A pilot study to treat alcoholic liver disease with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) is being launched by Castle Craig Hospital and the Department of Hepatology at The University of Edinburgh, after obtaining Ethical Committee approval.

The Phase I study aims to show whether bone marrow stem cells are mobilised into the bloodstream following HBOT, in patients who recently drank alcohol to excess[1], with or without chronic liver disease. The trial will also examine whether there is an improvement in liver function following HBOT.

Participants will have two blood samples drawn a week apart prior to starting HBOT. They will have a total of 20 sessions of two hours of hyperbaric oxygen at 1.75 to 2 ATM with blood drawn after 10 and 20 sessions and again one week later.

HBOT has been shown to cause mobilisation of bone marrow stem cells into the blood stream in healthy volunteers and patients who have received radio therapy for cancer.[2] Additional data have shown that patients with alcoholic hepatitis who survive tend to have larger stem cell counts within the blood, than those who go on to die. There are several reports of patients with chronic liver disease experiencing an improvement in liver functioning after infusion of their own bone marrow stem cells.[3] Unfortunately, current methods of obtaining bone marrow stem cells for infusion are imperfect and can be painful and unpleasant with the risk of complications.

Currently the only “curative” treatment for cirrhosis of the liver is transplantation but due to donor shortages and the implications of taking life long anti-rejection drugs, this is not available to the majority of patients. There is also considerable controversy regarding providing “alcoholic” patients with liver transplants.

Professor Peter Hayes, Chief Investigator of the trial and Professor of Hepatology at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary remarked: “Most ways of increasing stem cells are very complicated. The beauty of this approach is its simplicity. We have to do the study first before getting carried away.”

Peter McCann, Chairman of Castle Craig Hospital said: “We are committed to helping patients, not only with their addictive disease, but also with their inevitable medical complications, and we hope that hyperbaric oxygenation will assist in this respect.”

Safety:

The type III Hyperbaric Chamber, operated at Castle Craig Hospital, was deregulated by an Act of Parliament in 2008 since perceived risks due to fire, oxygen toxicity and infection control proved to be groundless in these units.[4] The participating staff at Castle Craig Hospital are fully trained in managing the hyperbaric chamber and all precautions are taken.

About Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

HBOT involves breathing pure oxygen to higher than atmospheric pressures in an enclosed chamber. Frequently used for divers with the “bends”, it has many other indications both official and experimental or “off label”.

Castle Craig’s purpose-built 18 seat chamber is operated by trained staff and is equipped with television to provide patients with educational therapeutic lectures while in the chamber. When fully operational this chamber is cost effective and the course of treatment need cost no more than ??300 for ten sessions, with the potential to save hundreds of times this amount using conventional health care.

Other trials:

FDA approved trials are also taking place in the USA researching the effects of HBOT in AIDS/HIV, trauma/post traumatic stress disorder, autism, cerebral palsy and stroke cases.[5]

About Castle Craig Hospital

Located in the near Edinburgh, Castle Craig Hospital is the UK’s largest single site addiction provider. Established in 1988, Castle Craig Hospital has helped over 7,000 patients on the road to recovery from their addictions. The Minnesota Model/12 Step Approach is employed which embraces cognitive behavioural therapy. A skilled, multidisciplinary team provides medical and psychiatric care, intensive psychotherapy, detoxification and relapse prevention. Family therapy, extended care and aftercare are also provided.

Castle Craig is a major contractor to the National Health Service and is recognised by the major medical insurers in the U.K, the U.S and Europe. While Castle Craig is a national resource for the people of Scotland, many insurance companies from other countries also fund the treatment. castlecraig

References:

[1] Above 50 units a week, within 3 weeks of the start of the trial.

[2] Stephen R. Thom, Veena M. Bhopole, Omalda C. Velazquez, Lee J. Goldstein, Lynne H. Thom, Donald G. Buerk. Stem mobilisation by hyperbaric oxygen. AMJ Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 240: HI 378 – HI 386 2006.

[3] Professor Stuart J Forbes. Stem cell therapy for chronic liver disease-choosing the right tools for the job. Gut, Feb 2008;57:153-155. Sourced online at: natap/2008/HCV/011408_01.htm

[4] Private and voluntary healthcare: Care Standards Act 2000. Regulations and national minimum standards consultation document. March/June 2008. Product no. 280611. Gateway no 8565. Sourced online here.

