Drugs that suppress HIV are keeping infected individuals alive and relatively healthy for years, even decades. But studies suggest that a new health risk is emerging for these long-term survivors: increased odds for heart attack and stroke.

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Screening for HIV infection in people older than 55 years of age is likely to be worthwhile in terms of the cost of screening balanced against the potential savings in heath care costs and the gain in years of life, according to a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

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June 23, 2008 (Washington, DC) — The ongoing explosion of information generated by recent revolutions in the “-omics”— genomics, proteomics, metabolomics — requires changes to be made in the way that therapies are developed, approved, and paid for if the potential of personalized medicine is to be realized.

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jun 23 - Patients coinfected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV who have high pretreatment LDL cholesterol levels are more likely to respond to HCV therapy than are similar patients with low LDL cholesterol levels, according to a report in the May 11th issue of AIDS.

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Vermillion, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRML), a molecular diagnostics company, announced that it has submitted a 510(k) pre-market notification application to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) requesting regulatory clearance of its Ovarian Tumor Triage Test known as OVA1(TM).

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The first cross-country report on the management and funding of colorectal cancer (CRC) reveals an urgent need for action to improve the survival of patients diagnosed with this common cancer in Europe and Australia. Key findings from the report published by the London School of Economics (LSE) confirm that few countries have prioritized CRC screening and treatment.

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June 10, 2008 (Chicago, Illinois) — A provocative new study has shown that erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) might have an effect not only on red blood cells but on tumor blood vessels as well. The findings were presented here at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 44th Annual Meeting, where investigators emphasized that the work is preliminary and will require further study.

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Results from a meta-analysis involving data from six phase III studies show that patients taking the chemotherapy pill Xeloda actually live longer than those receiving intravenous (IV) chemotherapy 5-FU/FA*.

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jun 23 - Implementation of breast cancer outreach initiatives in Atlanta, Georgia, doubled the proportion of stage 0 tumors diagnosed in African American women since 2001, with a nearly reciprocal drop in the proportion of stage 4 diagnoses, investigators report in the August 1st issue of Cancer.

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Chuck Grassley is at it again. The senator from Iowa is looking into a Stanford psychiatry professor’s multimillion-dollar stake in a drug company called Corcept Therapeutics.Alan Schatzberg, who heads Stanford’s psych department, followed the university’s rules and reported having a stake of more than $100,000 in the company. According to Grassley, Schatzberg’s total stake in the company may be worth some $6 million.

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