Archive for April, 2010

When it comes to inhibiting the formation of estrogens during or after a steroid cycle, Femara is a trustworthy antiestrogen. Read on!

Femara, which is also known as Letrozole, is considered to be an exceptional drug for treating infertility and inhibiting estrogen formation.

Having an approximate active life of 2-4 days, Femara belongs to the category of oral aromatase inhibitors. Femara allows users to raise the levels of luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and sex hormone-binding globulin to a considerable extent. In addition to that, this preferred antiestrogen is good enough to be a part of every bulking or cutting cycle.

In addition to this, Femara is also useful for reducing the potential risks of acne and gynecomastia. Femara blocks the enzyme aromatase that blocks estrogen production to a significant extent. The results after using Femara can be dramatic, to say the least. Use of Femara also leads to improved muscle quality without holding excess water.

In the world of medicines, Femara is used to treat breast cancer after failure of traditional therapies such as Tamoxifen therapy.

Recommended Dose

The recommended dose of Femara is 0.5-2.5 mg per day, with or without meals.

Possible Side effects

When abused or of a low-grade quality, Femara can lead to possible side effects such as acne, liver toxicity, hair thinning, and hot flushes.

Storage Conditions

Femara tablets need to be kept at a controlled room temperature of 25°C (77°F) with excursions permitted up to 15-30°C (59-86°F). The tablets must be kept at a good distance away from pets, children, direct sunlight, moisture, and unauthorized usage.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston are examining if an old drug that is already available to heart disease patients can be used to delay delivery in expectant mothers with severe preeclampsia. If this comes true, hundred of thousands of women experiencing this life-endangering disorder would be getting a new hope.

Digibind, the drug, has been prescribed since the last 20 years to patients who are overdosing on a certain heart medication but is not yet approved by the U.S.F.D.A for treating preeclampsia, which is the most common and dangerous pregnancy complication affecting as many as eight in every hundred pregnant women.

From Sciencedaily.com:

The clinical trial will test whether Digibind reverses or prevents the abnormalities that occur with preeclampsia and allows the fetus to remain in the womb longer. This would give doctors more time to administer steroids to prevent respiratory complications in premature births and reduce the need for costly and lengthy neonatal intensive care.

“Right now, there is no treatment for preeclampsia, so this is truly groundbreaking,” said Dr. Nicole Ruddock, the study’s principal investigator and an instructor in UTMB’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

UTMB will continue enrolling participants at least through the end of this year. The study is sponsored by Protherics and is taking place in eight states around the country.

Dr. George Saade, chief of maternal–fetal medicine at UTMB remarked that the study is critical for protecting the mother while allowing the baby to grow and develop without delivering early.

A treatment that combines radiation therapy to destroy harmful cells and microsurgery to drain excess fluids, without any delay after injury to spinal cord, may considerably increase body’s ability for repairing the cord leading to permanent recovery from injury.

The finding was disclosed after a research on rats with crushed spinal cords, similar to human injury. This study was published in PLoS One.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Currently there is no cure for human spinal cord injury. Treatment after injury is largely limited to steroids administered to prevent further deterioration. “This research opens the door to developing a clinical protocol for curing human spinal cord injuries using conventional therapies,” said lead researcher Nurit Kalderon, Ph.D. Conducted at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York City, the research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

The hallmark of spinal cord injury is progressive tissue decay at the damage size. Kalderon’s previous research indicated that the spinal cord is able to repair itself in the early days after injury but is thwarted in its efforts during the second or third week by certain cells that block the repair process.

The research was conducted at Sloan-Kettering Institute by Nurit Kalderon, Manickam Muruganandham, Jason A. Koutcher and Melissa Potuzac. Kalderon is currently with the Spinal Cord Injury Repair Laboratory in New York City, Muruganandham is with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and Potuzak is with the University of Pennsylvania.

Corticosteroid nasal sprays are better than antihistamines when used “as needed” to treat seasonal allergies, according to researchers from the University of Chicago.

The finding, which was published in the November 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggested that the current prescription patterns and guidelines flavoring the use of antihistamines to be the first-line treatment option for mild or moderate allergies need to be altered.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Antihistamines can block the actions of histamines if taken in advance but they have no impact on the late response. Intranasal steroids inhibit the late response and prevent priming.

“Antihistamines,” explained Naclerio, “taken once symptoms have already appeared, arrive too late to block the early response and have little effect on the late response. Corticosteroids taken when symptoms begin can prevent the late response and inhibit priming, which makes the patient more sensitive to subsequent contacts.”

