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    Lightbulb Asthma & other lung ailments

    Novartis asthma pill shows promise...

    Novartis asthma pill shows promise in small trial
    August 6, 2016 - The first new asthma pill in decades has produced promising results in a small clinical trial, potentially paving the way for another treatment option for patients by the end of the decade.
    Fevipiprant, which is being developed by Novartis, reduced a biological marker of asthma nearly five-fold in the 12-week trial involving 61 patients, researchers said on Saturday. No serious adverse events were reported. Larger and longer studies are now needed to prove that the twice-daily pill can also reduce severe asthma attacks, known as exacerbations. Novartis believes the medicine could be filed for regulatory approval in around 2019.

    Pills for asthma used to be standard treatment 40 or 50 years ago, but those older products were often associated with worrying side effects. They have since been replaced by inhalers that deliver small amounts of drugs directly into the lungs. The Novartis pill works in a very precise way to block the action of inflammatory cells called eosinophils.

    The latest research, published in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine, comes at a time of considerable innovation in asthma care, with the recent launch of new injectable drugs for severe asthma that also target eosinophils. At the same time, many drugmakers are developing improved asthma inhalers, including "smart" devices with sensors that monitor use.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/novartis-...ce.html?ref=gs

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    Outbreak of 'thunderstorm asthma' in Australia...

    Four killed by rare 'thunderstorm asthma' in Melbourne
    Thursday 24th November, 2016 - Four people have been confirmed dead from a rare condition known as thunderstorm asthma that sent hundreds of people to hospital in Melbourne.
    The wild thunderstorm caused rain-sodden ryegrass pollen to explode and disperse over Australia's second-largest city on Monday night, and the pollen caused asthma attacks in patients who had never suffered from the condition before.Ambulance Victoria spokesman Mick Stephenson reported a six-times larger caseload because of the asthma attacks.


    Ambulance Victoria reported a six-times larger caseload because of the asthma attacks

    Professor George Braitberg, head of Royal Melbourne Hospital's emergency department, likened the scene in the hospital on Monday night to a war zone. He said seven asthma patients had been transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit.

    The latest death to be confirmed was Clarence Leo, a nightclub bouncer and father of two, who died at home early on Tuesday morning, his family said. Prof Braitberg said: "I've been an emergency physician for about 35 years, worked in a number of hospitals, and I can say, hand on heart, that I have not seen this before."

    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...-35238128.html

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    Price cut wins approval of drug... GSK biotech asthma drug wins UK approval after extra price cut December 1, 2016 - GlaxoSmithKline's new injectable asthma drug Nucala has been recommended for use in Britain's state-run health service in the most severe patients, after the drugmaker provided further analyses on its use and made an additional price cut.
    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) initially declined to endorse the antibody treatment as evidence presented by GSK suggested it would be used in less severe cases and would not be cost effective. The latest draft guidance from NICE, published on Thursday, now backs the medicine for the sickest patients with high levels of white blood cells called eosinophils. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration made a similar ruling earlier in the month. The drug is designed to lower the level of eosinophils, too many of which can cause lung inflammation. Nucala is given by injection every four weeks. Its list cost is 840 pounds ($1,050) per dose but the price the National Health Service will pay is confidential. NICE is also appraising Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' rival biotech drug Cinqaero for severe eosinophilic asthma and has asked Teva to provide more information on cost-effectiveness. https://www.yahoo.com/news/gsk-biote...ce.html?ref=gs

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    Omega-3 Fatty Acids Reduce Asthma Risk in Children...

    Study: Omega-3 Fatty Acids Reduce Asthma Risk in Children by One-Third
    December 29, 2016 | Pregnant women who take certain omega-3 fatty acid supplements can reduce by one-third the risk that their offspring will develop asthma, according to a new study.
    The investigation, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that women who received 2.4 grams of long-chain omega-3 supplements in the last three months of pregnancy reduced their child's risk of asthma by 31 percent. Coldwater fish, notably salmon and sardines, are good sources of omega-3 acids. Experts say the nutrients have long been known to have anti-inflammatory properties and are key to regulating immune response in humans. Asthma is an immune system disorder.


    Alexander McBride, 8, who has asthma, exhales into a peak flow meter in Severna Park, Maryland

    Researchers with the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC) and the University of Waterloo in Canada conducted the study of almost 700 pregnant Danish women. Canadian researchers measured the levels of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids in the women's blood at 24 weeks of pregnancy, and again one week following delivery. The health of the children was then tracked for five years, the age at which symptoms of asthma, such as wheezing, often first appear. Women who had low levels of omega-3 fatty acids at the start of the study benefitted the most from supplementation, researchers found.

    Currently, one out of five children suffers from asthma before school age, and that percentage has more than doubled over the past decades in Western countries. Investigators blame low levels of fatty acids in the diet of pregnant women. Hans Bisgaard of COPSAC at the Copenhagen University Hospital said, "This study proves that they are definitively and significantly related." "Identifying these women and providing them with supplements should be considered a front-line defense to reduce and prevent childhood asthma," said Ken Stark, Canada Research Chair in Nutritional Lipidomics at Waterloo, who led the testing.

    http://www.voanews.com/a/study-omega...d/3655859.html

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    Every drug breakthrough seems shortly down the road to have a bunch of lawyers with class action suits suing the drug companies. Im afraid of new drugs and I dont take them. My dr said new drugs just out are not to be trusted. They are not vetted like they used to be. The entire process of trials and studies and assuring drug safety have been speeded up for MONEY
    LETS GO BRANDON
    F Joe Biden

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    If ya got asthma, cut back on cured meats...

