FDA Approves New Pancreatic Cancer Drug

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug called Onivyde as part of a treatment regimen for advanced pancreatic cancer.

Onivyde (irinotecan liposome injection) was approved to be used in combination with fluorouracil and leucovorin. The combination was approved for use in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer who were already treated with gemcitabine-based chemotherapy, the FDA said Thursday in a news release.

The approval was based on a study of more than 400 patients. All had experienced cancer growth despite gemcitabine-based chemotherapy. The new research included three treatment arms. Patients were randomly assigned to receive Onivyde with fluorouracil/leucovorin, Onivyde alone, or fluorouracil/leucovorin alone.

The researchers found that people treated with Onivyde plus fluorouracil/leucovorin lived an average of 6.1 months, compared to 4.2 months for those treated with only fluorouracil/leucovorin, the FDA said.

But, there was no survival benefit for patients who received Onivyde alone compared to those who received only fluorouracil/leucovorin, the findings showed.

The study also found that the average amount of time to tumor growth was 3.1 months for patients who received Onivyde plus fluorouracil/leucovorin compared to 1.5 months for those who received only fluorouracil/leucovorin.

The most common side effects of Onivyde were diarrhea, fatigue, vomiting, nausea, decreased appetite, inflammation in the mouth and fever, the researchers said.

The drug also led to low counts of infection-fighting cells (lymphopenia and neutropenia). The FDA also said that death due to sepsis — a severe inflammatory response triggered by infection — following neutropenia has been reported in patients taking Onivyde.

Onivyde’s label carries a boxed warning about the risks of severe neutropenia and diarrhea. The drug is marketed by Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass.

Nearly 49,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year and there will be more than 40,500 deaths from the disease, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose early and there are limited treatment options, especially when it has spread to other parts of the body and surgery to remove the tumor is not possible, the FDA said in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about pancreatic cancer.

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HPV-Linked Throat Cancer Responds to Reduced Chemo, Radiation: Study

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Lower-level radiation and chemotherapy may be as effective as standard doses for some patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer of the throat, tonsils and tongue, and may cause fewer side effects, researchers say.

The study included 43 patients who had “favorable risk” HPV-associated oropharyngeal (tonsils and tongue) cancer and were not heavy smokers. Compared to standard treatment, their radiation therapy was reduced by 16 percent and their chemotherapy dose was reduced by 60 percent.

After an average follow-up of nearly 21 months (range of 6 to 36 months), all of the patients were alive with no evidence of cancer recurrence, according to the report.

The patients had fewer side effects — such as mouth dryness, swallowing problems, nausea, vomiting and inflammation of the membranes lining the digestive tract — compared with patients who received standard treatment, the investigators found.

Only 39 percent of the patients in the study required feeding tubes, none of which were permanent. That compares to feeding tube rates of up to 80 percent — about 10 percent of which are permanent — for patients receiving standard treatment.

The study findings were presented Oct. 18 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s annual meeting in San Antonio. Findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary because they have not undergone a peer review.

“Our study provides strong preliminary evidence that reduced-intensity chemoradiotherapy may be as effective as standard-dose chemoradiotherapy,” lead study author Dr. Bhishamjit Chera, associate professor of radiation oncology at University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said in a society news release.

With more study, Chera said, the regimen could become standard care for carefully selected patients with HPV-associated squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsils and tongue. “The results so far are certainly encouraging, and with longer follow-ups, we hope to confirm less long-term side effects, as well,” Chera added.

Rising rates of tongue and tonsil cancers are believed to be due to HPV infection, according to background information in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about oropharyngeal cancer treatment.

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Many Teens Knowingly Ride With Drunk Drivers, Survey Finds

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Many U.S. teenagers have willingly accepted a ride from a drunk driver within the past year, a new survey reveals.

Nearly one in three teens surveyed — 30 percent — said during the previous 12 months they had accepted a ride from someone who’d been drinking alcohol.

Further, one in four said they’d be willing to ride with a driver who has been drinking, according to results from a survey sponsored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and State Farm Insurance.

“Everyone would agree that riding with a drinking driver is not a good idea, but teens are making this choice to do so,” said Dave Phillips, a State Farm spokesman. “This study shows that teens don’t plan to ride with a drinking driver, but they are willing to do so if the situation comes up.”

