Edmund's Newsletter May 27, 2008 Issue: #22 Volume 8 Join Our List In This Issue More Patients With Drug-Coated Cardiac Stents Survive, Avoid Costly and Invasive Follow-Up Procedures The Emerging Role Of Infection In Alzheimer's Disease No Link Between Antidepressants and Birth Defects Virtual Biopsy Can Tell Whether Colon Polyp is Benign Without Removal Re-Analysis Shows Drug Finasteride Reduces Risk for Most Prostate Cancers, Without Boosting Aggressive Disease A New Approach to Protect the Hearts of Patients with Muscular Dystrophy Using Viagra Bypass Not To Blame for Heart Patients Mental Decline Believe It Or Not News From MedWatch Recently Approved Drugs/Indications FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days Drug Shortages Quick Links Edmund's Blog Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Web Page Past Issues SPECIAL THANKS TO Michael R. Cohen President The Institute for Safe Medication Practices and Dr. Stephen Barrett Quackwatch Some links in Edmund's Newsletter will point to a page that requires registration.  In all cases the most you will have to do is fill out a simple form to enroll as a member.  In no case will I point you to a site that requires payment to view the page. PRAY FOR PEACE © 2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Join Our List More Patients With Drug-Coated Cardiac Stents Survive, Avoid Costly and Invasive Follow-Up Procedures The more than ten million Americans who've received drug-eluting stents to open their blocked coronary arteries have a bright future, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The findings, among the first large follow-up studies to show a clear, lifesaving benefit of drug-eluting stents compared to bare metal stents, will be published in the May 27 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Patients with the drug-coated stents -- designed not only to open blocked coronary arteries but also to chemically inhibit future blockage -- were less apt to die, have heart attacks or require extra stents or bypass surgery in the two years following placement of the stent. "This might be a hidden nugget of goodness that could not be detected in clinical trials," says Peter W. Groeneveld, MD, MS, assistant professor in Penn's Division of General Internal Medicine. "There is a distinct possibility that drug-eluting stents not only reduce the need for future cardiac procedures, but also save lives." Read more..... The Emerging Role Of Infection In Alzheimer's Disease A number of chronic diseases are in fact caused by one or more infectious agents. For example, stomach ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori, chronic lung disease in newborns and chronic asthma in adults are both caused by Mycoplasmas and Chlamydia pneumonia, while some other pathogens have been associated with atherosclerosis. The realization that pathogens can produce slowly progressive chronic diseases has opened new lines of research into Alzheimer's disease. In a special issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease published May 2008, guest editors Judith Miklossy, from The University of British Columbia, and Ralph N. Martins, from Edith Cowan University and Hollywood Private Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, and a group of experts explore this exciting topic. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most frequent cause of dementia, is a form of amyloidosis. It has been known for a century that dementia, brain atrophy and amyloidosis can be caused by chronic bacterial infections, namely by Treponema pallidum in the atrophic form of general paresis in syphilis. Bacteria and viruses are powerful stimulators of inflammation. It was suggested by Alois Alzheimer and his colleagues a century ago that microorganisms may be contributors in the generation of senile plaques in AD. Read more..... No Link Between Antidepressants and Birth Defects Expectant mothers can safely use prescribed antidepressants during their first trimester, according to a new study from the Université de Montréal and Ste. Justine Hospital published in the May edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Anick Bérard and her team found that antidepressants have no effect on foetal development. "This is the first study to investigate the impact of antidepressant use during the first trimester of pregnancy in mothers with psychiatric disorders," she said. "In terms of birth malformations in this population, we found no difference between women who used antidepressants and those who did not use antidepressants during their first trimester." The research team used data from the Quebec Pregnancy Registry, established by their group, to analyze the records of 2,329 new mothers diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and treated with antidepressants for at least 30 days before pregnancy. Also included in the registry were women who delivered liveborn and stillborn children, while birth defects were considered anything from facial malformations to heart anomalies. "The duration of antidepressant use in the first trimester of pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of birth malformations," explained Dr. Bérard. "We hope these findings help clinicians and women decide whether to continue antidepressant therapy during pregnancy." Read more..... Virtual Biopsy Can Tell Whether Colon Polyp is Benign Without Removal   A probe so sensitive that it can tell whether or not a cell living within the human body is veering towards cancer development may revolutionize how future colonoscopies are done, say researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. Investigators have found that technology known as a high resolution confocal endomicroscopy probe system can determine whether a colon polyp is benign (not precancerous) - without having to remove it for examination by a pathologist. Their study, to be presented at the Digestive Disease Week, a scientific meeting of gastrointestinal specialists and researchers held in San Diego, shows that using the probe system was 89 percent accurate in identifying whether polyps were either precancerous or benign. But more importantly, it was correct 98 percent of the time in flagging polyps that were benign, which would then not need to be removed for biopsy. The Mayo researchers, who are the first in the U.S. to comprehensively test the system in the