UroToday – In the online edition of the British Journal of Urology International, Dr. Bradley Erickson reports on the incidence of bladder neck contractures in men undergoing open radical retropubic prostatectomy. The data includes 4,132 patients in a single surgeon series of Dr. William Catalona’s patients.

The patients were operated on from 1983 to 2007 and had at least one year of follow-up. Men had a bilateral nerve sparing prostatectomy when deemed appropriate. The bladder neck is reconstructed in a racquet handle fashion using 2-0 chromic to a size of 22-24 French. The mucosa is everted using 3-0 chromic from the 9 to 3 o’clock position. Initially, 4 interrupted 2-0 chromic sutures were used and this was increased to 5 plus an additional suture when considered necessary. The sutures are placed at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 o’clock positions. Knots are tied under direct vision with the aid of a hand held retractor. The surgeons report the importance of a dry surgical bed and water-tight anastomosis. The catheter is taken out on day 10. Clinical and pathologic data was assessed with regard to the presence of a bladder neck contracture. A bladder neck contracture was considered confirmed if a 17 F cystoscope could not easily be navigated into the bladder.

Of the 4,132 men in the database, a total of 110 were identified to have a bladder neck contracture. Patients with a bladder neck contracture were older (65 vs. 61 years) with a higher clinical stage, a higher median PSA level (6.7 vs. 5.7), but similar levels of positive surgical margins (20-22%) and organ-confined cancer. A bladder neck contracture was more likely to occur in a patient who would have biochemical progression of their CaP and require eventual radiotherapy. Men experiencing a bladder neck contracture were more likely to have a lower potency rate (49% vs. 63%) and lower continence rate (88% vs. 94%).

Patients operated on early in the surgical series were more likely to have a bladder neck contracture and the initial rate of 17% decreased to Continue reading →

According to the results of a new survey of 500 GPs across the UK, many GPs have concerns about the tolerability profile of higher doses of statins that are significant enough to affect their prescribing decisions.1 In the survey, which was conducted by TNS Healthcare UK and sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited and Schering-Plough Limited, 40% of the GPs questioned about their use of simvastatin 40mg said they would not routinely increase the simvastatin dose to 80mg for patients that do not reach their lipid targets on the 40mg dose.1 Of these, 72% said this was due to tolerability concerns with 61% also noting the limited extra efficacy of the 80mg dose of simvastatin in comparison to the 40mg dose.1

This is despite the NICE Lipid Modification Guideline (CG 67) which states, for secondary prevention, that doctors should consider increasing to simvastatin 80mg or a drug of similar efficacy and cost if lipid targets for high risk patients are not reached on simvastatin 40mg.2

Additional results from the survey show that 67% of GPs believe that more than one in ten of their patients given the 80mg dose of simvastatin experience side effects that impact their compliance to treatment, with 34% estimating that at least one in every four patients is affected.1

Professor Mike Kirby, Visiting Professor, Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, University of Hertfordshire commented, “Getting patients to lipid targets is critical to reducing CVD rates in the UK but patients often need higher doses of statins to reach the levels set out by NICE. This survey brings to light the concerns held by many GPs about prescribing these doses. Higher dose statins have a place in treatment of patients at very high cardiovascular risk, such as those with familial hypercholesterolaemia, and for these patients, the benefits may outweigh the concerns about tolerability. But for those who fail to tolerate higher dose regimens, alternative approaches should be considered to ensure people can stay on treatment and reach their LDL-C targets.”

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and CVD prevention in the UK

The NICE Guideline Development Group for the Lipid Modification Guideline (CG 67) highlights that CVD, which comprises coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, is the main cause of death in England and Wales, accounting for approximately 124,000 deaths in 2005.2

The NICE Lipid Modification Guideline recommends statin therapy as part of the management strategy for the primary prevention of CVD for adults who have a 20% or greater 10-year risk of developing CVD. Lipid targets for secondary prevention of CVD are total cholesterol Continue reading →

Susie Sanderson, Chair of the Executive Board of the British Dental Association, today issued a statement to mark the second anniversary of the new NHS dental contract, introduced in England and Wales on 1 April 2006.

“This is a bleak second birthday for the new dental contract with criticism from the profession and patients continuing to gain momentum. The level of concern is starkly revealed in the evidence given to the Health Select Committee, currently investigating the impact of the Government’s troubled and controversial reforms of NHS dentistry.

