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NEWS
More 'equality' needed for anti-cholesterol medications
28 May 2008 17:19:21
There needs to be equal access to anti-cholesterol drugs, known as statins, for people from all social backgrounds, one expert has said.
As well as prescribing the medication to people in 'at-risk' groups, more should be done to identify those people who are likely to benefit from taking statins, explained Dr Sandy Gupta from the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Dr Gupta is a consultant cardiologist and chair of the BHF's committee on ethnic minorities. He welcomed the latest cholesterol awareness campaign from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), but warned that work must be done to ensure equality for all patients within the scheme.
The expert suggested that the "worried well" demographic are able to afford private medical care and will also be more willing to buy statins over the counter than people from poorer backgrounds.
For Dr Gupta this raises questions of accessibility and awareness, with some communities less able to reach the NHS and some unaware of the treatments on offer.
"I am very concerned about this," he said. "It's a bit like over-the-counter statins; if you can afford it, you get it. But for the vast majority of people from lower social classes or deprived populations, they're not interested in buying tablets over the counter.
"In this new drive we've got to make sure there's equality; that we do identify people at higher risk, so it's not just accessed by the 'worried well'. I think that's going to have a lot of debate this week."
Nice revealed a new set of guidelines on lowering the cholesterol levels in people deemed to be at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke and heart attack.
Designed to provide greater clarity for healthcare professionals, the guidelines suggest doctors look at the overall picture when prescribing statins or other cholesterol-lowering drugs.
As well as considering sex and age, doctors will have to look at smoking, increased blood pressure and raised cholesterol as CVD risk factors. Encouraging patients to change their diet and take up more exercise can help to lower blood pressure and in turn, may negate the need for statins, Nice advised.
Dr Tom Marshall, Public Health Specialist and member of the Guideline Development Group, commented: "Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in England and Wales accounting for 124,000 deaths (or one in three deaths) in 2005.
"For every one fatality, there are at least two people who have a major non-fatal CVD event."
He concluded that the guidelines will allow doctors to plan an "achievable and realistic strategy for identifying those people at high risk," and offer the most appropriate lifestyle advice and treatment.
For the guidelines to work, Dr Gupta said there needs to be "a huge campaign" with GPs taking an active interest in their patients.
"The local practitioners are going to have to get to know their population, to go through their registers [and] flag up who's at risk, and call them in… It's got to be done opportunistically, through trawling through databases, and by increasing awareness," the BHF expert maintained.
New study shows improved cancer predictions
31 January 2008 17:43:22
Medical techniques using biomarker assessments have made new progress in predicting people's susceptibility to cancer, it has emerged.
The likelihood of prostate cancer virulence in patients has been assessed under a new model using an individual's Gleason score and biomarker assessment data.
Published online in the BMC Medical Genomics journal, researchers at the University of Texas, US, were able to detect "significant differences" in the molecular signatures linked to varying grades of tumours linked to prostate cancer.
The biomarker data included cell cycle and cell death regulators that are known to be expressed during stages of the disease.
Valuable information regarding the risk of disease progression has been discovered, said Dr Timothy McDonnell, lead researcher at the university.
"With this type of information patients could be more appropriately managed based on their individual risk profile," he added.
National prostate cancer awareness week 2008 takes place between March 10th and 16th, organised by the prostate cancer charity.
'Cystic Fibrosis drug trials show promising results'
28 March 2008 17:27:36
Trials of an oral drug to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) have shown promising results so far, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has announced.
Life insurance policies may be affected by the research which found patients who took the drug for two weeks saw significant improvements in areas affected by the disease, including lung function.
Scientists working on the second phase of ongoing clinical trials for VX-770, an oral drug which targets a basic defect in CF, reported good results and could affect other studies of treatments for the illness.
Dr Robert Beall, president and chief executive of the foundation said: "The emerging data for VX-770 represents the most exciting results we've seen from a Phase Two trial and increase our confidence that we're on the right track."
CF, a life-threatening disease that affects around 70,000 worldwide, is caused by a genetic mutation that results in a malfunctioning protein which causes an imbalance of salt and water, Medical News Today reports.
This imbalance results in a build-up of mucus in the lungs and other organs, increasing the risk of infection.