colon, believe they can push accuracy close to 100 percent with more research. What this means is that the probe system can be used during a colonoscopy to rule out removal of polyps that are not harmful, says the study's senior author, Michael Wallace, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic. Read more..... Re-Analysis Shows Drug Finasteride Reduces Risk for Most Prostate Cancers, Without Boosting Aggressive Disease A re-analysis of data from the landmark Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) finds that finasteride reduces the risk for prostate cancer without boosting the odds of aggressive tumors. PCPT, which involved more than 18,000 men 55 years of age or over, was stopped early in June 2003 because researchers noted that while it reduced prostate cancer in men taking finasteride (Proscar) by up to 25 percent, men taking finasteride also appeared to have more aggressive prostate tumors if and when they did develop the disease. That caused some experts to worry that finasteride was encouraging higher-grade cancers. But a new analysis led by researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center should lay that worry to rest. "Finasteride has long been used by doctors to treat benign enlarged prostate - it shrinks the prostate. So when we accounted for this shrinkage in prostate volume, the disparity in tumor aggressiveness between the finasteride and placebo groups vanished," says study lead author Dr. Steven A. Kaplan, professor of urology at Weill Cornell Medical College and a urologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Read more..... A New Approach to Protect the Hearts of Patients with Muscular Dystrophy Using Viagra An animal study on sildenafil (Viagra) reveals a potential new treatment for the cardiac complications in patients with this major disease A team of researchers has recently shown that the administration of sildenafil protects the heart in mice with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This study was led by Dr. Christine Des Rosiers of the Montreal Heart Institute and the Université de Montréal, in collaboration with Dr. Basil Petrof of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and Dr. Christian Deschepper of the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal. The study findings were published today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This achievement was a true team initiative and is the culmination of sustained efforts on the part of Dr. Maya Khairallah, who was a doctoral student at the time, and all of the researchers from participating centres," says Dr. Des Rosiers. "I'm pleased that my work has sparked interest in an eventual application for humans," says Dr. Khairallah. The study received financial support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in the U.S. Read more..... Bypass Not To Blame for Heart Patients Mental Decline Heart patients often experience lasting problems with memory, language, and other cognitive skills after bypass surgery. However, these problems aren't caused by the surgery itself or the pump used to replace heart function during surgery, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings may lead to better approaches to prevent cognitive decline regardless of which treatment heart disease patients receive. The study, published in the May Annals of Neurology, compared cognitive function of patients who received cardiac bypass surgery with that of patients who received other treatments for coronary artery disease, including pharmaceuticals and stents. After testing all the study subjects periodically in a variety of cognitive areas for six years after their treatments, the researchers found that both groups experienced an almost identical decline in cognitive function. The results suggest that the disease itself, and not any particular treatment, is the cause for cognitive decline. Previous studies have linked bypass surgery to patients' mental decline, with many doctors blaming the bypass pump that keeps blood flowing through the body during surgery. This research led many doctors to avoid recommending surgery to their patients.  However, Guy McKhann M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explains that previous studies hadn't compared patients who had bypass surgery to those who had other treatments instead.  As such, it's been unknown whether mental decline is a consequence of surgery using the bypass pump, heart troubles, part of the normal aging process, or another cause altogether. Read more..... Believe it or not German parents post baby on eBay for 1 euro Authorities in southern Germany said Saturday they have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, the equivalent of $1.57. Peter Hieber, a spokesman for police in the Bavarian town of Krumbach, said the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region, although the child's 23-year-old mother insisted the ad was only a joke. Authorities have launched an investigation into possible child trafficking against the baby's mother and 24-year-old father, neither of whom was identified. "Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller," police quoted the ad as reading. No offers were made for the child in the two hours and 30 minutes the ad was posted on Tuesday. EBay later deleted the posting, but assisted police in tracking down the parents. Several people who saw the ad alerted police News From MedWatch Keep up-to-date on all of the recent MedWatch reports that gives you timely safety information on the drugs and other medical products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by  CLICKING HERE   Recently Approved Drugs/Indications Keep up-to-date on all of the recently approved drugs and/or approved new indications on already FDA approved drugs by CLICKING HERE   FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days: To see a list of all FDA Recalls and product safety alerts for the last 60 days CLICK HERE   Drug Shortages: As many of you are aware, many drugs in the US are either unavailable or in short supply.  To view a list of these drugs CLICK HERE   Recommend Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Newsletter is published for only one reason and that is expand our knowledge base, join people together with like minds and to disseminate valuable information. 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