“In the course of this second year, we have seen:

- statistics released that revealed 47% of dentists failed to meet their first year UDA targets

- figures that show access to NHS dentistry has still not been improved by the reforms

- a Patients Association survey of MPs that found dentistry was the health issue that caused most concern to their constituents

- the decision by the House of Commons’ Health Select Committee to undertake an inquiry into the dental reforms.

“The BDA will continue to call for action to tackle the flaws in this target-driven system and is also working proactively at a local level to encourage the commissioning of dentistry which genuinely meets local people’s needs.”

1. Dental contractors (a dentist/dental practice) are commissioned by their primary care trusts to deliver a fixed number of units of dental activity annually, which is written into their contract. It is the only measure used to establish whether a contractor has complied with the contract. (The BDA argues a wider range of measures should be used, for example, patient experience). BDA analysis of information supplied by the NHS Business Services Authority showed in the first year of the contract that 47% of dental contractors failed to provide at least 96% of the contracted number of UDAs. These are the latest available figures. If a contractor exceeds the number of contracted UDAs they won’t get paid for this additional work, and if they fail to reach their target, they risk having to pay money back to the PCT which can run into thousands of pounds.

2 The Department of Health acknowledged in 2006 that approximately two million people who wanted to access NHS dentistry were unable to do so. For details, click here.
According to the latest statistics available from The Information Centre, 543,000 fewer patients were seen by an NHS dentist in England in the 24 months up to 30 September 2007, compared to the 24 months up to 31 March 2006. For details, click here.
A survey of patients by the Healthcare Commission in 2005 found that 69 per cent of those not registered with an NHS dentist would like to be. This equated to approximately 15 million people. For details, click here.

3 Patients Association: The new dental contract: full of holes and causing pain, March 2008.

4 The Health Select Committee has just concluded taking oral evidence from a wide range of interested parties, including patient groups, commissioners of dentistry, dentists and the Department of Health.

5 The British Dental Association (BDA) is the professional association for dentists in the UK. It represents over 22,000 dentists working in general practice, in community and hospital settings, in academia and research, and in the armed forces.

British Dental Association Continue reading →

An integrated approach to cancer care needs to be developed in Australia that incorporates psychosocial and biological interventions, according to an article published in a Medical Journal of Australia supplement.

The Anxiety, Depression and Cancer supplement is the product of a partnership between beyondblue and the Cancer Council Australia.

Professor David Clarke, of the School of Psychology and Psychiatry at Monash University, Melbourne, and Research Advisor at beyondblue, said that despite the development of an evidence base in the field of psychooncology in the past few decades, clinical practice lagged behind evidence and standards of best practice.

“Cancer, more than any other disease, confronts us all with serious existential issues,” Professor Clarke said.

“It challenges the sense of control we might think we have over our lives, and raises the possibility of the purposelessness and futility of life, as well as raising questions about what is a good life and a good death.

“There is evidence for the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in relieving distress and assisting in psychosocial adjustment for people in the experience of cancer.

“However, these interventions are not routinely offered by cancer services to patients and their families.

“To correct this, we need champions in the field talking about the issue; consumers and carers participating in the research and sharing their experiences; and leading practice-policymakers and health providers with the moral courage to fully implement ‘evidence-based’ and humane care beyond the trial phase.”

Professor Clarke said the importance of psychosocial interventions is not diminished by advances in medical science, such as genetic screening, which produced groups of people who, while well, lived with the anxiety of developing cancer at any time in their life.

“beyondblue and Cancer Council Australia are committed to working together towards seeing the development of an integrated approach to cancer care, incorporating the psychosocial and biological,” he said.

The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.

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Our brains are packed with cholesterol, almost all of which has to be produced within the brain itself, where it is critical for normal brain functions. Now, a new study in the December Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, reveals how that critical cholesterol synthesis in the brain is derailed in mice with diabetes.

The findings offer a new explanation for the neurologic and cerebral complications that come with diabetes, including cognitive dysfunction, depression, and an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to the researchers.

“People with diabetes can have a lot of problems with brain function, especially if it is uncontrolled,” said C. Ronald Kahn of Harvard’s Joslin Diabetes Center. “The assumption had been that this was related to the effects of poor glucose control. Our findings suggest a completely new concept.”

The discovery came out of a general exploration of changes in global gene activity in the brain’s hypothalamus in insulin-deficient diabetic mice. Those screens turned up changes in genes involved in appetite and feeding, as expected. But they also turned up many genes involved in cholesterol synthesis.

