- Alzheimer's Drug May Help Brain Cancer Patients
- Melamine Found in More ChineseEggs
- Bed Sore-Related Hospitalizations Up 80%: Report
- Medicare, Social Security Said to Owe $52 Trillion
- Americans' Health May Decline: Report
- Cleveland Clinic to Disclose Doctors' Business Ties
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
Alzheimer's Drug May Help Brain Cancer Patients
An experimental Alzheimer's drug may be effective against highly aggressive brain tumors called malignant gliomas that are resistant to conventional treatments, according to Canadian researchers.
The University of Calgary team identified a "switch" activated by a protein already present in the brain that enables cancer cells to spread from the primary brain tumor. The Alzheimer's drug prevents that switch from being turned on, CBC News reported.
The study was published in the journal PLoS Biology.
"Several drug companies have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing drugs that target this process, although in Alzheimer's, not in cancer, so it's sort of a new way to think about it, and we have a leg up where we could make an impact," oncology professor Dr. Peter Forsyth told CBC News.
Clinical trials to test this treatment on brain cancer patients in Alberta could begin within a few years, he said.
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Melamine Found in More ChineseEggs
The industrial chemical melamine has been found in another Chinese brand of eggs, Hong Kong health authorities said.
The eggs from a farm in Dehui City in the northeastern province of Jilinwere distributed through a local importer in a wholesale food market. The importer has been told to stop selling the eggs and officials are trying todetermine where the eggs may have been sold. The eggs were distributed tosome bakeries but not to any other retail outlets,BBC Newsreported.
In October, Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety announced that melamine had been detected in Chinese produced eggs. In that case, it's believed the melamine came from tainted chicken feed. Since then, the center has tested 307 egg samples and found four of them had nearly twice the legal limit of melamine.
There's an allowable limit of 2.5 parts per million (ppm) of melamine in food. Tests showed the latest batch of eggs had 4.7 ppm of melamine, BBC News reported.
Earlier this week, Chinese health officials said a total of 294,000 children in China have fallen ill so far, after consuming melamine-tainted dairy products, and 154 of them remained in serious condition.
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Bed Sore-RelatedHospitalizations Up 80%: Report
Between 1993 and 2006 there was an 80 percent increase inhospitalizations for pressure ulcers -- better known as bed sores, according to the latest News and Numbers from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The agency's analysis of data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample found that of the 503,300 pressure ulcer-related hospitalizations in 2006:
- Pressure ulcers were the primary diagnosis in about 45,000 hospital admissions, compared to 35,800 in 1993.
- Pressure ulcers were a secondary diagnosis in 457,800 hospital admissions in 2006, compared to 245,600 in 1993. Most of these patients were admitted for pneumonia, infection or other medical problems and developed pressure ulcers before or after hospital admission.
- Death occurred in about one in 25 of cases in which pressure ulcers were the primary diagnosis, and in about one in eight cases in which pressure ulcers were a secondary diagnosis.
- Pressure ulcer-related hospitalizations last longer and cost more thanmany other hospitalizations. The overall average hospital stay is five days and costs about $10,000. The average pressure ulcer-related hospital stay is 13 to 14 days and costs $16,755 to $20,430, depending on medicalcircumstances.
Bed sores typically occur among patients who can't move or who have lost sensation. Older patients, stroke victims, and people who are paralyzed,have diabetes or dementia are at high risk for bed sores.