[5] Sourced online here.

Castle Craig Continue reading →

New information on
the use of AZILECT(R) (rasagiline tablets) for the treatment of Parkinson’s
disease (PD) was reported this week at The Movement Disorder Society’s
congress in Istanbul, Turkey. Once-daily AZILECT was approved by the FDA
May 17, 2006, for the treatment of the signs and symptoms of PD, both as
initial monotherapy and as adjunct therapy to levodopa.

AZILECT(R) Monotherapy Demonstrates Benefits in Early PD Regardless of
Disease Duration

Dr. John Bertoni, M.D., Ph.D., Creighton University provided the
results of a new post-hoc analysis of the 26-week, multicenter, randomized,
double-blind TEMPO study, that included 404 patients who received
once-daily AZILECT 1mg, 2mg, or placebo. This analysis revealed that
AZILECT once-daily as monotherapy provided a consistent beneficial effect
on the symptoms of PD regardless of the duration of the disease at the time
treatment was started. AZILECT 1 mg/day significantly improved UPDRS-Total
score compared to placebo in both the < 1-year stratum (-0.52 vs 3.33;
p Continue reading →

UroToday – Bisphosphonates such as zoledronic acid (ZA) are used to prevent skeletal complications from prostate cancer (CaP) metastatic to bone. Bone scintigraphy is used to diagnose bone metastasis and to monitor response to therapy. Bone turnover markers measured in serum and urine are proposed to predict which patients with bone metastasis are at risk of skeletal complications. A report in the online version of The Prostate from Dr. Michael Lein and a group of German investigators suggest that bone turnover markers are useful.

Data and serum specimens were taken from a prospective, single-arm study of ZA in bisphosphonate na??ve men with CaP bone metastases. ZA was given every 4 weeks over a 15-month schedule, along with oral calcium supplements and a daily multivitamin. The study cohort was 308 patients at 38 German study centers. Blood sampling occurred prior to the start of ZA and every 12 weeks thereafter. The bone markers evaluated were total alkaline phosphatase (tALP), bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (bALP), amino-terminal pro-collagen propeptides of type I collagen (PINP), as well as the bone resorption markers cross-linked N-terminal (NTx) and cross-linked C-terminal (CTx) telopeptides of type-I collagen, and C-terminal telopeptides of type-I collagen (ICTP).

In this analysis the clinical data of 117 ZA treated patients classified into 56 with and 61 without skeletal related events (SREs) were compared. Patients with an SRE had significantly higher baseline values than patients without an SRE. All bone markers correlated among each other and with PSA. All the bone markers except ICTP significantly decreased from baseline at 12 weeks after initiation of ZA. The largest decline was for CTx (up to 30% of baseline value). Except for NTx (which showed an inverse relationship), the non-SRE group showed a significantly greater extent of decreased values. In addition, the bone marker concentrations in the SRE group further increased, indicating the occurrence of a SRE. In a Cox regression model using all variables, plus chemotherapy and analgesic use, the only variable that predicted for an earlier occurrence of an SRE was chemotherapy before study entry. NTx was the single bone marker that remained in the predictive model, predicting 68% of patients with an SRE during the study. PINP and ICTP had the highest values in ROC analysis and the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for all five post-treatment time points amounted to 81% and 48% for PINP and 80% and 38% for ICTP. Thus, percentage changes for PINP and ICTP over the treatment period were most indicative for SREs.

Lein M, Miller K, Wirth M, Wei??bach L, May C, Schmidt K, Haus U, Schrader M, Jung K
Prostate. 2009 Jan 13. Epub ahead of print.
doi:10.1002/pros.20917

Written by UroToday Contributing Editor Christopher P. Evans, MD, FACS
UroToday – the only urology website with original content written by global urology key opinion leaders actively engaged in clinical practice.

To access the latest urology news releases from UroToday, go to:
urotoday

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The American Heart Association presented its prestigious Research Achievement Award to Jan L. Breslow, M.D., of Rockefeller University, New York City, for “transcendent discoveries” of genes encoding for components of the body’s lipid transport system and how their regulation and individual variations affect cholesterol levels and human susceptibility to disease.