“The changes were not large, but they were in many genes in the pathway and they were all in the same direction,” Kahn said.

Further study showed that the insulin-deficient mice showed a reduction in a gene, called SREBP-2, which is a master controller of cholesterol metabolism. That change reduced the production of cholesterol in the brain and lowered the amount of cholesterol in cell membranes that are important for the communications from one neuron to the next.

The cholesterol in those cell membranes turns over rapidly, Kahn explained, and effects could be seen in animals with uncontrolled diabetes after just a week or two. That brief period of insulin deficiency did not lead to changes in the cholesterol-rich myelin that insulates neurons. It’s possible that uncontrolled diabetes over a longer period of time – months or even years – might lead to changes in the myelin, too, he said.

The changes they observed were traced to the direct effects of insulin on brain cells. Cholesterol synthesis was completely restored when the animals were injected with insulin.

Kahn said it is clear that the changes in cholesterol metabolism could have broad effects on brain function, with the potential to influence memory, physical functioning, and hormone levels, depending on which parts of the brain are most affected. They hope to get a handle on those secondary effects through further study in animals and to ultimately begin to explore the relevance of the new findings to human patients.

As for what those who have diabetes might take from the findings, Kahn said, “This is another reason to think that keeping good control over blood sugar might make a difference.”

The findings also point to a general need in science to learn much more about cholesterol metabolism in the brain and what might affect it, for better or worse. For instance, he added, the results raise the prospect that cholesterol-lowering statins – some of which can cross the blood-brain barrier – might have unintended consequences for the brain and its function. Earlier studies designed to look for a potential effect of statins on cognitive function in patients have so far yielded conflicting results, the researchers noted.

Continue reading →

Callisto Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. KAL (FWB:CA4), a developer of new drug treatments in the fight against
cancer and other major health threats, announced that a leading independent
research firm, First Berlin Equity Research, has issued an updated research
report with a “Buy” rating, and a speculative risk rating.

First Berlin issued the research update following Callisto’s
announcement of the first dosing of patients in a multi-center, open-label
Phase II clinical trial of Atiprimod to treat low to intermediate grade
neuroendocrine carcinomas, including advanced carcinoid cancers. Treatment
of advanced carcinoid tumors is currently an un-met medical need. Carcinoid
tumors primarily metastasize to the liver, lungs bone and lymph nodes.
Standard chemotherapy has generally proven ineffective, typically relieving
symptoms in less than 30% of cases.

First Berlin is a leading European research firm. Its coverage of
Callisto is fully independent.

About First Berlin

Established in 1998, First Berlin is an independent equity research
company. First Berlin combines decades of experience in the markets of
London, New York and Frankfurt, enabling it to offer its clients a standard
of service that until now has only been available to larger firms. For more
information, visit firstberlin.

About Atiprimod

Atiprimod is an orally bio-available small molecule drug that displays
multiple mechanisms of action. The drug has been shown to be
antiangiogenic, inhibit secretion of VEGF and IL-6, elicit an apoptotic
response (programmed cellular death), and inhibit phosphorylation of key
kinases involved in tumor progression and survival including Akt and STAT3.
The drug is presently in three clinical trials: a Phase II trial in
advanced carcinoid cancer patients, a Phase I/IIa human clinical trial in
relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma patients, and in a Phase I/IIa
trial in advanced cancer patients. Callisto earlier announced in June, 2006
interim data from the Phase I trial of Atiprimod in advanced cancer
patients. The patients who were entered into this trial had growing tumors
and symptoms that were no longer controlled by the standard therapies
utilized. During treatment, three of the five advanced carcinoid patients
had measurable tumor regressions and loss of many of the debilitating
symptoms of this disease.

About Carcinoid Cancer

Carcinoid tumors, or carcinoids, originate in hormone-producing cells
of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, the respiratory tract, the
hepatobiliary (liver) system and the reproductive glands. The most common
site of origin is the GI tract, with tumors often developing in the rectum,
and other sections of the small intestine. Approximately 7,000 cases of
carcinoid cancer are diagnosed in the U.S. annually, with the number
increasing over the past 20-30 years. Carcinoid tumors that metastasize to
the liver have a poor prognosis. Traditionally, chemotherapy relieves
symptoms in less than 30% of cases of metastatic carcinoid tumors, usually
for less than 1 year. Carcinoid tumors can result in a condition called
“carcinoid syndrome” which is caused by the release of hormones by the
tumors into the blood stream. The symptoms vary depending on which hormones
are released by the tumors, but typically include diarrhea, facial
flushing, wheezing, abdominal pain and valvular heart disease.