Direct Life and Pensions Services Ltd are one of the UK's leading providers of life insurance, term life assurance, mortgage protection, critical illness and life insurance advice online
28 May 2008 17:19:21
There needs to be equal access to anti-cholesterol drugs, known as statins, for people from all social backgrounds, one expert has said.
As well as prescribing the medication to people in 'at-risk' groups, more should be done to identify those people who are likely to benefit from taking statins, explained Dr Sandy Gupta from the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Dr Gupta is a consultant cardiologist and chair of the BHF's committee on ethnic minorities. He welcomed the latest cholesterol awareness campaign from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), but warned that work must be done to ensure equality for all patients within the scheme.
The expert suggested that the "worried well" demographic are able to afford private medical care and will also be more willing to buy statins over the counter than people from poorer backgrounds.
For Dr Gupta this raises questions of accessibility and awareness, with some communities less able to reach the NHS and some unaware of the treatments on offer.
"I am very concerned about this," he said. "It's a bit like over-the-counter statins; if you can afford it, you get it. But for the vast majority of people from lower social classes or deprived populations, they're not interested in buying tablets over the counter.
"In this new drive we've got to make sure there's equality; that we do identify people at higher risk, so it's not just accessed by the 'worried well'. I think that's going to have a lot of debate this week."
Nice revealed a new set of guidelines on lowering the cholesterol levels in people deemed to be at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke and heart attack.
Designed to provide greater clarity for healthcare professionals, the guidelines suggest doctors look at the overall picture when prescribing statins or other cholesterol-lowering drugs.
As well as considering sex and age, doctors will have to look at smoking, increased blood pressure and raised cholesterol as CVD risk factors. Encouraging patients to change their diet and take up more exercise can help to lower blood pressure and in turn, may negate the need for statins, Nice advised.
Dr Tom Marshall, Public Health Specialist and member of the Guideline Development Group, commented: "Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in England and Wales accounting for 124,000 deaths (or one in three deaths) in 2005.
"For every one fatality, there are at least two people who have a major non-fatal CVD event."
He concluded that the guidelines will allow doctors to plan an "achievable and realistic strategy for identifying those people at high risk," and offer the most appropriate lifestyle advice and treatment.
For the guidelines to work, Dr Gupta said there needs to be "a huge campaign" with GPs taking an active interest in their patients.
"The local practitioners are going to have to get to know their population, to go through their registers [and] flag up who's at risk, and call them in… It's got to be done opportunistically, through trawling through databases, and by increasing awareness," the BHF expert maintained.
31 January 2008 17:43:22
Medical techniques using biomarker assessments have made new progress in predicting people's susceptibility to cancer, it has emerged.
The likelihood of prostate cancer virulence in patients has been assessed under a new model using an individual's Gleason score and biomarker assessment data.
Published online in the BMC Medical Genomics journal, researchers at the University of Texas, US, were able to detect "significant differences" in the molecular signatures linked to varying grades of tumours linked to prostate cancer.
The biomarker data included cell cycle and cell death regulators that are known to be expressed during stages of the disease.
Valuable information regarding the risk of disease progression has been discovered, said Dr Timothy McDonnell, lead researcher at the university.
"With this type of information patients could be more appropriately managed based on their individual risk profile," he added.
National prostate cancer awareness week 2008 takes place between March 10th and 16th, organised by the prostate cancer charity.
28 March 2008 17:27:36
Trials of an oral drug to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) have shown promising results so far, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has announced.
Life insurance policies may be affected by the research which found patients who took the drug for two weeks saw significant improvements in areas affected by the disease, including lung function.
Scientists working on the second phase of ongoing clinical trials for VX-770, an oral drug which targets a basic defect in CF, reported good results and could affect other studies of treatments for the illness.
Dr Robert Beall, president and chief executive of the foundation said: "The emerging data for VX-770 represents the most exciting results we've seen from a Phase Two trial and increase our confidence that we're on the right track."
CF, a life-threatening disease that affects around 70,000 worldwide, is caused by a genetic mutation that results in a malfunctioning protein which causes an imbalance of salt and water, Medical News Today reports.
This imbalance results in a build-up of mucus in the lungs and other organs, increasing the risk of infection.
Direct Life and Pensions Services Ltd are one of the UK's leading providers of life insurance, term life assurance, mortgage protection, critical illness and life insurance advice online