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Admissions for medication, drug-related conditions increase by 117% among Americans aged 45 and older

The number of hospital admissions among Americans ages 45 and older for medication and drug-related conditions doubled between 1997 and 2008, according to a new report released today by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Medication and drug-related conditions include effects of both prescription and over-the-counter medications as well as illicit drugs.

26 Oct 2010

Cord Blood America updates progress on stem cell collection business in China

Cord Blood America, Inc., the umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation company focused on bringing the life saving potential of stem cells to families nationwide and internationally, today announced its Chairman, CEO and co-founder, Matthew Schissler, has updated progress on the Company's stem cell collection business in China in an interview with analyst Francis Gaskins.

26 Oct 2010

Omeros to develop new drugs for major diseases

The Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF) today announced a $5 million grant to Seattle-based Omeros Corporation (NASDAQ: OMER) to discover, develop, and commercialize new drugs to treat a variety of major diseases. With successful generation of proceeds through partnering and the sales of drugs in the marketplace, an additional outcome of the grant would be establishment of a new non-profit initiative to advance the life sciences sector and improve health and economic growth in Washington state.

26 Oct 2010

RLJ launches insurance services

Robert L. Johnson, founder and chairman of The RLJ Companies (RLJ), today announced the launch of RLJ Insurance Services, created in conjunction with AV International, LLC (AVI), a minority business insurance firm providing services for state government, municipal and corporate clients.

26 Oct 2010

Place of birth, low SES and exposure to pests associated with asthma in U.S.-born children

Researchers from Tufts University pooled data from five previous epidemiological studies to investigate the prevalence of asthma in children in the Boston neighborhoods of Chinatown and Dorchester. Among children born in the United States, low socioeconomic status (SES) and exposure to pests (mice and cockroaches) were both associated with having asthma. Neither association was present in children born outside of the United States. The study was published online in advance of print in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health.

26 Oct 2010

Researchers identify signaling pathway that promotes metastasis of pediatric bone cancer

Researchers have identified an important signaling pathway that, when blocked, significantly decreases the spread of pediatric bone cancer. Their research showed that the Notch pathway and Hes1 gene play a key role in promoting the metastasis of osteosarcoma, the most common form of bone cancer in children.

26 Oct 2010

Pharmacopeias of US and Kazakhstan sign accord

With the mutual goal of improving the quality of pharmaceuticals worldwide, the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) and the Republican State Enterprise (RSE) National Centre for Expertise of Drugs, Medical Products and Equipment ("the Centre") of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan have entered into an agreement to share standards for the quality, purity, strength and identity of medicines.

26 Oct 2010

School leaving grades can predict suicide risk in young people

School leaving grades can be an indicator of an increased risk of suicide at a young age. A new study from the medical university Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, shows that young people leaving the Swedish elementary school (year nine at age 16) with the lowest average grades, run approximately three times the risk of committing suicide compared with those who graduate with top or very high grades.

26 Oct 2010

Athletic performance can improve after heat acclimation

Turning up the heat might be the best thing for athletes competing in cool weather, according to a new study by human physiology researchers at the University of Oregon.

26 Oct 2010

New Risk Stratification Index allows important clinical outcomes

Research published in the November issue of Anesthesiology describes development of a new Risk Stratification Index (RSI) that allows important clinical outcomes such as length-of-stay and mortality for surgical patients to be accurately compared among hospitals using only publically available billing data. The new risk stratification system is more accurate than existing outcomes measurements such as the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and the investigators have made it freely available.

26 Oct 2010

Contraband tobacco accounts for 43% of cigarettes consumed by Ontario students

A new study from The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) found that contraband tobacco accounts for 43% of all cigarettes consumed by Ontario high school daily smokers in grades 9 to 12.

26 Oct 2010

Innovative program for new graduate doctors to ensure safety prescription

A new software based program has recently been created for new graduate doctors to ensure they prescribe safely from day one on the wards.

26 Oct 2010

Pfizer's Sutent stands as first-line setting for treating renal cell carcinoma: Survey

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that, for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the majority of surveyed European oncologists who favor Pfizer's Sutent indicate that they would switch to an emerging therapy only if it extended progression-free survival (PFS) by at least an additional two to three months, assuming the agent's safety and tolerability profile was comparable to that of Sutent.

26 Oct 2010

New strategic brand platform shows UPMC as world-class health care organization

UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) today unveiled a new strategic brand platform "UPMC: Life Changing Medicine" and logo, unifying its clinical, insurance and international and commercial services activities with one consistent message.

26 Oct 2010

NAA applauds IACC's decision on safety issues in autism community

The National Autism Association (NAA) is applauding the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) today following the Committee's decision late Friday to instate a subcommittee dedicated to safety issues within the autism community.

26 Oct 2010

Colour of light influences the way brain processes emotional stimuli

Researchers at the Cyclotron Research Centre (University of Liege), Geneva Center for Neuroscience and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (University of Geneva), and Surrey Sleep Research Centre (University of Surrey) investigated the immediate effect of light, and of its color composition, on emotion brain processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results of their study show that the colour of light influences the way the brain processes emotional stimuli.

26 Oct 2010

New source of blood-derived biomarkers may help in cancer diagnosis

The future of cancer diagnosis may lie in just a few milliliters of blood, according to a research team led by Professor Arie Admon of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

26 Oct 2010

Challenges in overcoming communication barriers when treating non-Swedish-speaking patients

The healthcare system faces a challenge in overcoming communication barriers when treating non-Swedish-speaking patients, reveals a thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

26 Oct 2010

Study finds ABVD standard chemotherapy effective for Hodgkin's lymphoma

A lower dose of radiation used to reduce side effects is not as effective as the regular dose when given with the standard chemotherapy in the treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma patients with early, intermediate-stage disease, according to a first-of-its-kind randomized study presented at the plenary session, November 1, 2010, at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

26 Oct 2010

Survey highlights emotional impact of psoriasis on school children

Almost half of children with psoriasis surveyed by the National Psoriasis Foundation report being bullied at least once in the last six months. The Psoriasis Foundation surveyed parents of kids with psoriatic disease and found that 44 percent of children have been bullied by their peers, and 38 percent of kids say the abuse was a direct result of their disease.

26 Oct 2010