Breslow, Fredrick Henry Leonhardt Professor and Director of the Rockefeller Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, received the award, a citation and $2,500 honorarium, during the opening of the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2010 at McCormick Place. Association President Ralph Sacco, M.D., of Miami made the presentation.

With this annual award, the American Heart Association recognizes career achievement by a distinguished scientist who heads a premier cardiovascular research laboratory.

Sacco said Breslow “made history” by cloning and characterizing both normal and mutant forms of the genes for apo A-1, apo E and the apo C family of lipoproteins. “This classic work advanced understanding of the primary carrier lipoproteins, including HDL, LDL and VLDL,” Dr. Sacco said. HDL, so-called “good” cholesterol, removes fat from blood while “bad” LDL is blamed for buildups of artery plaque leading to heart attacks and strokes.

Breslow used the genes he found to generate mouse models mimicking disorders of human lipid metabolism. The “heart attack mouse” models revealed new functions for these genes and expanded the search for more effective coronary disease treatments, Sacco said.

“These pioneering revelations have dramatically advanced worldwide scientific inquiry into disorders affecting cholesterol transport, synthesis, absorption and disposition.”

A native New Yorker, Breslow joined the Rockefeller University faculty in 1984. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Medical School.

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For high-blood-pressure patients, preventing or reducing enlarged heart (left ventricular hypertrophy, LVH) reduces risk of atrial fibrillation (AF or afib), a life-threatening condition that can lead to stroke and heart failure. The findings are published in the Sept. 13 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and led by physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

An estimated 20 percent of all high-blood-pressure patients, or 12 million Americans, have LVH and are at increased risk of developing AF.

While the direct relationship between levels of LVH in patients with high blood pressure and risk of cardiac complications — including death, heart attack and stoke — has previously been demonstrated by NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell researchers (JAMA, 2004), the new study is the first to demonstrate that prevention or regression of LVH reduces risk of AF — and that this relationship exists independent of therapy type and the benefits of blood pressure lowering. Both studies used data from the Losartan Intervention for Endpoint Reduction in Hypertension (LIFE) study conducted between 1995 and 2001.

“The message for high-blood-pressure patients is that by preventing or reversing enlarged heart, there is an added benefit, over and above any reduction in blood pressure, of lowering risk for afib,” says the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Peter Okin, director of clinical affairs and professor of medicine in the Greenberg Division of Cardiology at Weill Cornell Medical College and attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. “By preventing atrial fibrillation, you are preventing one of the leading causes of stroke, heart failure and death for high-blood-pressure patients.”

“And, from a public health perspective, our findings suggest that blood-pressure therapy targeted at regression or prevention of LVH may reverse what has been an increasing incidence of atrial fibrillation,” continues Dr. Okin.

Of the 8,831 high-blood-pressure patients without AF followed in the new study, 701 developed AF (7.9 percent). Among these patients, 411 cases of AF occurred along with development or persistence of LVH, compared to 290 that occurred along with a reduction or continued absence of LVH. Thus regression or absence of LVH was associated with a 30 percent reduced risk of AF, and remained associated with a 17 percent reduced risk after adjusting for other risk factors. Levels of LVH were determined by electrocardiograph (ECG) using Cornell voltage-duration product criteria.

“These findings underline the importance of using the ECG with Cornell product criteria to assess risk of developing afib in patients with high blood pressure,” adds Dr. Okin. Cornell voltage-duration product, an ECG pattern associated with presence of LVH, was discovered at Weill Cornell Medical College in 1992 and is currently in use worldwide.

All patients in the LIFE study received Losartan- or atenolol-based therapies. In a previous LIFE study paper (Circulation, 2003), Weill Cornell researchers found the angiotensin receptor antagonist drug Losartan had a decided advantage over another anti-hypertensive drug, the beta-blocker atenolol, in reducing LVH.

Co-authors of the new study include Dr. Richard Devereux (professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and director of the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Echocardiography Laboratory and non-invasive cardiac imaging program) and physician-scientists from Glostrup University Hospital (Denmark), Merck Research Laboratories (West Point, Pa.), Sahlgrenska University Hospital/?stra (Sweden), University of Oslo (Norway), University of Michigan Medical Center (Ann Arbor), Ume? University (Sweden), Helskinki University Central Hospital (Finland) and Merck & Co. Inc. (Whitehouse Station, N.J.).

