Pain News and Research

Latest Pain News and Research

First clinical trial to clearly demonstrate effective prevention of post-ERCP pancreatitis

A study in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine shows a serious complication of ERCP, a procedure commonly used to diagnose and treat problems of the bile and pancreatic ducts, may be eliminated with a single dose medication.

12 Apr 2012

Viewpoints: Santorum pushed Romney on health care; GOP's 'classic male mistake'; ACOs and the anti-trust challenge

The Pennsylvanian was also by far the most effective Republican critic of RomneyCare. When he stood on stage in a debate and took apart the Massachusetts health law as a prototype for ObamaCare, Mr. Romney realized he couldn't coast to the nomination. That's when the former Massachusetts Governor came out with his own tax cut and tax reform plan to appeal to economic conservatives.

12 Apr 2012

State roundup: Calif. essential benefits bill passes committee; Ariz. legislature OKs late-term abortion ban; States with longest doc waits

California Assemblyman Bill Monning, chair of the Assembly Committee on Health introduced AB 1453, which laid out a plan for what essential benefits will be covered in California under the Affordable Care Act. The proposed set of benefits is modeled on the Kaiser small group HMO plan

12 Apr 2012

Johns Hopkins cardiologists support use of statins for primary prevention of heart attack

Writing the first commentary for a new feature in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), called Viewpoint, Johns Hopkins cardiologists make the case for why a 55-year-old man with a 10 percent estimated risk of heart attack over the next 10 years should be offered statin medication. They were invited to debate a professor who argues against prescribing statins for "primary" prevention—for those who have not had a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack—even though they may be considered at "intermediate" risk because of elevated cholesterol or other factors.

12 Apr 2012

USPTO issues two Notices of Allowance to AcelRx for NanoTab formulations

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued AcelRx two Notices of Allowance for the patent applications entitled "Small-Volume Oral Transmucosal Dosage Forms" and "Bioadhesive Drug Formulations for Oral Transmucosal Delivery."

12 Apr 2012

Education tool helps chest pain patients decide on stress testing

Chest pain patients educated about their future heart attack risk and involved in deciding care options were more likely than less-aware patients to opt out of stress testing, according to research in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

12 Apr 2012

Biogen Idec launches FAMPYRA in Canada

Today, Biogen Idec Canada announces that FAMPYRA (fampridine sustained release tablets or fampridine SR) is now available for prescription for patients living with multiple sclerosis (MS) in Canada.

12 Apr 2012

ST2 more specific than BNP for heart failure diagnosis

Critical Diagnostics today announced publication in the latest issue of the Journal of Heart Failure results of a study involving 995 patients who presented to the emergency room (ER) with chest pain. The study concluded that in this undifferentiated, symptomatic patient population ST2 was more specific for acute heart failure than BNP and that ST2 is independently predictive of future death and/or heart failure and has incremental utility in combination with BNP.

12 Apr 2012

Takeda enters definitive agreement to acquire URL Pharma

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and URL Pharma Inc. jointly announced that Takeda's wholly-owned subsidiary, Takeda America Holdings, Inc. and URL Pharma have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire URL Pharma – a privately-held pharmaceutical company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for an upfront payment of $800 million and future performance-based contingent earn out payments.

12 Apr 2012

Inexpensive female genital schistosomiasis prevention could help reduce women's risk of HIV infection

In this Huffington Post "Global Motherhood" blog post, Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, describes female genital schistosomiasis (FGS), which affects more than 100 million women and girls in Africa and "causes horrific pain and bleeding in the uterus, cervix and lower genital tract, not to mention social stigma and depression."

11 Apr 2012

New supplement outlines prospective surveillance model for breast cancer

A new supplement in the journal Cancer outlines an innovative model to address a wide range of physical issues faced by women with breast cancer and offers hope for improved function and full participation in life activities for patients through rehabilitation and exercise.

11 Apr 2012

New 4th Edition of Practical Neurology for clinicians, residents and fellows

The new 4th Edition of Practical Neurology, the respected "real-life" guide to diagnosing and managing neurologic disorders, has been completely rewritten to known neurologist and chair of the Department of Neurology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

11 Apr 2012

Viewpoints: 'Slicing' the safety net; GOP health law fight should have targeted cost-cutting panel, not mandate

Last month, the House passed a 2013 budget written by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin that would reduce spending in the category of Education, Training, Employment and Social Services by $16 billion from the previous year, or 22 percent, on top of all the cuts forced by Republicans over several years.

11 Apr 2012

State roundup: Calif. drug monitoring system casualty of budget cuts; Data breach in Utah worse than thought; Md. legislature approves health enterprise zones

California has the oldest continuous prescription-drug monitoring program in the U.S. … It used to rely on carbon copies. … The system went online in 1998, and that's when its full power was realized. ... So alarm bells went off among doctors and law enforcement when California Gov. Jerry Brown announced last year that, for budget reasons, he was eliminating the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, which had long managed the prescription-drug monitoring program.

11 Apr 2012

Siemens announces integrated imaging solution for detection of amyloid plaques

Siemens Healthcare is the first company worldwide to announce a complete integrated diagnostic imaging solution proposed for the detection of amyloid plaques — one of the necessary pathological features of Alzheimer's disease— in the living brain.

From Siemens Healthineers 11 Apr 2012

EKG can detect heart attack in healthy senior citizens

Can a simple diagnostic test used to measure a heart's electrical activity help predict heart attacks? And can that knowledge help doctors reroute their patients away from coronary heart disease? These are the questions researchers at UCSF asked in a comprehensive eight-year study focused on senior citizens in the United States. Researchers found a higher risk of heart attack when abnormalities showed up on electrocardiogram (EKG) results of healthy elderly people.

11 Apr 2012

QRxPharma completes MoxDuo CR Phase 1 studies on chronic pain

QRxPharma announced today successful completion of two Phase 1 studies in healthy volunteers for MoxDuo CR, a controlled-release Dual-Opioid utilising a 3:2 ratio of morphine and oxycodone.

11 Apr 2012

FDA approves Medtronic’s expanded indication for implantable CRT-D devices

Medtronic, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an expanded indication for its cardiac resynchronization therapy with implantable cardioverter defibrillator (CRT-D) devices.

From Medtronic 11 Apr 2012

USPTO issues five patents to VertiFlex Superion ISS

VertiFlex, Inc., a leading innovator of advanced minimally invasive spinal surgery technologies, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded five additional key patents covering the design and implantation method for its unique interspinous spacer technology. The five U.S. patent numbers are 8,012,207, 8,123,807, 8,123,782, 8,128,662, and 8,152,837.

11 Apr 2012

NYU Langone announces opening of Center for Musculoskeletal Care

NYU Langone Medical Center ushered in the next generation of orthopaedic, rheumatologic and rehabilitative care with the opening of the Center for Musculoskeletal Care (CMC) at 333 East 38th Street in Manhattan last week.

11 Apr 2012