Life Expectancy News and Research

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Life expectancy is the expected (in the statistical sense) number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by e''x'', which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged ''x'', according to a particular mortality experience.

Medtronic: Kyphon Balloon Kyphoplasty provides better back pain relief in cancer patients

Medtronic Inc., today announced the results of the first randomized, controlled trial comparing Kyphon Balloon Kyphoplasty with non-surgical care in treating spinal fractures in cancer patients. The study found that Kyphon Balloon Kyphoplasty provided cancer patients better back-specific function, more rapid back pain relief and improved quality of life compared with non-surgical care one month after treatment.

17 Feb 2011

Obesity and knee osteoarthritis will lead to loss of 86 million healthy years of life

An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from knee osteoarthritis (OA), making it one of the most common causes of disability in the US. Due to obesity and symptomatic knee OA, Americans over the age of 50 will together lose the equivalent of 86 million healthy years of life, concluded researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), who investigated the potential gains in quality and quantity of life that could be achieved averting losses due to obesity and knee OA.

16 Feb 2011

SynthRx to become wholly-owned subsidiary of ADVENTRX

ADVENTRX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SynthRx, Inc., a private biotechnology company developing a purified form of a rheologic and antithrombotic agent, poloxamer 188.

14 Feb 2011

New clinical trial to test surgery specifically for Type 2 diabetes

A new clinical trial at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center is among the first to test surgery specifically for Type 2 diabetes. The aim of the study is to understand whether surgery can control diabetes, as well or even better than the best medical treatment available today. This is the first study of its kind open to patients who are overweight or mildly obese.

14 Feb 2011

Study: Coastal Canadians living in deprived neighbourhoods likely to have poor health

Canadians living in deprived neighbourhoods are twice as likely to have poor health if they live on the Atlantic or Pacific Coast, according to a new study by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital.

13 Feb 2011

Richard J. Fasenmyer Foundation awards $3M to Cleveland physicians for AIDS research

A three-year, $3 million gift from the Richard J. Fasenmyer Foundation will fund research by a pair of Cleveland physicians into HIV and the body's response in autoimmune diseases.

11 Feb 2011

New trial tests surgery for Type 2 diabetes

11 Feb 2011

World Bank report documents rise of noncommunicable diseases in S. Asia

"South Asia is facing a health crisis, with rising rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity, and patients facing impoverishment as they pay for treatment out of their own pockets," according to a report released Wednesday by the World Bank, Reuters reports (Lyn, 2/9).

10 Feb 2011

Australian teenagers could see declines in life expectancy and more heart problems: Study

Experts warn that the present generation of Australian teenagers could be the first with a decline in life expectancy and an increase in heart disease. This comes from the first comprehensive national study of young Australians since 1985 that shows that a quarter are overweight or obese.

8 Feb 2011

Lifestyle, rather than hereditary factors, plays major role in life expectancy

How long your parents lived does not affect how long you will live. Instead it is how you live your life that determines how old you will get, reveals research from the University of Gothenburg recently published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

8 Feb 2011

CMD co-founder receives Prize4Life award for discovery of new ALS biomarker

Convergence Medical Devices (CMD) today announced that its co-founder, Dr. Seward Rutkove, Chief of the Division of Neuromuscular Disease at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, received Prize4Life's prestigious award for the discovery of a new biomarker for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

7 Feb 2011

Patients with kidney tumours can benefit from nephron-sparing surgery

Patients with kidney tumours larger than four centimetres are much more likely to enjoy good long-term renal function if they undergo nephron-sparing surgery rather than radical nephrectomy, according to a study in the February issue of the urology journal BJUI.

7 Feb 2011

FDA approves Boston Scientific's Renegade HI-FLO Fathom Pre-Loaded System

Boston Scientific Corporation today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its Renegade HI-FLO Fathom Pre-Loaded System for selective access and delivery of diagnostic, embolic and therapeutic materials into the peripheral vasculature.

1 Feb 2011

Empire State Building, NYRR partner with MMRF for new myeloma drugs

For the first time in the 34-year history of the Empire State Building Run-Up, the New York Road Runners has partnered with a nonprofit as the event's Presenting Sponsor.

31 Jan 2011

McGill, GSK enter collaborative research agreement on cystic fibrosis

McGill University and GlaxoSmithKline plc have signed a collaboration agreement to develop a potential breakthrough approach to treat cystic fibrosis, a fatal genetic disease. The trans-Atlantic effort between researchers from McGill's Faculty of Medicine and their GSK collaborators in the UK, will focus on developing molecules that could treat the disease by correcting the dysfunction caused by the mutated gene.

28 Jan 2011

Northwest Biotherapeutics resumes enrollment in DCVax Phase II brain cancer clinical trial

Cutting edge, patient-specific vaccine treatments like DCVax® provide for a longer life expectancy along with a better quality of life for brain cancer patients, an improvement over current conventional brain tumor treatments. "The vaccine that I received has extended the median survival of Grade IV brain cancer (GBM) from 14.6 months, with conventional treatment, to over 36 months," stated Bob Gibbs, a 7 year brain cancer survivor, who has defied the odds statistically, thanks to the experimental brain cancer vaccine DCVax®.

25 Jan 2011

Study results presented at ASCO-GI reinforce value of Genomic Health's Oncotype DX Colon Cancer test

Genomic Health, Inc. today announced presentation of three studies at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium, including one finding that high tumor grade was not a marker of higher recurrence risk in stage II colon cancer, suggesting that other markers, such as the Oncotype DX® Recurrence Score® (RS) test as well as T-stage and mismatch repair (MMR) status, should be considered by physicians during the treatment decision-making process.

25 Jan 2011

Global Poverty Summit addresses MDGs, global trade policy

At the Global Poverty Summit January 16-19 in Johannesburg, South Africa, "academics, policy-makers, civil society activists and development workers ... agreed that the [U.N. Millennium Development Goals] MDGs have made a difference, but have fallen far short of the ambitious targets on poverty, education, health, gender equality and global partnership that 189 countries committed to achieving by 2015," IRIN reports.

24 Jan 2011

Researchers believe driver mutations promote development, growth of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is known to occur typically in older men. Yet some patients are younger than 50 years at the time of diagnosis. Scientists assume that these cases might be the key to understanding the biology of this disease. Early prostate cancer might be a subtype which is characterized by a relatively small number of genetic modifications.

21 Jan 2011

Chelsea reports top-line data from Phase III NORTHERA extension study in NOH

Chelsea Therapeutics International, Ltd. reported new 12-month data from Study 303, a safety extension study from its Phase III NORTHERA™ (droxidopa) registration program in symptomatic neurogenic orthostatic hypotension (NOH). Preliminary, top-line results demonstrate Northera provides clinically meaningful and durable symptomatic improvements in patients with NOH throughout a one-year observation period.

20 Jan 2011