A potential new treatment approach has been identified for treating severe asthma, as per a small study. The approach is focused up on blocking of a powerful immune system, which is present in large amounts in patients with the severe form of asthma.

It is believed that one out of every ten asthmatics suffers from severe asthma that frequently requires progressively higher doses of steroids for controlling symptoms.

From News-Medical.Net:

Included in the study were 26 healthy people, 67 mild asthmatics, and 51 severe asthmatics. Bronchial fluid and lung tissue samples were taken from the participants to discover their levels of TNF alpha.

Levels were significantly higher in those with severe disease and concentrated in one particular type of immune cell (mast cells) which are recognised components of the inflammatory reaction in asthma.

TNF alpha levels were low and similar in those with no asthma or who only had mild symptoms.

This suggests that the high levels of TNF alpha in severe disease are characteristic of more chronic disease that is resistant to steroid treatment, rather than a feature of the disease itself, say the authors.

The authors caution that that more research is required in this field before the approach can be recommended at any stage but also said that this approach is a potentially new avenue of treatment for severe asthma.

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Injecting a corticosteroid, triamcinolone, directly into the eye may slow the progression of proliferative diabetic retinopathy that is a complication of diabetes that results in blindness, according to researchers led by specialists at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute.

It was remarked that steroids may increase the risk of glaucoma and cataract and laser photocoagulation is the best treatment option till the time a new option is discovered, which has the good effects of steroids, minus the damage.

From News-Medical.Net:

“Steroid treatment worked, but because of safety issues, cannot be recommended routinely at this time,” says Neil M. Bressler, the James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology and chief of the Retina Division of the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, chair of the government-sponsored Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network. “It is a condition that can be treated safely and effectively with lasers.”

The study, published in the December issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, described and compared one of two treatments on 840 eyes from 693 men and women between July 2004 and May 2006. The subjects, about evenly divided between men and women with an average age of 63, had diabetic retinopathy with macular edema, a swelling of the central portion of the retina that’s caused by leakage of fluid.

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is marked by the growth of new and unwanted blood vessels on the optic nerve in the back of the eye (which communicates information from the retina to the brain) or another area of the retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye. Despite advances in treating both diabetes and its complications, about 700,000 Americans have proliferative diabetic retinopathy and 63,000 new cases develop each year.

According to Bressler, lead author of the study, some evidences were found suggesting that steroids may possibly improve vision outcomes from diabetic macular edema (DME).

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There is a possible link between a specific genetic variation and an increased risk for severe premenstrual depression, as per scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the National Institute of Mental Health.

This psychiatric condition, known as a premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, is considered to affect approximately 8 percent of women in their childbearing years and is featured by severe irritability and anxiety during second half of the menstrual cycle.

From News-Medical.Net:

Compared to the control group, women with PMDD were significantly more likely to have the ESR1 gene variants, the study found.

“While these are preliminary findings that require replication in larger studies, we would argue that this may explain part of the variance among women in the susceptibility to developing this mood disorder,” Rubinow said. “Studies have shown that PMDD is characterized by abnormal sensitivity to reproductive steroids like estrogen. As a receptor for the hormone that can trigger the onset of PMDD symptoms, ESR1 has clear physiologic relevance for this disorder.”

The authors acknowledge that as with other complex genetic disorders, the contribution to PMDD of polymorphisms in a single gene may not be large. In addition, they also noted that the findings may be telling us more about the control group.

Dr. David R. Rubinow, the study’s senior author and the Meymandi distinguished professor and chair of psychiatry at UNC School of Medicine, remarked that this study could help in obtaining important clues as to how some women suffer from mood changes while others do not besides finding the nature of that susceptibility.

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Steroid treatment is not an effective option for providing relief to infants with a common and potentially serious viral lower respiratory infection called bronchiolitis, as per a new study co-authored by Dr. Joan Bregstein of the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center.

The study suggested that steroids do not help in preventing hospitalization or improve respiratory symptoms for bronchiolitis that is believed to be the common cause of hospitalization among infants.

From News-Medical.Net:

“Our study shows that treating bronchiolitis with steroids doesn’t work. We hope this study will resolve some of the uncertainty for physicians and families, as we move forward in developing better means of preventing and treating the infection,” says Dr. Bregstein, site principal investigator and emergency medicine pediatrician at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Current recommendations suggest that simple supportive care is the best available treatment for bronchiolitis. Researchers note that steroid-based medications still play an important role in other respiratory illnesses of childhood such as asthma and croup. They point out these medications are not the androgenic steroids sometimes abused by athletes, and that the side effects seen with long-term steroid use are not a risk in the short-course treatments used for croup and asthma attacks.

The multicenter study was published in the July 26 New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN).

It was highlighted that simply supportive care is the most effective option for bronchiolitis though steroid-based medications still play an important role in respiratory illnesses of childhood such as asthma and croup.

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βarrestin2, a protein used for the purpose of regulation of androgen receptors’ expression, can be a new focal point for staging and curing testosterone-fueled prostate cancer, as per medical College of Georgia researchers. The study findings were reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition.

As per study’s corresponding author, Dr. Yehia Daaka, Distinguished Chair in Oncologic Pathology in the MCG School of Medicine, an increase in the number of androgen receptors was what considered to be behind the growth of prostate cancer progression in men with advanced disease.

