Research has shown that anticonvulsants are teratogens and pose a risk for fetal malformations. Meadow was the first to note a possible link between congenital abnormalities and maternal use of anticonvulsive drug in 1968.1 In 1974, Barr et al noted hypoplasia and irregular ossification of the digital distal phalanges with nail dystrophy in children born to…
You may say the 30 million Americans with osteoarthritis (OA) are walking around with a Band-aid—or so it seems.1 That’s because there’s no actual cure for this disabling condition. However, an international group of scientists is making headway on a method of eliminating aging—senescent—cells as a way to prevent or even reverse OA. Cartilage Disappears,…
Mast cells may become a therapeutic target for low back pain, according to new research. Researchers found mast cells can infiltrate intervertebral disc cells and play a role in their degeneration. Specifically, mast cells and the cytokine, IL-6, were both more likely to be found in painful intervertebral discs surgically removed from patients than in control discs…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) mortality has declined during the past 46 years in the U.S.—but more slowly than mortality in the general population, according to a nationwide study. “Based on our experience in the clinic and according to previous reports showing improvement in the short-term (five- to 10-year) survival in lupus, I…
To determine if varus thrust, a bowing out of the knee during gait (i.e., the first appearance or worsening of varus alignment during stance), is associated with incident and progressive knee osteoarthritis (OA), these researchers undertook an Osteoarthritis Initiative ancillary study. They also considered hypothesized associations adjusted for static alignment, anticipating some attenuation. Methods: Gait…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Tocilizumab should be the “first choice” for treatment of the autoinflammatory and cutaneous manifestations of pigmentary hypertrichosis and non-autoimmune insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (PHID) syndrome, say clinicians from the U.K. PHID syndrome is an extremely rare autosomal recessive genetic disease caused by mutations in the SLC29A3 gene. Children with the syndrome develop patches…
Metabolic control of T cell locomotion provides new opportunities to interfere with T cell invasion into specific tissue sites, according to new research…
CHICAGO (Reuters)—U.S. scientists on Wednesday unveiled two new molecular editing tools designed to fix mutations that cause the majority of human genetic diseases, some of which have no known treatment. One technique, by David Liu of Harvard University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, offers a highly precise way to fix single-letter mistakes…
The FDA accepted for review a supplemental biologics license application for denosumab to treat patients with glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis…
LONDON (Reuters)—GlaxoSmithKline has won U.S. approval for a new and improved shingles vaccine, the second of three key products for which the British drugmaker expects approval this year. It also secured a recommendation from U.K. cost authorities for a $700,000 gene therapy for so-called “bubble boy” disease—a step forward for the field of fixing faulty…