“Our study,” he added, “demonstrates the greater importance of the late response compared to the immediate response.”

The authors emphasize that continuous medication use is more effective than sporadic use in response to symptoms but acknowledge that few patients comply with those instructions.

In light of their findings, they suggest revising the current guidelines so that “intranasal corticosteroids should become the first-line treatment for seasonal allergies. They should now be recommended for regular use in patients with severe disease,” said Naclerio, “and for as-needed use in patients with mild disease.”

Robert Naclerio, M.D., chief of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the University of Chicago and director of the study, remarked more people will be benefiting and health costs can be dramatically reduced by altering the present guidelines to match patient practice.

According to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and other institutions, asthmatic children who do not show much improvement with symptoms while using low-dose inhaled corticosteroids can expect benefit with doses of steroids are increased or one of two asthma drugs is added.

The study called BADGER (Best ADd-on therapy Giving Effective Responses) can help physicians in predicting which of their patients will be benefiting the most and from which of the available options.

From Sciencedaily.com:

To treat children whose asthma is not well controlled while using low-dose inhaled corticosteroids, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) guides physicians to try one of three additional, or step-up, treatments: doubling the dosage of the inhaled corticosteroid or adding a long-acting beta antagonist (LABA) or a leukotriene receptor antagonist (LTRA) to the inhaled corticosteroid treatment.

However, physicians often find it difficult to predict which step-up treatment might work best for a particular child. So the researchers in the five-center, NHLBI-funded Childhood Asthma Research and Education (CARE) Network used a novel triple-crossover, double-blind approach to determine if the treatments improved asthma symptoms, and if so, which treatment might work best.

Robert C. Strunk, M.D., and Leonard B. Bacharier, M.D., both Washington University pediatric asthma specialists at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, were coauthors on the study, published online March 2, 2010, by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented the same day at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology’s annual meeting in New Orleans.

Drugs that promote red blood cell production and stimulants that are used to treat attention deficit disorder could relieve excessive tiredness in cancer patients, as per a new systematic review of studies.

Lead investigator Dr. Oliver Minton, a clinical researcher at St. George’s University of London, remarked that fatigue may be difficult to treat due to many contributory causes, many of which are not totally understood.

From Sciencedaily.com:

The investigators evaluated existing randomized controlled trials of:

1. methylphenidate (Ritalin), a stimulant medication typically used to treat attention deficit disorders and concentration problems;

2. erythropoietin and darbepoietin, drugs used to treat anemia induced by chemotherapy;

3. paroxetine (Paxil), a medicine used to treat depression and anxiety disorders; and

4. progestational steroids, a type of hormone therapy used to treat cancer.

The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.

When it came to treating fatigue, the effectiveness of the evaluated medications varied widely.

“We found that drugs which improve anemia caused by chemotherapy [also] improve fatigue,” Minton said.

Minton remarked that the most critical message for patients is to be aware of the effects of fatigue, and how they can possibly affect daily life and daily activities.

A recently concluded study of senior citizens at John Hopkins found that most of the elderly people have either moderate or severe asthma, which is either under-diagnosed or unattended.

Karen Huss, DNSc, RN, a nurse researcher and associate professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, remarked that asthma can lead to reduced quality of life for elderly people.

From Sciencedaily.com:

The study indicates that asthma in the elderly also contributes to a decreased quality of life. Those with more severe asthma reported more negative feelings about life in general, described their health as being poor, and had a greater degree of impairment during daily activities. This finding implies that senior citizens with severe asthma are less likely to engage in domestic activities such as dusting and vacuuming, leading to higher allergen levels and ultimately exacerbating severe asthma.

Despite the high levels of allergy Huss found among the elderly, few were taking proper medication to treat it. One third of the elderly in the study were not taking inhaled steroids, the preferred method of treating asthma. Many were using short-acting inhalant medications on a regular basis rather than the recommended way, which is as-needed only.

“It is critical that we first identify and control allergens in an elderly person’s environment in order to avoid asthma attacks,” says Huss. “Skin tests need to be done on elderly patients with asthma so they will know what to avoid. Once allergens in the home are reduced and medications that combat inflammation in the airways are introduced, then asthma severity in the elderly should decrease and the quality of life should improve.”

The study was supported by the Fund for Geriatric Medicine and Nursing of The Johns Hopkins University and by Greer Laboratories, Inc. Other authors were P.L. Naumann, MSN; P.J. Mason, MSN; P.P. Nanda, MPH; R.W. Huss, M.D., C.M. Smith, BS; and R.G. Hamilton, PhD.