About Callisto Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Callisto is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of
new drugs to treat various forms of cancer and other serious afflictions.
Callisto’s drug candidates in development currently include anti-cancer
agents in clinical development, in addition to drugs in pre-clinical
development for other significant health care markets, including ulcerative
colitis. One of the Company’s lead drug candidates, Atiprimod, is in
development to treat advanced carcinoid cancer, a neuroendocrine tumor, and
relapsed multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. Atiprimod is presently in a
Phase II clinical trial in advanced carcinoid cancer patients, and in Phase
I/IIa human clinical trials in relapsed multiple myeloma patients, and
advanced cancer patients, respectively. Another anti-cancer drug,
L-Annamycin, is being developed as a treatment for forms of relapsed acute
leukemia, a currently incurable blood cancer. Callisto initiated a clinical
trial of L-Annamycin in adult relapsed acute lymphocytic leukemia patients
in 4Q 2005. L-Annamycin, a new compound from the anthracycline family of
proven anti-cancer drugs, has a novel therapeutic profile, including
activity against resistant diseases and significantly reduced
cardiotoxicity, or damage to the heart, compared to currently available
drug alternatives. Callisto also has drugs in preclinical development for
gastro-intestinal inflammation, and cancer. Callisto has exclusive
worldwide licenses from AnorMED Inc. and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center to
develop, manufacture, use and sell Atiprimod and L-Annamycin, respectively.
Callisto is also listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker
symbol CA4. Information is available at callistopharma.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this press release are forward-looking. Such
statements are indicated by words such as “expect,” “should,” “anticipate”
and similar words indicating uncertainty in facts and figures. Although
Callisto believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking
statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations
reflected in such forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. As
discussed in the Callisto Pharmaceuticals Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for
the year ended December 31, 2005, and other periodic reports, as filed with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, actual results could differ
materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a
result of the following factors, among others: uncertainties associated
with product development, the risk that products that appeared promising in
early clinical trials do not demonstrate efficacy in larger-scale clinical
trials, the risk that Callisto will not obtain approval to market its
products, the risks associated with dependence upon key personnel and the
need for additional financing.

Callisto Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
callistopharma Continue reading →

On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, the surgical team from Ege University in Izmir, Turkey, led by Prof. Mustafa Ozbaran, head of the Transplant and Assist Device Program, completed the first phase of certification training for the SynCardia temporary CardioWest™ Total Artificial Heart in Paris.

“We are excited to deliver this technology to our sickest patients who do not have any other chance to survive until a donor heart is available,” said Prof. Ozbaran. “The SynCardia Total Artificial Heart is an important and complementary tool for our assist device program.”

Ege University is one of the biggest and oldest universities in Turkey. The heart transplant program, started in 1998, has become the most active program in the country, performing a total of 130 transplants. Each year, Ege University performs approximately 1,100 open heart surgeries.

In Turkey, the average wait time for a donor heart transplant is 18 to 24 months. There are currently 43 patients on the waiting list for a donor heart. Ege University is the first transplant hospital in Turkey and the 46th in the world to begin certification training for the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart.

Originally used as a permanent replacement heart, the Total Artificial Heart is currently approved as a bridge to human heart transplant for patients dying from end-stage biventricular failure. The Total Artificial Heart is the only device that provides immediate, safe blood flow of up to 9.5 L/min through both ventricles.

The SynCardia Total Artificial Heart is the first and only FDA, Health Canada and CE Mark approved Total Artificial Heart in the world. There have been more than 800 implants of the Total Artificial Heart, accounting for more than 170 patient years of life on the device.

Source
SynCardia Systems, Inc. Continue reading →

A new computer-based technique could eliminate hours of manual adjustment associated with a popular cancer treatment. In a paper published in Physics in Medicine and Biology, researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center describe an approach that has the potential to automatically determine acceptable radiation plans in a matter of minutes, without compromising the quality of treatment.

“Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) has exploded in popularity, but the technique can require hours of manual tuning to determine an effective radiation treatment for a given patient,” said Richard Radke, assistant professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering at Rensselaer. Radke is leading a team of engineers and medical physicists to develop a “machine learning” algorithm that could cut hours from the process.

A subfield of artificial intelligence, machine learning is based on the development of algorithms that allow computers to learn relationships in large datasets from examples. Radke and his coworkers have tested their algorithm on 10 prostate cancer patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. They found that for 70 percent of the cases, the algorithm automatically determined an appropriate radiation therapy plan in about 10 minutes.