But the online poll of 600 people ages 15 to 20 turned up some encouraging news, too.

More than 90 percent of teenagers said they’d be willing to talk with friends about the risks of riding with a drunk driver, either in advance or when faced with the situation.

Also, 70 percent feel that speaking up against riding with a drunk driver wouldn’t harm their friendships with other kids.

“We need to encourage youth to talk to their peers about the dangers of underage drinking and riding with a drinking driver,” Phillips said.

MADD National President Colleen Sheehey-Church said the poll results were released to coincide with a key part of the school year.

“October is a time when teens across the country are settling into the new school year and enjoying school dances and sporting events and fall festivities,” increasing the chances that they’ll be confronted with a drunk driver, she said.

Sheehey-Church’s own son died in a crash while riding with a drunk driver.

“At 18 years old, my son Dustin made that choice to get into a car with an underage drunk and drugged driver,” she said. “That driver lost control of the vehicle going at a high rate of speed and went over a cliff and crashed into a river.”

Although he was sober and wearing his seat belt, Dustin died from drowning.

In 2013, Sheehey-Church said, 378 kids ages 15 to 20 were killed as passengers of a drinking driver, and 53 percent of deaths were a result of riding with an underage drunk driver.

Parents need to prepare their kids on ways to handle this predicament, said Robert Turrisi, a professor of biobehavioral health with Penn State’s Prevention Research Center.

“Young people are not just small versions of adults,” said Turrisi, who has researched what motivates kids to ride with drunk drivers. “They really think fundamentally different. They make their decisions more based upon emotions than well-thought-out plans, most of the time.”

Parents need to have ongoing conversations with teens about what they’d do if offered a ride by a drunk, Turrisi said. These conversations need to be detailed — asking what other options a kid might take or how they’d talk with their friends about not getting into the car.

Parents should keep in mind that reasons for driving with a drinker might extend beyond peer pressure. For example, a girl might not want to leave her female friend alone with a group of boys who’ve been drinking, Turrisi said. Or a teen might not want to spend money on a taxi.

The fact that nearly all kids are willing to talk about not riding with a drunk driver, and that most aren’t worried about damaging their friendships, shows there’s an opportunity for peer pressure to work in a beneficial way, he said.

“Sometimes one strong voice in the crowd can change things quite a bit,” Turrisi said.

Parents also can improve their child’s willingness to speak up by encouraging him or her to pursue multiple interests, with different groups of friends, Turrisi added.

“One of the things kids will be influenced by is the prospect of losing their friends if they don’t go along with the crowd,” Turrisi said. “If kids have multiple different friends, it’s easier for them to resist one group and know that they won’t become socially isolated.”

More information

For more on teens riding with drunk drivers, visit Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

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Olivia Wilde Captures the Truth About Motherhood in One Selfie

 

If her sweet relationship with husband Jason Sudeikis and hilarious sense of humor weren’t enough to make you love Olivia Wilde, then her recent post on Instagram surely will.

The 31-year-old actress posted this picture of herself with the caption, “I call this hairstyle, ‘keep the kid alive.'” And goes on to explain how you too can get the look: “Products you’ll need: sweat, string cheese, diaper rash cream, chewed up crayon, snot, and an enthusiastic spritz of panic.”

She also revealed the culprit for her new hairstyle with this picture of her 1-year-old son Otis wearing a bra on his head with the caption, “hey, bra.”

 

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Wilde’s humorous post reflects what she had to say about parenthood to E! News last year.

“The gift of motherhood is the selflessness that it introduces you to, and I think that’s really freeing. And in terms of being a storyteller, I think it allows you to put yourself in other people’s shoes…the empathy that it slugs you with, being a mother. And I think it makes you a better storyteller.”

Wilde’s latest humbling take is a reminder for moms everywhere that motherhood is not always pretty, but it’s always worth it.

RELATED: Tricks for Beautiful, Low Maintenance Hair

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Data on Foodborne Disease Outbreaks at Your Fingertips

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — With one in six Americans infected with foodborne disease — sometimes called “food poisoning” — every year, U.S. health officials have upgraded an online resource for local health investigators and wary consumers.