The study was supported in part by a grant from Merck & Co. Inc., West Point, Pa.

Left Ventricle Hypertrophy

Chronic high blood pressure can lead to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), a dangerous enlargement of muscle surrounding the heart’s main pumping chamber. The condition can be monitored via electrocardiograph — an inexpensive, widely available heart test that measures the nature and speed of electrical impulses within cardiac muscle.

Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF or afib) is the most common abnormal heart rhythm (cardiac arrhythmia) and involves the two small, upper heart chambers (the atria). AF occurs in 1 to 2 percent of the population, with a prevalence that increases markedly with increasing age: it affects as many as 5 percent of persons above the age of 65 years. Atrial fibrillation is often asymptomatic, but may result in symptoms of (a) palpitations, (b) fainting and (c) chest pain, and ultimately heart failure. Symptoms of atrial fibrillation may be treated with medications which slow the heart rate. Several medications as well as electrical cardioversion may be used to convert AF to a normal heart rhythm. Surgical and catheter-based therapies may also be used to prevent AF in certain individuals. Additionally, AF patients are often given blood thinners to protect them from strokes.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, located in New York City, is one of the leading academic medical centers in the world, comprising the teaching hospital NewYork-Presbyterian and its academic partner, Weill Cornell Medical College. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine, and is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. NewYork-Presbyterian, which is ranked sixth on the U.S. News & World Report’s list of top hospitals, also comprises NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and its academic affiliate, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
nyp Continue reading →

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Cardiologist Bradley B. Keller, MD, and his research team are discovering details in
the lab that explain how the heart is formed in the embryo. This knowledge improves the chances of doctors identifying
fetuses who can benefit from intervention to treat congenital defects.

Doctor’s in the Heart Center at Children’s are redefining what has typically been called early detection. With
technologically advanced tools including echocardiography they are looking inside fetal hearts and spotting abnormalities
months before babies are born.

Through fetal diagnosis, doctors can actually see the heart and valve structures and detect the most serious form of heart
disease in children by 20 weeks of gestation, the mid-point in pregnancy.

In some cases, Dr. Keller turns to the embryo of a chick or a mouse to shed light on how the heart functions and how it
acquires its normal structure during its earliest days. In his lab, the avian embryo is an experimental model capable of
being modified to allow for the study of specific heart conditions.

For example, hypoplastic left heart syndrome is created by simply tying a small suture around the developing atrium, which
alters how blood flows into the heart and reduces the flow on the left side. “If blood flow is reduced to the left side of
the heart, the structures on that side of the heart will not grow and the embryo will have hypoplastic left heart syndrome –
exactly as we see it in patients,” said Dr. Keller, chief of cardiology at Children’s. “We can then identify the changes in
structure and function associated with this condition and determine if we can reverse this condition by fetal intervention.”

To get even more from such models, Children’s is participating in the development of new high-resolution imaging systems that
allows scientists to peer inside the embryonic heart when it is a small as 2 millimeteres, measure blood flow, and visualize
heart function prior to the completion of cardiac valve formation.

Using mice models, researchers are studying how interactions between the pregnant mother and embryo influence how the heart
forms and functions. To do so, an operating room environment was created – replete with anesthesia, blood pressure
monitoring, surgical techniques and imaging capabilities – to study the mother and embryo simultaneously and observe
interactions, such as the effect of low oxygen or how certain medications taken by the mother affect developing heart
function and embryo survival.

Researchers in Dr. Keller’s lab also are using heart muscle cells from the chick and mouse embryos to regenerate
“tissue-engineered” heart tissues in order to understand how the mechanical environment triggers heart muscle cells to mature
and divide. It is all part of learning more about the heart as a dynamic, moving element during development, when dividing
cells are forming the heart while constantly exposed to stretching, twisting and other forces.

“Because our long-term goal is to repair the heart using a patient’s own cells and tissues, cell transplant, for example, we
have to understand their native environment,” Keller added.

Congenital heart disease is of particular interest to Dr. Keller and his team – who follow their patients from prior to birth
well into adulthood. Improvements in general diagnostic cardiology and interventions that open up heart valves or close holes
in the heart using catheters and minimally invasive techniques are helping young patients avoid major surgery.