From Sciencedaily.com:

With increased numbers of androgen receptors, prostate cancer can make use of the limited testosterone available after a diseased prostate gland is removed or after testosterone production is blocked by drug therapy. In fact, the increased number of androgen receptors may mutate so they can start feeding off other steroids or even growth factors, Dr. Daaka says.

These wily skills help explain why cancer returns despite initially promising treatment results.

“It is clear that signaling by the androgen receptor is paramount for not only the initiation but also the progression of the disease, including escape to a hormone-refractory disease,” he says. Moves androgen receptors make to support cancer growth make it “unbeatable at this point,” for some patients.

However increased levels of βarrestin2 appear to halt the potentially deadly increase in androgen receptor expression, the MCG research team has found.

Dr. Daaka, a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar, remarked that initiation and progression of prostate cancer can be regulated by regulated by expression or non-expression of activation or repression of the androgen receptors’ co-factors.

The involved collaborators included Dr. Vijayabaskar Lakshmikanthan, postdoctoral fellow; Dr. Lin Zou, former postdoctoral fellow;  Jae Kim, graduate student; Dr. Nidia C. Messias, assistant professor; and Dr. Zhongzhen Nie, assistant professor; from the MCG Department of Pathology; and Drs. Allison Michal and Jeffrey L. Benovic from Thomas Jefferson University.

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According to a U.S. Study, steroids can cause long-lasting effect on teenagers’ brains apart from flipping the brain switch for aggression for almost two years.

It was also revealed during the study that anabolic steroids can result in permanent brain changes.

From News-Medical.Net:

Neuroscientists are deeply concerned about the rising adolescent abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs), given the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s estimate that nearly half a million 8th to 10th-grade students abuse AASs each year.

Not only do steroids set kids up for heavier use of steroids and other drugs later in life, it is known that long-term steroid use can cause mood swings, hallucinations and paranoia, liver damage and high blood pressure, as well as increased risk of heart disease, stroke and some types of cancer.

Coming off steroids can also lead to depression.

The researchers at Northeastern University, Boston, examined the behaviour of adolescent hamsters when another hamster was put into their cage.

Dr Richard Melloni, who led the research, remarked that people using or considering to initiate the use of steroids must be highly cautious of health risks from steroids in the long-run and the serious potential for aggression and violence.

It was remarked by many other researchers that teenagers must stay away from steroids as their young bodies cannot handle the effects of steroids like mature bodies and illegal use of steroids is not recommended to any one.

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According to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, a combination of steroids and antihistamines can prove to be an effective option for offering relief to patients suffering from allergic reactions of Plavix, the widely-prescribed drug clopidogrel.

The study findings were presented by primary Investigator Michael P. Savage, M.D., director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Kimberly L. Campbell, M.D., cardiology fellow and lead author, at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session on March 30 2009.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“This is a very important study for many cardiac patients but especially those with stents,” said Savage. “Every patient who receives a stent must take Plavix to help prevent stent thrombosis which is clotting of the stent. This obviously poses major problems if the patient suffers an allergic reaction to the medication. To discontinue taking the drug can lead to a heart attack which may be fatal. Those with a drug eluting stent are required to be on the drug for at least one year. Our patients with drug eluting stents actually averaged 17 months on Plavix versus the minimum of one year. That’s a very long time to not be on a medication that may save your life.”

Plavix is one of the most prescribed drugs world-wide. Data from 2007 shows Plavix is the fourth most sold drug in the United States with almost four billion dollars in sales, according to IMS Health, a leading pharmaceutical industry monitoring company. It is estimated that about six percent of those taking the drug showed some signs of an allergic reaction

John R. Cohn, M.D., chief of Adult Allergy at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals and a key contributor to the study, remarked that low doses of antihistamines and steroids can be effective to make sure that patients can easily tolerate Plavix without discontinuing it. It was also remarked that these study results are perhaps first-of-their-kind to suggest the fact that an allergy to the drug could be managed without stopping the drug after experiencing a reaction.

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According to a new study on early steroid withdrawal following transplantation of liver, there is a reduced risk of glucose intolerance and an increased incidence of rejection that may necessitate the requirement for treatment of diabetes.

The study results on early steroid withdrawal appeared in an issue of Liver Transplantation, which is the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS).

From News-Medical.Net:

“Although the incidence of acute rejection in the placebo group was increased, it was easily controlled in most of the cases and did not affect long-term graft histology or survival,” the authors note, adding that the increase may ultimately be acceptable if steroids could be eliminated. However, the main goal of steroid elimination is to reduce metabolic complications and this study showed no difference in cholesterol or hypertension, with a trend toward a decreased incidence of diabetes in the placebo group.

The authors conclude: “Indeed, while there are many arguments in favor of corticosteroid withdrawal beyond 3 months posttransplantation, in terms of safety and efficacy, our study demonstrates that earlier withdrawal at day 14 is not completely safe in terms of rejection, but seems efficient in terms of improvement of glucose tolerability,” which could decrease long-term mortality due to cardiovascular disease.

It is important to note here that the first double-blind placebo-controlled study was initiated for ascertaining the effects of early steroid withdrawal to ensure that all medical practitioners are on the same knowledge platform.

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