Tracking and reporting foodborne illnesses caused by germs such as salmonella and E. coli is key to understanding how they affect health, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With this redesign to the CDC website, the agency said users can more easily sort through almost two decades of data on foodborne illnesses reported to the CDC by local and state health departments.

“Sometimes people want to know how many outbreaks occurred in certain areas or over certain time periods, or what foods were associated with those outbreaks, or how many people got sick or were hospitalized or died. Our intention is to make CDC’s foodborne outbreak surveillance data easily accessible,” according to a CDC news release.

An outbreak occurs when two or more people get the same illness after eating the same contaminated food. Many outbreaks occur if food is prepared or served by a food worker with improperly washed hands, the CDC says.

The redesigned CDC site contains data compiled on outbreaks caused by intestinal bacterial, viral, parasitic and chemical agents from 1998 to 2014.

What if you get sick while eating someplace and want to know if there were contributing factors? For instance, was the food kept at room temperature for too long? Users can search by year, state, location of food preparation, or specific germ for answers to these and other questions.

New maps, interactive features, graphs and tables also allow outbreak searches by specific foods and ingredients. “Quick stats” are available, along with more in-depth information on numbers of illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths associated with these illnesses.

In the event of an outbreak, public health investigators can search for the foods and the germs associated with past outbreaks to help pinpoint possible contaminated food sources, the CDC said. Reporters and others can also use the database to understand recent or ongoing outbreaks of foodborne illness.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers their updated food safety site here.

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Kids at Growing Risk of Deadly ‘Superbug’ Infection: Study

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Rates of a deadly “superbug” infection are on the rise among American children, especially those aged 5 and younger, a new study shows.

The infections are caused by a type of bacteria called Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). CRE is most common in hospitals and long-term care centers and is resistant to many types of antibiotics.

The death rate from CRE infections is about 50 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Past research on CRE has focused on adults, and there is little data on this type of infection in children.

In this study, researchers analyzed data from 1999 to 2012 throughout the United States and found that CRE infection rates in children rose from 0 percent in 1999-2000 to 0.47 percent in 2011-2012. The largest increase — from 0 percent to 4.5 percent — occurred among 1- through 5-year-olds being treated in intensive care units.

The findings are being published in the November issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

More research is needed to identify children who are at highest risk and to learn how the bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics in children, said study lead author Dr. Latania Logan, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Antibiotic-resistant CRE infections are most common in the Chicago region, according to the researchers.

“It is important to help understand the epidemiology of these organisms and to prevent spread of CRE by alerting hospitals of individuals who previously have been found to carry these germs, which allows the facility receiving the patient to place the individual under appropriate isolation precautions,” Logan said.

Such measures along with efforts to promote appropriate use of antimicrobials will be key in reducing spread of CRE, she concluded.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about CRE.

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Antibiotics Might Cause Weight Gain in Kids

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Repeated antibiotic use is linked to greater weight gains in children, and it could affect their weight for the rest of their lives, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore analyzed data from nearly 164,000 youngsters in the United States, and found that about 21 percent of them received seven or more prescriptions for antibiotics during childhood.

At age 15, those who took antibiotics seven or more times at earlier ages weighed about 3 pounds more than those who took no antibiotics. This weight gain among those who frequently took antibiotics was likely underestimated due to lack of complete data, the researchers said.

“Your BMI [an estimate of body fat] may be forever altered by the antibiotics you take as a child,” said study leader Dr. Brian Schwartz, a professor in the department of environmental health sciences. “Our data suggest that every time we give an antibiotic to kids they gain weight faster over time.”

But the study only showed an association, and not cause-and-effect relationship, between antibiotic use and weight gain.

The findings were published online Oct. 21 in the International Journal of Obesity.

“While the magnitude of the weight increase attributable to antibiotics may be modest by the end of childhood, our finding that the effects are cumulative raises the possibility that these effects continue and are compounded into adulthood,” Schwartz said in a Hopkins news release.

Prior research suggests that repeated antibiotic use permanently changes the balance of bacteria in the digestive tract, the researchers said. This alters the way food is broken down and increases the amount of calories absorbed, resulting in greater weight gain, they noted.

