Dive Brief: Merck & Co. disclosed Monday afternoon that it is pausing enrollment in two studies of its checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) due to patient deaths. KEYNOTE-183 and KEYNOTE-185 will not recruit any further patients based on a recommendation from an external data monitoring committee. The two multiple myeloma studies are testing Keytruda in combination and Merck...
Category: <span>Miscellaneous</span>
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As radiation therapy declined so did second cancers in childhood cancer survivors
Childhood cancer survivors are living longer. Now research shows they are also less likely to develop second cancers while still young. The decline followed a sharp drop in the use of radiation therapy for treatment of childhood cancers. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, the percentage of pediatric cancer patients treated with radiation fell from...
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Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains
Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains When you drive toward an intersection, the sight of the light turning red will (or should) make you step on the brake. This action happens thanks to a chain of events inside your head. Your eyes relay signals to the visual centers in the back of your brain. After...
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This Man Invented a Font to Help People With Dyslexia Read
A new typeface is making life easier for people everywhere who live with dyslexia. Christian Boer, 33, is a Dutch graphic designer who created the font that makes reading easier for people, like himself, who have dyslexia, according to his website. Now, he’s offering it to people for free.The typeface is called “Dyslexie,” and Boer first developed...
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HOW A ‘BIG BANG’ THEORY COULD CHANGE CANCER TREATMENT
Current treatments involve targeting and killing specific cancer cells, but new research points to the efficacy of an ecological approach to curing the disease. Close-up view of cancer cells. In 1976, Peter Nowell put forth the idea that cancer was more than an overwhelming growth of cells. Just like a family tree, he argued, cancer...
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Vaginal mesh operations should be banned, says NICE
Image captionThe mesh is made of polypropylene – the same material used to make certain drinks bottles The health watchdog NICE is to recommend that vaginal mesh operations should be banned from treating organ prolapse in England, the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show has learned. Draft guidelines from NICE say the implants should only be used...
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Six Challenges To Tackle Before Artificial Intelligence Redesigns Healthcare
The potential of artificial intelligence for making healthcare better is indisputable. The question is how to integrate it successfully into our healthcare systems. For doing so, we have to overcome technical, medical limitations, as well as regulatory obstacles, soothe ethical concerns and mitigate the tendency to oversell the technology. The very first step should...
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Health Officials Agree Undetectable HIV Levels Likely Mean Uninfectious
Medical organizations endorse the “Undetectable = Untransmissible” campaign, which aims to raise awareness of scientific evidence showing that virally suppressed people living with HIV cannot infect others. More than 500 organizations from 67 countries have now endorsed a campaign promoting awareness that virally suppressed HIV-positive people cannot sexually transmit HIV. Launched in early 2016 to...
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What if consciousness is not what drives the human mind?
Everyone knows what it feels like to have consciousness: it’s that self-evident sense of personal awareness, which gives us a feeling of ownership and control over the thoughts, emotions and experiences that we have every day. Most experts think that consciousness can be divided into two parts: the experience of consciousness (or personal awareness), and the contents...
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One in four U.S. seniors with cancer has had it before
(HealthDay)—For a quarter of American seniors, a cancer diagnosis signals the return of an old foe, new research shows. Even in cancer patients younger than 65, one in 10 cases involves people who’ve had the disease before, the study of nearly 741,000 people found. Depending on a patient’s age or cancer type, the frequency of prior cancers ranged...