Children’s doctors have made great strides in diagnosing problems with echocardiology, a safe, noninvasive procedure that
uses high frequency sound waves to deliver a detailed picture of the heart. Children’s also is expanding its interventional
cardiac catheterization lab to take advantage of new ways to use catheters as therapeutic devices and is partnering with
local biotechnology companies to develop novel approaches that optimize both software and the catheters used for
interventional procedures.

At Children’s, researchers are studying tissue engineering for ways to regulate how heart muscle cells grow and mature,
hoping that someday such science can be used to repair abnormalities in the heart of children. But, detection is the first
step.

For more information about Dr. Keller or his research please visit the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s Web site at chp. Enter the Press Room for more reporter-friendly
information.

About Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

Renowned for its outstanding clinical services, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has helped establish the standards of
excellence in pediatric care. From Ambulatory Care to Transplantation and Cardiac Care, talented and committed pediatric
experts care for infants, children and adolescents who make more than 400,000 visits to Children’s and its many neighborhood
locations each year. Children’s also has been named consistently to several elite lists of pediatric health care facilities,
including ranking ninth best pediatric hospital in the country by Child magazine and eighth among children’s hospitals (FY
2003) in funding provided by the National Institutes of Health.

Contact: Melanie Finnigan
Melanie.Finniganchp
412-692-5502
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
chp Continue reading →

The science team from Advaxis, Inc., (OTCBB: ADXS), the live, attenuated Listeria monocytogenes (Listeria) immunotherapy company, met with the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), an independent group of medical experts, yesterday and received approval to dose all remaining patients in the initial forty (40) patient leg of the 120-patient, cervical dysplasia clinical trial being conducted in the United States.

This meeting was a required step in the protocol agreed to with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The protocol, agreed to by the FDA, required that an initial group of patients be treated and assessed by a DSMB prior to enrolling the full complement of patients in each forty (40) patient group.

“We are pleased with the pace of enrollment and the continued finding of safety in all Phase II participants,” commented Advaxis EVP of Science and Operations Dr. John Rothman. “Our lead construct, ADXS11-001, was well tolerated in all treated patients. The DSMB found no safety issues that warranted any change in the conduct of the trial.”

Overall, thirty-eight (38) patients have been dosed in two (2) trials. By year end, it is anticipated that there will be a database of more than 200 dosed patients.”

About the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB)

It is the policy of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that each Institute and Center (IC) should have a system for the appropriate oversight and monitoring of the conduct of clinical trials to ensure the safety of participants and the validity and integrity of the data for all NIH-supported or conducted clinical trials. The establishment of the data safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) is required for multi-site clinical trials involving interventions that entail potential risk to the participants. The data and safety monitoring functions and oversight of such activities are distinct from the requirement for study review and approval by an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

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Researchers say they now know how to prevent the gut from absorbing cholesterol. We could be seeing the beginnings of a new type of cholesterol-lowering drug.

There is a drug called Zetia that lowers cholesterol in the body. The problem has been that no one knew why or how this drug did this. The drug is produced by Schering-Plough Corporation.

According to an article in the journal Science, we may now be able to explain how Zetia works.

Scot Atlman Graziano (and colleagues) said that the drug affects a protein. This protein is called NPC1L1.

When the researchers genetically engineered some mice that lacked this protein, they found that these mice absorbed much less cholesterol from the food they were given in comparison to other normal mice. The absorption was 70% less, in fact.

How did this help the scientists discover how Zetia works?

They gave the genetically engineered mice Zetia to see if there was any difference in the rate at which their bodies would absorb cholesterol. There was no difference. Giving these mice Zetia did not alter their bodies’ absorption of cholesterol. This mean sthat Zetia is affecting the protein NPC1L1.

As the researchers’ experiments progressed, they found that the protein NPC1L1 does not work alone. It interacts with something else. They do not yet know what it is, but said they will carry on until they find out.

We all know there is a strong link between cholesterol levels in the blood and heart disease. Finding out how we absorb cholesterol, and being able to regulate this rate is very important.

The problem for the pharmaceutical industry today is finding a drug that reduces cholesterol absorption without affecting how our bodies absorb other nutrients, such as fats.

Some dugs on the market can reduce your body’s fat absorption rate from food. The trouble is these drugs also stop other nutrients from entering the body, such as vitamins A and K. There are also other side-effects associated with drugs like that.