“Systematic antibiotics should be avoided, except when strongly indicated. From everything we are learning, it is more important than ever for physicians to be the gatekeepers and keep their young patients from getting drugs that not only won’t help them but may hurt them in the long run,” Schwartz concluded.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about antibiotics.

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Black Men May Get Worse Prostate Cancer Care, Study Contends

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Older black men with prostate cancer seem more likely to receive poorer quality of care that costs more compared to white men, a new study found.

Although there was no difference between the races in survival from prostate cancer, black men had to wait about seven days longer for treatment, the Harvard researchers found.

In addition, black men were less likely to have lymph nodes removed that might harbor cancer, and they were more likely to need to go to the emergency room after surgery and end up re-hospitalized. As a result, surgical treatment cost the top 50 percent of black men $1,185 more, the study findings showed.

“These worrisome findings suggest that the quality of care received by elderly men undergoing radical prostatectomy [prostate removal] is inferior in blacks relative to whites, with higher associated costs,” said lead researcher Dr. Quoc-Dien Trinh, an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Because the investigators used Medicare data, it’s not clear whether these same disparities exist among men with private insurance, he said.

And, the new study was only designed to show an association between race and prostate cancer treatment. It does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Trinh suggested that the similar survival rates of blacks and whites in the study may be the result of differences in their cancers. It’s possible that some black patients had more aggressive cancer than the white patients so more black patients died before they could have surgery, he said.

The report was published online Oct. 22 in JAMA Oncology.

For the study, Trinh and colleagues used a Medicare database to collect data on about 2,000 black men and 24,000 white men, aged 65 and older, who had surgery to remove their prostate.

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society and author of an accompanying journal editorial, said that the men in the study all had Medicare, so they all had access to care.

These findings are not unique to prostate cancer, Brawley pointed out. “There have been a number of studies in other diseases — breast cancer, colon cancer — that have shown the same problem, black versus white,” he said.

In addition, the same disparity in medical care has been found for poor versus the well-off, he said. “There are some poor white people that have the same problem as blacks,” he added.

Brawley said doctors who treat black patients “tend to be in worse medical situations” than doctors who treat white patients.

“You have to say ‘tend to’ — it’s not totally black and white, there’s a lot of gray there,” he said. “But if you’re a black person, you are more likely to be taken care of by a doctor that doesn’t do as many prostate operations and in a hospital that doesn’t do as many prostate surgeries as a middle-class or white person.”

Brawley said this isn’t racism on the part of any doctor, per se, “but a form of racism that’s ingrained in our society.”

Even though Medicare patients have equal access to care, poor black people tend to go to hospitals that are not as good as the ones whites go to, and black men tend to see doctors that don’t specialize in prostate cancer, Brawley said.

“Part of this is a lack of medical sophistication,” he suggested. Patients need to be educated about their options and look for the highest quality care available, he said.

“The more patients are involved in their care, and the more questions they ask, the more they seek quality care, not just the care offered to them,” Brawley said.

More information

For more about prostate cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

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Brain Differences Seen in Young Adults at Genetic Risk of Alzheimer’s

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Young adults who have an increased genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease may already show differences in how their brains handle spatial navigation, a small study suggests.

The researchers said it’s too soon to know whether the brain differences are a harbinger of Alzheimer’s.

“That is still unclear and needs to be investigated in further studies,” said senior researcher Dr. Nikolai Axmacher, of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, in Bonn.

But the hope, he said, is that the findings will improve researchers’ understanding of the earliest processes that lead to Alzheimer’s — the most common form of dementia.

And if the brain differences do turn out to predict Alzheimer’s disease years later, that information could be used to pinpoint high-risk people early, Axmacher added.

Other researchers said the findings were important, because everyone wants to find reliable biological signs that indicate a person has a high risk of Alzheimer’s later in life.

The study, published in the Oct. 23 issue of Science, involved 75 young adults, half of whom carried a variant of the APOE gene that is believed to boost the risk of Alzheimer’s.

It’s estimated that one in six people carry the variant, known as APOE4, Axmacher said. They have a threefold greater risk of Alzheimer’s than non-carriers do.