According to a study by researchers from Emory University and the Mayo Clinic, newly diagnosed patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) relapsed less in the following year besides being able to considerably taper off use of an oral steroid when treated with just three days of a high-dose intravenous steroid.

The study was published in the October issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Faced with these ineffective new agents and with the limitations and drawbacks of the current treatment, Dr. Goronzy and Dr. Weyand turned to animal models. After implanting inflamed arteries into mice, they observed the effect of different doses of steroids on the inflammation. “We learned that the doses of steroids, although already high, really didn’t take away the disease,” says Dr. Weyand. “But if we increased the dose to very high levels, we could then eradicate the inflammation.”

Equipped with those initial results, they designed a double-blind human study to examine whether a brief period of pulsing with high-dose intravenous steroids soon after diagnosis could reduce the long-term need for prednisone and improve patient recovery.

As the article and an accompanying editorial report, the research showed extremely positive long-term results. Those patients who had been given the initial high dosage had fewer relapses of the disease (21, as compared to 37 relapses). Seventy-one percent were also able to reduce their daily dose of prednisone to 5 milligrams after a year of treatment (compared to only 15 percent in the control group), avoiding the need for long-term steroids.

Cornelia M. Weyand, MD, PhD, co-director of the Kathleen B. and Mason I. Lowance Center for Human Immunology at Emory University and an author of the paper, said that high doses of steroids may eliminate the associated inflammation with the complication.

In the world of dopamine agonists, Dostinex is a trusted name. Let us read about this wonder drug to develop a clear and complete understanding.

Dostinex, which is also known as LiquiDostnx (oral form) and Cabergoline, is an exemplary dopamine agonist for reducing the risks of prolactin related side-effects when anabolic steroids are used. It is worth noting here that Dostinex is also effective for treating sexual dysfunction, a complaint and complication of and among bodybuilders due to the use of harsh or aromatizable steroids. For steroid users making use of steroid products such as Tren and Deca, Dostinex is a great product as it allows steroid users to use them without any fear of sexual dysfunction.

It is important to note here that Dostinex is not physically or mentally addictive and is also admired for promoting a positive sense of well being. Also useful for managing hyperprolactinemia, Dostinex is one name that can always be trusted upon when it comes to reaping benefits of steroids without any side effect. In addition to that, it is also useful for facilitating early recovery after a steroid cycle besides allowing its users to gain an erection between orgasms. If that was not all, Dostinex can also improve sexual life to a considerable extent by enhancing all parameters of sexual drive and function.

The recommended dose of Dostinex is 0.5 mg a week though some users may opt for a dose of 0.25-0.50 mg per week. This small dosage is more than enough to attain the anti-prolactin, antidepressant, prosexual, and cognitive effects of this miracle drug.

We hope that this piece of information on Dostinex, the exceptional dopamine agonist, helped you to create and maintain a clear and complete understanding.

Minimally invasive surgery is an effective and safe therapy for alleviating the pain and pressure of sinusitis for geriatric patients who do not find any benefit with medication alone, as per a research.

It was remarked by Dr. Stilianos E. Kountakis, otolaryngologist, vice chair of the Medical College of Georgia Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and a principal author on the study published in the December issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery that the finding suggests that sinus problems should not be ignored in the elderly and there is a surgical method that is not that invasive and still provides good results.

From News-Medical.Net:

“We thought that maybe the endoscopic sinus surgery wouldn’t be as effective because of the decreased efficiency of the sinuses that naturally occurs with age, but that wasn’t the case. We thought maybe other medical problems, might make surgery less safe and effective, but that wasn’t the case either,” he says.

Instead they found 64 percent improvement in symptoms at three months, 73 percent improvement at six months and 75 percent improvement at 12 months, based on patient reports of their symptoms as well as physical exams.

Medical therapy, including inflammation-reducing steroids, mucus thinners and salt-water douches to moisturize and clean the sinuses, is always the first approach to treatment, Dr. Kountakis says. But after about a month, if the condition is no better, a surgical approach through the nose can be used to remove obstructions and/or widen sinus passages. Typically patients will continue to need some type of medicine following surgery to help keep their condition in check.

Dr. Kountakis and collaborators, led by Drs. J. Chris Colclasure and Charles W. Gross at the University of Virginia Health System found patients continuing to report improvements in symptoms over the year after surgery along with experiencing few minor complications and no major complications.