    Cured meats linked to worsening asthma symptoms
    January 2, 2017 – Eating large amounts of cured meats was linked to worse symptoms among asthma sufferers, a French study found. That was true even after taking obesity into account, the authors say.
    So-called cured meats have been preserved and flavored by the addition of various combinations of salt, nitrates, nitrites, and sugar. Examples of such processed meats include bacon, ham, prosciutto, corned beef, pastrami, and pepperoni. “Cured meat intake, a typical food in industrialized societies, has been associated with many chronic diseases, including lung cancer and COPD, but its association with asthma remained unclear,” study leader Dr. Zhen Li told Reuters Health in an email. Li is a researcher at Inserm and Paul Brousse Hospital in Villejuif.


    Bacon is fried up in a pan in a kitchen

    As reported in Thorax, the research team had data on 971 adults from five French cities who answered questions about diet, weight, and asthma symptoms between 2003 and 2007. On average, participants ate 2.5 servings of cured meats per week. Just over 40 percent of the participants said they had had asthma at some point, and around half said they had never smoked. Each participant was assigned an asthma symptom score, ranging from zero to five, based on difficulty breathing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath during the previous year.

    Follow-up surveys completed between 2011 and 2013 showed that about half of the participants had no changes in their asthma scores, over one-fourth said their symptoms had improved and about 20 percent felt their symptoms had gotten worse. After accounting for other factors such as smoking, physical activity, age, other dietary habits, and education, researchers found that participants who ate the most cured meat (four or more servings per week) were 76 percent more likely to see a worsening of symptoms compared to those who ate the least (less than one full serving per week).

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    Fish oil taken during pregnancy could lower child’s asthma risk...

    Taking fish oil during pregnancy could lower child’s asthma risk
    Mon, Jan 09, 2017 - Women who took fish oil during the last three months of pregnancy significantly lowered the risk that their children would develop asthma, a study in Denmark has found.
    Among children whose mothers took fish-oil capsules, 16.9 percent had asthma by age three, compared with 23.7 percent whose mothers were given placebos. The difference, nearly 7 percentage points, translates to a risk reduction of about 31 percent. But in the study released on Dec. 28 last year, the researchers say they are not ready to recommend that pregnant women routinely take fish oil.


    Several salmon, taken in Maine

    Before doctors can make any recommendations, the study should be replicated, and fish oil should be tested earlier in pregnancy and at different doses. Doctors are eager to find ways to prevent asthma, a chronic disease that causes wheezing, coughing and breathing trouble, and that sends many families to the emergency room again and again.

    The incidence has more than doubled in developed countries in recent decades. Previous research had suggested that fish oil might help prevent asthma. The idea is plausible, because inflammation in the airways and lungs plays a major role in asthma, and fatty acids in fish oil are thought to prevent inflammation. The richest sources in food include fish like herring, sardines, mackerel, eel and salmon.

    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang.../09/2003662745

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    Cost Effective to Test for All Lung Cancer Mutations at Once...

    Study: Cost Effective to Test for All Lung Cancer Mutations at Once
    May 16, 2018 — Testing advanced lung cancer patients for all of the possible genetic mutations that could be driving their cancer at once is more cost effective than testing for one or a limited number of genes at a time, U.S. researchers reported Wednesday.
    There are eight targeted therapies doctors can use to treat nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients based on genetic defects, and more treatments are in clinical trials or awaiting approval. Companies such as Foundation Medicine Inc. and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. offer genetic profiling tests using so-called next-generation sequencing that can identify hundreds of potential cancer-causing gene mutations from a small tissue sample at once. These tests are used to match patients to specific therapies targeting those genes or to clinical trials testing new drugs.


    Insurance companies have been slow to pay for sequencing for all possible mutations at once, arguing such comprehensive testing amounts to funding research, not medical care. They often require doctors to test for individual genes sequentially or use a limited panel that looks for suspect genes associated with approved treatments. “Our results showed there were substantial cost savings compared with all the other strategies,” Dr. Nathan Pennell of the Cleveland Clinic’s lung cancer program said in a telephone briefing Wednesday.



    Lab officer cuts a DNA fragment under UV light from an agarose gel for DNA sequencing as part of research to determine genetic mutation in a blood cancer patient in Singapore.



    Last November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Foundation’s next-generation test, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in March said it would pay for next-generation sequencing for Medicare-eligible patients with advanced cancer. Often, tumor tissue from a biopsy is scarce, and sequential testing can sometimes require a second biopsy to gather more sections of the tumor. In the study released ahead of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting in Chicago next month, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic and colleagues modeled the cost of next-generation sequencing versus other types of testing to Medicare and to a commercial health plan with one million hypothetical members.


    In the model, which was based on the number and age of NSCLC patients in the United States, next-generation sequencing saved as much as $2.1 million for Medicare, the government health plan for older Americans, and more than $250,000 for commercial providers. The study did not factor in the cost of treatment. The study was funded by Swiss drugmaker Novartis, maker of Zykadia, a drug that targets ALK mutations found in about 4 percent of NSCLC cases.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/study-cost...e/4397648.html

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