Finding a drug that targets only cholesterol in such a precise way would be better for patients. Continue reading →

Facelifts and other wrinkle-reducing procedures have long been sought by people wanting to ward off the signs of aging, but new research suggests that it takes more than tightening loose skin to restore a youthful look. A study by physicians at the University of Rochester Medical Center indicates that significant changes in facial bones – particularly the jaw bone – occur as people age and contribute to an aging appearance.

Presented at the American Association of Plastic Surgeons annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, and published in the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the study suggests that the future approach to facial rejuvenation may be two-fold, first restoring structure underneath before performing skin-tightening procedures.

Reviewing a collection of 120 facial CT scans taken for other, unrelated medical reasons, plastic surgeons measured changes that occurred to facial bones over time. The CT scans were divided equally by gender and age, 20 men and 20 women in each of three age groups: young (ages 20-36), middle (41 to 64), and old (65 and older). Researchers used a computer program to measure the length, width, and angle of the mandible, or jaw bone, for each scan, and compare the results for each group. Using CT scans for this study allowed for more accurate three-dimensional reconstruction and increased accuracy of measurements, disputing previous research that relied on traditional head x-rays and suggested that the jaw bone expands with age.

The angle of the jaw increases markedly with age, which results in a loss of definition of the lower border of the face, according to the study. Jaw length decreases significantly in comparisons between the young and middle age groups, whereas the decline in jaw height from the middle to old group was noteworthy.

“The jaw is the foundation of the lower face, and changes to it affect facial aesthetics,” said Howard N. Langstein, M.D., professor and chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “These measurements indicate a significant decline in the jaw’s volume as a person ages, and therefore less support of soft tissue of the lower face and neck.”

This loss of bony volume may contribute sagging facial skin, decreased chin projection, and loss of jaw-line definition. As jaw volume decreases, soft tissue of the lower face has less support, resulting in a softer, oval appearance to the lower face and sagging skin, which also affects the aging appearance of the neck.

“Physicians have long been taught that facial aging is caused by soft tissue descent and loss of elasticity,” Langstein said. “Though we have always known that bones change over time, until now, the extent to which it causes an aged appearance was not appreciated.”

The study by Langstein and plastic surgery resident Robert Shaw, M.D., gives evidence that facial bones are constantly subjected to forces that remodel them. Understanding there are predictable changes in facial bone structure as people age gives physicians new insight into procedures that may successfully restore youthful appearance. Shaw and Langstein led the three-institution collaboration, which also involved Stanford University and Harvard University.

“The future of facial cosmetic procedures to restore a youthful look may include methods to suspend soft tissue – such as chin and cheek implants – to rebuild the structure that time has worn away, in addition to lifting and reducing excess skin,” Shaw said.

Continue reading →

A free education and support program for family cancer caregivers will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at the Stabile Research Building at Moffitt Cancer Center, 12902 Magnolia Drive.

The program, open to anyone caring for a cancer patient, will be facilitated by Moffitt professionals Miriam Innocenti, clinical social worker; Jill Blair, nurse practitioner; and Heather Bell, registered dietitian.

“A cancer diagnosis means a change of life – not only for patients, but for those who love and care for them,” Innocenti said. “Nowadays, a person is a survivor the moment he or she is diagnosed with the disease.” A survivor is also someone who shares the cancer experience, such as family caregivers, says the National Cancer Institute (NCI)

The Caring for the Caregiver program helps cancer caregivers manage the side effects of treatment, as well as understand the role of nutrition, how cancer affects the family and how to manage stress. Caregivers also will learn problem-solving techniques and ways to improve communications skills and time management. Caregivers are encouraged to share their experiences during the program and learn from one another.

Light breakfast and lunch are provided. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. the day of the program. Reservations are required. Please call 1-888-MOFFITT (1-888-663-3488) by June 24.

About H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

Located in Tampa, Florida, Moffitt Cancer Center is the only Florida-based cancer center with the NCI designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center for its excellence in research and contributions to clinical trials, prevention and cancer control. Moffitt currently has 15 affiliates in Florida, one in Georgia and two in Puerto Rico. Additionally, Moffitt is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a prestigious alliance of the country’s leading cancer centers, and is listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” for cancer, as well as for ear, nose and throat. Moffitt’s sole mission is to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer.

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Continue reading →