The researchers used an advanced form of MRI to study a brain area known as the entorhinal cortex, which contains so-called “grid cells.” Those cells, Axmacher explained, are important in spatial navigation — one of the first skills to go awry when Alzheimer’s begins.

The team tracked activity in those grid cells as study participants navigated a “virtual” task that gauged their spatial memory: They had to remember the spatial location of objects in a virtual arena, then place those objects in the correct place.

It turned out that, on average, the APOE4 carriers showed less functioning in their grid cells during the task, versus young adults who did not carry the gene variant.

Still, both groups performed similarly on the test.

That raised the question of whether APOE4 carriers tended to compensate by using other brain regions to navigate, the study authors noted.

“Indeed, we found that the less intact the grid cell system was, the more active an adjacent brain area, the hippocampus [was],” Axmacher said.

What’s more, he added, the APOE4 carriers tended to show a different strategy during the test: Typically, they navigated from a vantage point along the border of the virtual arena, while non-carriers preferred to operate from the center.

Exactly what it all could mean is unclear. But, Axmacher said, other research has hinted that excess activity in the hippocampus is part of the process that leads to Alzheimer’s.

“These findings are interesting and exciting,” said Dr. Luco Gilberto, a neurologist with North Shore-LIJ’s Cushing Neuroscience Institute, in Manhasset, N.Y.

The results have to be confirmed in larger studies, Gilberto said. And longer-term work is needed to see whether the reduced grid cell function actually predicts Alzheimer’s.

“Right now, we have no therapies that prevent Alzheimer’s,” Gilberto said. But if and when such treatments become available, doctors will need reliable ways to pinpoint high-risk individuals who could benefit.

Biological markers are also needed to find the best candidates for clinical trials testing experimental therapies, Gilberto said.

Dean Hartley, director of science initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association, agreed that the study results hint at a possible new biological marker.

He said the findings also offer more clues about the roots of Alzheimer’s, which could help in developing new therapies.

“The field is trying to figure out, when does this disease process really begin?” Hartley said.

Researchers already know that abnormal proteins called “plaques” can be present in the brain 20 years before any symptoms of Alzheimer’s arise, Hartley pointed out.

The latest findings, he said, add to evidence that the disease is a decades-long “continuum.”

More information

The Alzheimer’s Association has more on the causes of Alzheimer’s.

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Watch Michael J. Fox Demonstrate REAL Self-Lacing Sneakers in 2015

Photo: Nike

Great Scott! After yesterday, all of Back to the Future has officially happened in the past. While the film got a lot wrong about what 2015 would be like, one iconic feature of the beloved films has finally come true: Self-lacing sneakers. And thanks to Nike, they will also do some good.

Yesterday, the company announced they delivered the first pair of lacing Nike Mags with “power laces” to Marty McFly himself: Michael J. Fox.  And on last night’s The Jimmy Kimmel Show!, Fox demonstrated how they work, explaining that the kicks will only be available by auction starting in 2016, with all proceeds going to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Fox founded the organization after his own diagnosis of early-onset Parkinson’s disease in 1991.

RELATED: This New Nike Collaboration Turns Athleisure Wear Into Pure Art

In a handwritten letter from legendary Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, which Fox posted to twitter yesterday, Hatfield writes: “In addition to your personal pair, we’re creating more pairs for support in aid of The Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2016. We hope that the combined effort will raise even more than the 9.4 million collected in 2011 and contribute in some way to eliminating Parkinson’s in our lifetime.” (If you missed the first model, which didn’t lace themselves, they dropped five years ago. Back then, Nike auctioned off 1,500 pairs and donated the funds to The Michael J. Fox Foundation.)

The letter I received from Tinker today. Thanks @Nike https://t.co/UIolXrkUVC—
Michael J. Fox (@realmikefox) October 21, 2015

As a true sneaker head, I have to admit that, yes, the Nike Mags are pretty darn cool. (Yet another example of how Nike is always on the cutting edge of design!) But as the granddaughter of a man who lived with Parkinson’s for more than 30 years (My grandpa died in 1995), the Nike Mag means more to me than you know— and if my calculations are correct, a host of other folks affected, too.

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