did not survive well and the mice did not recover."

Preemies

A contribution published in the March 26 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, which looked at 1,167,506 people born in Norway between 1967 and 1988, concluded that preterm birth was associated with diminished long-term survival and reproduction. Preterm women were at increased risk of having preterm children. A March 26 news release about the research also said, "Preterm birth contributes to several long-term quality of health issues, including lower educational achievement, lower rates of reproduction, and an increase in the likelihood that future offspring will be born preterm and with complications." Lead author, Dr. Geeta Swamy, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Duke said, "Preterm survival is improving now because of interventions we have in pregnancy and neonatal care. However, it may be that we're improving survival while adversely affecting the overall health and quality of life in the long run."

Hyperactive Girls

A paper published in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry looked at 881 females to age 21, who provided self-reports of substance use problems, criminal behaviors, aggression in intimate relationships, early pregnancy, educational attainment, and welfare assistance. Researchers found that girls with high hyperactivity were significantly more likely to report nicotine use problems, mutual psychological aggression in intimate relationships, and low educational attainment than other females. Those who were determined to have high hyperactivity and high physical aggression were significantly more likely to report physical aggression and psychological aggression in intimate relationships, early pregnancy, and welfare assistance than other females. As a result, the researchers recommended that elementary school girls with elevated levels of hyperactivity should be targeted for intensive prevention programs, which should take into account the presence or absence of physical aggression.

Assessing the Safety of Singulair

The Food and Drug Administration announced on March 27 that they were working with the pharmaceutical company Merck to evaluate a possible link between the use of Singulair and behavior/mood changes, suicidality, and suicide. Singulair is used to treat asthma and the symptoms of allergic rhinitis (sneezing, stuffy nose, runny nose, itching of the nose), as well as to prevent exercise-induced asthma. Singular received FDA approval in 1998.

Social Security Funding in the USA

The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the financial health of the Social Security Trust Funds on March 25. In a news release, they announced four major findings: the projected point at which tax revenues will fall below program costs comes in 2017 (the same as the estimate in last year's report); the projected point at which the Trust Funds will be exhausted comes in 2041 (the same as the estimate in last year's report); the projected actuarial deficit over the 75-year long-range period is 1.70% of taxable payroll (down from 1.95% in last year's report); over the 75-year period, the Trust Funds would require additional revenue equivalent to $4.3 trillion in today's dollars to pay all scheduled benefits.

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