“The main goal of radiation therapy is to irradiate a tumor with a very high dose, while avoiding all of the healthy organs,” Radke said. He described early versions of radiation therapy as a “fire hose” approach, applying a uniform stream of particles to overwhelm cancer cells with radiation.

IMRT adds nuance and flexibility to radiation therapy, increasing the likelihood of treating a tumor without endangering surrounding healthy tissue. Each IMRT beam is composed of thousands of tiny “beamlets” that can be individually modulated to deliver the right level of radiation precisely where it is needed.

But the semi-automatic process of developing a treatment plan can be extremely time-consuming — up to about four hours for prostate cancer and up to an entire day for more complicated cancers in the head and neck, according to Radke.

A radiation planner must perform a CT scan, analyze the image to determine the exact locations of the tumor and healthy tissues, and define the radiation levels that each area should receive. Then the planner must give weight to various constraints set by a doctor, such as allowing no more than a certain level of radiation to hit a nearby organ, while assuring that the tumor receives enough to kill the cancerous cells.

This is currently achieved by manually determining the settings of up to 20 different parameters, or “knobs,” deriving the corresponding radiation plan, and then repeating the process if the plan does not meet the clinical constraints. “Our goal is to automate this knob-turning process, saving the planner’s time by removing decisions that don’t require their expert intuition,” said Radke.

The researchers first performed a sensitivity analysis, which showed that many of the parameters could be eliminated completely because they had little effect on the outcome of the treatment. They then showed that an automatic search over the smaller set of sensitive parameters could theoretically lead to clinically acceptable plans.

The procedure was put to the test by developing radiation plans for 10 patients with prostate cancer. In all 10 cases the process took between five and 10 minutes, Radke said. Four cases would have been immediately acceptable in the clinic; three needed only minor “tweaking” by an expert to achieve an acceptable radiation plan; and three would have demanded more attention from a radiation planner.

Radke and his coworkers plan to develop a more robust prototype that can be installed on hospital computers and evaluated in a clinical setting. He hopes to see a clinical prototype in place at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in the next few years. The researchers also plan to test the approach on tumors that are more difficult to treat with radiation therapy, such as head and neck cancers.

In a related project, Radke is collaborating with colleagues at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital to create computer vision algorithms that offer accurate estimates of the locations of tumors. This automatic modeling and segmentation process could help radiation planning at an earlier stage by automatically outlining organs of interest in each image of a CT scan, which is another time-consuming manual step. Learn more about this project here: news.rpi/update.do?artcenterkey=134.

The research is supported by the National Cancer Institute and the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS) at Rensselaer, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Renzhi Lu, a graduate student in electrical engineering at Rensselaer, also contributed to the research.

About Rensselaer

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation’s oldest technological university. The university offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, architecture, management, and the humanities and social sciences. Institute programs serve undergraduates, graduate students, and working professionals around the world. Rensselaer faculty are known for pre-eminence in research conducted in a wide range of fields, with particular emphasis in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, and the media arts and technology. The Institute is well known for its success in the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace so that new discoveries and inventions benefit human life, protect the environment, and strengthen economic development.

Contact: Jason Gorss

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Continue reading →

A recent article in The Journal of the American Medical
Association reports that when preschool children in villages
in Ethiopia took the antibiotic azithromycin twice per year instead of
once per year, the number of children with eye infections caused by the
contagious eye disease trachoma was significantly reduced. The study
was conducted by Muluken Melese of Orbis International, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia and colleagues.

Trachoma is the an infectious eye disease that is the leading cause of
the world’s preventable blindness. It is caused by the a chlamydia
bacterium.

Trachoma is common in poor, dry areas like rural sub-Saharan Africa,
but it has been eradicated from Western Europe and the United
States. “The World Health Organization has launched a program
to control trachoma, relying in large part on annual repeated mass
azithromycin administrations. Program administrators anticipate that
the treatments will reduce the prevalence of the ocular strains of
chlamydia that cause trachoma to a level low enough that resulting
blindness will be no longer be a major public health concern. However,
local elimination of ocular chlamydia may be obtainable,” according to
the authors of the study..

The elimination of trachoma is possible, according to some mathematical
models. However, it may require recurrent treatment in areas where
people are at a greater risk of becoming infected. It is regarded that
elimination is a particularly important goal – if antibotics are
discontinued and communities lose some their immunity, there is a
concern that infection may return.

