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Eight To 14 Weekly Units Of Booze Boosts Overall Tally Of Days Spent In Hospital
Downing between eight and 14 units of alcohol a week boosts the total number of days spent in hospital, finds research published ahead of print in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Report Finds Racial Disparities In Prescription Drug Access, Use, Regimen Adherence
"Origins and Strategies for Addressing Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Pharmaceutical Therapy: The Health-Care System, the Provider, and the Patient," National Minority Quality Forum: The report -- by Richard Levy, a health care consultant and former vice president of the National Pharmaceutical Council; Robert Like, professor and director of the Center for Healthy Families and Cultural Diversity of the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; and Harry Shabsin, a private-practice psychologist -- looks at how appropriate medications for a variety of diseases often are under-prescribed, over-prescribed, or mis-prescribed among minorities. The report looks at disparities in treatment of minority patients with cardiovascular disease, asthma, psychiatric illness, pain and other conditions and finds disparities in access to medications through insurance programs, in the prescribing of medications and in adherence to medication regimens. The report offers ways to improve prescribing and use of medications among diverse communities (National Minority Quality Forum release, 5/12).
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What Is A PET Scan? How Does A PET Scan Work?
A PET scan uses radiation, or nuclear medicine imaging, to produce 3-dimensional, color images of the functional processes within the human body. PET stands for positron emission tomography. The machine detects pairs of gamma rays which are emitted indirectly by a tracer (positron-emitting radionuclide) which is placed in the body on a biologically active molecule. The images are reconstructed by computer analysis. Modern machines often use a CT X-ray scan which is performed on the patient at the same time in the same machine.
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Low Oxygen Levels In Prostate Tumors Can Predict Recurrence: Long-Term Study

Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have discovered that low-oxygen regions in prostate tumors can be used to predict a rise in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels, a marker of tumor recurrence in prostate cancer. The long-term study results were presented at the 2009 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Orlando, FL. Aruna Turaka, M.D., radiation oncology fellow at Fox Chase and lead author on the study, explained that low oxygen, or hypoxia, in tumors is a well-known risk factor for radiation resistance in solid tumors. Between 2000 and 2002, Fox Chase research colleagues published six research papers detailing the link between tumor hypoxia, radioresistance, and the risk of increased PSA levels. But mean follow-up at the time of those studies was 19 months, she said. The current study reinforces those preliminary findings with more "mature" data and a median follow-up of 8 years. In the current study, Turaka and her colleagues used a custom-built probe to monitor the amount of oxygen that prostate tumors and non-cancerous muscle tissue were receiving. They used this probe on 57 patients with low or intermediate risk of cancer just before the patients received a form of localized radiation therapy. The researchers then tracked the patients over time, looking for a correlation between the amount of oxygen levels in the prostate tumor relative to the muscle tissue at the time of therapy and later looked at the increase in PSA levels. Eight of the 57 patients experienced an increase in PSA levels following prostate cancer treatment, defined as an increase of 2 ng/mL above the lowest PSA reading following brachytherapy. Overall, average muscle oxygenation was 12.5-times higher than that of the tumor (30 mm Hg vs 2.4 mm Hg). Using a statistical model that accounted for such risk factors as tumor grade, PSA level, and tumor size, the team determined that hypoxia was a significant independent predictor of an increase in PSA levels. In other words, even after accounting for PSA value, Gleason score, tumor size, age, and other prostate cancer risk factors, tumor hypoxia alone could predict the likelihood of increased PSA levels, and potentially tumor recurrence. "Now", Turaka said, "the goal is to apply the results to the clinic". That, she said, requires a two-pronged approach: developing noninvasive screening methods to identify hypoxic tumors, and more potent anticancer weapons to target them. "We already knew that there are hypoxic regions within cancers," she said. "The future goal is to interpolate that to relate to the expression of molecular markers [such as hypoxia-inducible factor-1-alpha] and attack those tumors with dose escalation radiation oncology strategies and targeted agents." The findings were described in a poster presentation at ASCO 2009. In addition to FCCC, the authors included researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, and the Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI. Abstract #5136: Correlation of hypoxic prostate/muscle pO2 (P/M PO2) ratio and biochemical failure in patients with localized prostate cancer: Long-term results. Diana Quattrone Fox Chase Cancer Center


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