http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, lost significantly more weight when they took two drugs that are traditionally used to treat diabetes, rather than either drug alone, a study from Slovenia demonstrates. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-drug-combination-weight-loss-polycystic.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:53:42 EST news290688802 Treatments against hepatitis C virus have only been partially successful. A major problem is that antivirals generate drug resistance. Now Seong-Wook Lee of Dankook University, Yongin, Republic of Korea and his collaborators have developed agents that bind to the business end of a critical protein, disabling it so successfully that no resistance has arisen. The research is published in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-agent-inhibits-hcv-replication-mouse.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 30 May 2013 11:01:25 EST news289130478 Clinical pharmacologists at Heidelberg University Hospital have achieved major progress for improving the reliability of drugs. In a pharmacological study, they showed for the first time that interactions between drugs can be detected with minute doses in the range of nanograms. However, at these low doses, the drugs are neither effective nor do they have side effects. This means that studies on interactions occurring in drug combinations can be conducted practically without posing risks or negative impacts on the participants. This is true not only for healthy volunteers, as has been observed to date, but also for patients. The study was published in the medical journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-interactions-drugs-lowest-doses.html Medications Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:58:48 EST news284903813 A new preclinical technology enables researchers to quickly determine if a particular treatment is effective against gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), providing a boost to animal research and possibly patient care, according to new findings presented by Fox Chase Cancer Center at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 on Tuesday, April 9. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-technology-drugs-early-impact-cancer.html Cancer Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:00:03 EST news284730684 Results of a study published online in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy today (Thursday), demonstrate that computer models can predict how HIV patients whose drug therapy is failing will respond to a new treatment. Crucially for patients in poorer countries, the models do not require the results of expensive drug resistance tests to make their predictions. The study also showed that the models were able to identify alternative drug combinations that were predicted to work in cases where the treatment used in the clinic had failed, suggesting that their use could avoid treatment failure. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-patients-hiv-drugs.html HIV & AIDS Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:10:01 EST news282421952 Patients who take a triple combination of blood pressure drugs and common painkillers are at an increased risk of serious kidney problems, especially at the start of treatment, finds a study published in BMJ today. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-triple-blood-pressure-drugs-painkillers.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:30:04 EST news276875011 (Medical Xpress)—Researchers funded by Cancer Research UK have been looking at why new drugs called "MEK inhibitors", which are currently being tested in clinical trials, aren't as effective at killing cancer cells as they should be. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-approach-treatingdeadly-melanoma-scientists.html Cancer Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:22:21 EST news275131314 A novel approach to identifying potential anticancer drug combinations revealed that pairing cholesterol-reducing drugs called statins with cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors might provide an effective approach to treating intractable melanomas driven by mutations in the NRAS and KRAS gene. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-screening-approach-potential-drug-combos.html Cancer Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:44:16 EST news274617850 According to new research published Online First in the Lancet, body mass index may influence which blood pressure medications work best at reducing the major complications of high blood pressure (strokes, heart attacks, and death). The findings suggest that diuretic drugs seem to be a reasonable choice for obese patients, but significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular events in non-obese individuals. Calcium channel blockers, meanwhile, work equally well in people in all weight groups, including lean individuals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-body-mass-index-blood-pressure.html Health Wed, 05 Dec 2012 18:30:01 EST news273948262 (Medical Xpress)—A well-established family of drugs used to treat parasitic diseases is showing surprising potential as a therapy for tuberculosis (TB), according to new research from University of British Columbia microbiologists. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-repurposed-anti-parasite-drug-tb-treatment.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Fri, 23 Nov 2012 07:58:29 EST news272879872 Scientists in the United States have tested all possible pairings of the 100 cancer drugs approved for use in patients in order to discover whether there are any combinations not tried previously that are effective in certain cancers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-scientists-combinations-cancer-drugs-effective.html Cancer Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:00:01 EST news271440532 Nearly half of U.S. adults with high blood pressure had their blood pressure under control by the end of 2010—a significant increase from the start of the decade, researchers reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-adults-high-blood-pressure.html Cardiology Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:00:01 EST news270136622 (Medical Xpress)—A new study is shedding light on the use of sedative drugs in hospitals and has proven certain clinically used drug combinations to be faster and more effective in sedating highly aggressive patients in the emergency department (ED). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-antipsychotics-patient-sedation.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 09 Oct 2012 07:26:49 EST news268986398 After surgeons removed the tumor from her breast last November, Karen Hajiaskari, of Hamburg, N.Y., was deemed cancer-free. But for the next five years she will take a drug called tamoxifen, a medication that's commonly used to prevent a breast cancer recurrence. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-additional-medicines-recurrence-issues.html Cancer Sun, 07 Oct 2012 15:30:01 EST news268839720 Custom-mixed medicines like the steroid shots suspected in a meningitis outbreak have long been a source of concern, and their use is far wider than many people realize. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-outbreak-spotlights-safety-custom-mixed-drugs.html Medications Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:55:39 EST news268570531 Promising new data on drug combinations to treat metastatic melanoma are presented at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-drug-combinations-effective-melanoma.html Cancer Sat, 29 Sep 2012 05:52:08 EST news268116716 A new study published online in Nature Medicine, led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, describes the discovery of a novel drug combination aimed at a subset of melanoma patients who currently have no effective therapeutic options. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-drug-combination-nras-mutant-melanoma.html Cancer Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:38:51 EST news267093520 (Medical Xpress) -- Antidepressive drugs reduce the mortality rate of schizophrenic patients, while treatment with bensodiazepines greatly increases it, especially as regards suicide. Giving several antipsychotics simultaneously, however, seems to have no effect at all. This according to a new study examining different drug combinations administered to patients with schizophrenia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-suicides-antidepressive-treatment-schizophrenia.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 08 May 2012 06:20:57 EST news255676847 A study by the Children's Oncology Group (COG) reported that five-year survival for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL, the most common type of pediatric cancer) among children treated through COG clinical trials increased from 83.7 percent during the period 1990-1994 to 90.4 percent in the period 2000-2005. The improvements in survival were observed among all children over age 1 regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, or subtype of ALL. This analysis, which is the largest study to date of ALL survival, showed similar gains in 10-year survival. The findings are published March 12 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-steady-long-term-survival-children-acute.html Cancer Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:00:09 EST news250779264 Inhibiting telomerase, an enzyme that rescues malignant cells from destruction by extending the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, kills tumor cells but also triggers resistance pathways that allow cancer to survive and spread, scientists report in the Feb. 17 issue of Cell. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-blocking-telomerase-cancer-cells-provokes.html Cancer Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:34:14 EST news249042846 A combination of two common drugs, lamotrigine and valproate, is more effective in treating difficult-to control epilepsy than other anti-epileptic regimens, according to a University of Washington report to be published online this week in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-superior-drug-combo-difficult-to-control-epilepsy.html Neuroscience Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:20:12 EST news243102003 An investigational combination of drugs already approved to treat obesity, migraine and epilepsy produced up to a 10 percent weight loss in obese individuals participating in a one-year clinical trial, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-experimental-drug-unprecedented-weight-loss.html Medical research Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:53:56 EST news221712793