The researchers focused on the Gurage Zone in Ethiopia – 16 rural
villages with a high prevalence of trachoma. They analyzed the results
of azithromycin given once and twice per year to all residents age 1
year or older from March 2003 to April 2005. About 91% of the 16,403
eligible individuals received their scheduled treatment.

One major result of the study showed a 6-fold decrease in infections of
preschool children from eight villages who received two annual
treatments compared to one, from 42.6% to 6.8% by 24 months. When the
treatment was administered four times in the other eight villages,
infections were reduced in preschool children by a factor of 35, from
31.6% to 0.9% by 24 months.

The researchers report that at 24 months, 0.9 percent of children were
infected in the biannually treated villages compared to 6.8 percent of
children in the annually treated villages – a significant difference.
At 24 months, 75% of preschool children did not show any infection
after receiving biannual treatment compared to 12.5% of the residents
receiving annual treatments. There was also an association between
having no infection identified at 24 months and being in the biannual
treatment group.

“Biannual coverage of a large portion of the community may be necessary
to eliminate infection from a severely affected community or at least
to do so in a timely manner. Although programs may be reluctant to
devote their scarce resources to more frequent treatment, this may be
more cost-effective in the long term. Local elimination of the ocular
strains of chlamydia from villages is a feasible goal but may require
biannual distributions in hyperendemic areas. The results of this study
confirm models that suggest treatments will need to be given for more
than the 2 years to predictably achieve elimination in more than 95
percent of villages. Whether elimination from a larger area is possible
will depend on the frequency of community-to-community
transmission,” conclude the researchers.

An editorial by David Mabey and Anthony W. Solomon of the London School
of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London maintains that the
research performed by Melese and colleagues is valuable for the
treatment of trachoma.

They write:

“Treating entire regions twice yearly could help ensure that gains made
from frequent antibiotic use are not eroded by reintroduction of
infection from outside the treated area but will significantly increase
the cost of antibiotics and of their distribution. Finally, studies to
examine whether more frequent azithromycin use will result in the
emergence of macrolide-resistant strains of C. trachomatis or other
important pathogens are urgently required, for such an outcome would
more than offset any gain derived from biannual treatment. In the
meantime, the findings of Melese et al represent an important
contribution to understanding how blinding trachoma can be reduced and
hopefully eliminated.”

Comparison of Annual and Biannual Mass Antibiotic
Administration for Elimination of Infectious Trachoma
Muluken Melese, Wondu Alemayehu, Takele Lakew, Elizabeth Yi, Jenafir
House, Jaya D. Chidambaram, Zhaoxia Zhou, Vicky
Cevallos, Kathryn Ray, Kevin Cyrus Hong, Travis C. Porco,
Isabella Phan, Ali Zaidi, Bruce D. Gaynor, John P. Whitcher, Thomas M.
Lietman
JAMA. (2008). Vol. 299 No. 7: pp. 778-784
Click
Here to View Abstract

Mass Antibiotic Administration for Eradication of Ocular
Chlamydia trachomatis
David Mabey and Anthony W. Solomon
JAMA. (2008). Vol. 299 No. 7: pp. 819-820
Click
Here to View Abstract

Written by: Peter M Crosta

Continue reading →

In parallel with announcing encouraging clinical data at the 2011 BMT Tandem Meetings from its ongoing proof-of-concept FT1050 Phase 1b trial, Fate Therapeutics announced that Paul A. Grayson, who has been president & CEO since April 2008, is leaving Fate to form a new company.

“I am proud of the outstanding organization that I have assembled at Fate, and of the company’s innovative product pipeline,” noted Mr. Grayson. “This excellent news regarding FT1050 clinical development and its orphan designation, and the emerging platform for ex vivo stem cell modulation, place Fate on the best footing possible. Over the past three years, the team has demonstrated an enviable track record across all facets of the business.”

“On behalf of the entire Board of Directors and investor groups, we recognize, appreciate and laud Paul’s accomplishments in building one of the most innovative engines for interrogating stem cell biology,” said Carl Weissman, director of Fate Therapeutics and managing director at OVP Venture Partners. “Under his direction over the past three years, Fate Therapeutics has pioneered point-of-care, pharmacologic modulation of stem cells for therapeutic benefit, has been honored with multiple awards trumpeting its revolutionary induced pluripotent stem cell technology and has filled its product pipeline with several novel regenerative recombinant protein candidates.”

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