FDA Efforts To Warn Smokers Temporarily Halted

December 14, 2011 | by

In a continuing effort to educate the public on the dangers of cigarette smoking, the FDA intended to require cigarette manufacturers to post large, graphic images on packages of cigarettes. This effort has been temporarily halted by an injunction passed down from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon last month. The FDA’s law blog explains that Judge Leon felt the warnings were not “purely factual and noncontroversial disclosures” and that “the Government’s actual purpose is not to inform, but rather to advocate a change in consumer behavior.”

Graphic images on cigarette packs

EZ Vein Receives Quick FDA Approval

December 14, 2011 | by

EZ Vein is designed to ease the sometimes tricky job of inserting an intravenous catheter. The noninvasive device includes an inflation cuff that goes over the arm to redirect blood from deep tissue to the target vein near the skin’s surface to make more visible and accessible to a needle.

EZ Vein

The medical device was invented by Dr. Robert Perry, a resident at Oklahoma University Medical Center. EZ Vein is so practical that federal regulators approved it in just 17 days.

According to Perry:

It was kind of a surprise. I wasn’t anticipating getting anything back until January, and I got it in October.

Source: NewsOK

(HT: Medgadget)

Neoprobe Imaging Agent Aids in Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease

December 13, 2011 | by

Neoprobe’s newly licensed radiopharmaceutical imaging agent, AZD4694, is a fluorine-18 labeled radioligand for use in the imaging and evaluation of patients with signs or symptoms of cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Imaging agent for amyloid detection to aid diagnosis of Alzheimers disease

According to Thomas Tulip, Ph.D., Neoprobe’s Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer:

We believe AZD4694 has a compelling global commercial outlook and should beneficially facilitate development of more effective disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease. This potentially powerful second-generation agent with apparent best-in-class properties has demonstrated strong performance attributes. We believe AZD4694 imaging may be quite useful as an adjunct measure in the diagnosis of this large, growing disease and may allow patients to seek earlier, and therefore potentially more effective, treatment options.

An estimated 35 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. A 2009 report by the London-based nonprofit Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), an international federation of 71 national Alzheimer organizations (including the Alzheimer’s Association), indicates that the number of people with dementia is expected to grow sharply to 65.7 million in 2030 and 115.4 million in 2050.

AZD4694 binds to beta-amyloid deposits in the brain and can then be imaged in positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Amyloid plaque pathology is a required feature of Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and the presence of amyloid pathology is a supportive feature for diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s disease. Patients who are negative for amyloid pathology do not have Alzheimer’s disease.

Neoprobe Corporation, a Dublin, Ohio-based company, develops and commercializes innovative biomedical products that meet critical intraopertive, diagnostic and therapeutic treatment needs of patients and physicans. In January, Neoprobe will officially change its name to Navidea Biopharmaceuticals to reflect the company’s transformation to a biopharmaceutical company focused on targeted diagnostic agents.

Source: Neoprobe

Lowering Physical Activity Impairs Glycemic Control, Even in Healthy People

December 13, 2011 | by

Low levels of physical activity — like the 5,000 steps per day that Americans typically achieve, which is only about half of the recommended amount — have been implicated in the development of insulin resistance and its progression to full blown type 2 diabetes. However, the studies that suggested this connection were performed under laboratory conditions; they did not use people eating real meals, and they did not assess glycemic variability, so the direct impact of physical activity on glycemic control is not completely clear.

People walking down the street

Elevated postprandial glucose (PPG) often precedes the development of type 2 diabetes, and is a risk factor for adverse cardiovascular events, independently of diabetes status. Thus, Dr. Catherine Mikus and her colleagues at the University of Missouri set out to precisely define the impact of reducing physical activity on PPG and glycemic variability in healthy, active volunteers as they went about their daily lives. The results of their study were recently published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise [1].

NLMplus, Semantics for Better Results in Search and Discovery

December 12, 2011 | by

WebLib, a small international technology startup of experts in information retrieval, natural language processing and medical informatics, recently released NLMplus, a semantic search and knowledge discovery application that utilizes a variety of semantic resources and natural language processing tools to produce improved search results from the vast collection of biomedical data and services of the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

NLMplus