Blood Weekly articles from May 2000

Blood Weekly archives from May 2000

Automated System Reduces Microorganism Detection Time in Newborns.(in blood screenings)(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found that an automated blood culture system can reduce the amount of time required to screen the blood of newborns for microorganisms. Because of the lengthy process involved in detecting...

Generic Warfarin Sodium Has Same Effects as Coumadin.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Switching patients from Coumadin (Dupont Pharma) to a generic warfarin sodium product does not alter patients' International Normalized Ratio (INR). C.N. Swenson and G. Fundak of Bristol Myers Squibb Co....

Homocysteine May Stimulate Calcium Release in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers at the University of Mississippi have found that homocysteine appears to cause the release of Ca(2+) in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). Though is it known that homocysteine in the plasma...

P21 Regulates Stem Cell Differentiation.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21(cip1/waf1) (p21) regulates the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells, according to a recent study. "Relative quiescence is a defining...

Factor VIIa Generator Could Be Used For Treatment.(of hemophilia)(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- A new device that can distribute Factor VIIa in vivo may provide new treatment options for hemophiliacs. "Hemophilia A and B coagulation defects, which are caused by deficiencies of Factor VIII and Factor...

Combination of Cytoprotection, Anticytokine Therapies is Effective.(on myelodysplastic syndrome)(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found evidence supporting the idea that myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) can be successfully treated with cytoprotection and anticytokine therapies. A. Raza, of the Rush Cancer Institute,...

Iron Dextran Treatment Reduces Need for Recombinant Human Erythropoietin Therapy.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Intravenous treatment with iron dextran can decrease the need for recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) therapy in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESDR), according to researchers. Iron...

Blood Thinner Linked to Deadly Form of Anemia.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- A widely used new blood thinner that is routinely given to heart patients after angioplasty appears in rare cases to trigger a fatal blood disease. The drug, called Plavix, prevents blood clots and has...

Diaspirin Cross-Linked Hemoglobin: A Postsurgical Alternative?(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Diaspirin cross-linked hemoglobin (DCLHb) can help some patients avoid erythrocyte exposure after cardiac surgery, according to researchers. M.L. Lamy and colleagues in Belgium examined the efficacy,...

Argatroban Safe, Effective for Thrombocytopenia Patients.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Argatroban is a safe and effective anticoagulant for thrombocytopenia patients, according to researchers. Using heparin can lead to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), a disorder that can include...

Umbilical Cord Blood May Be Source of Osteoblast Progenitors.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) could be a source of osteoblast progenitors that can be used in the treatment of many bone diseases, according to researchers. Because of the rich variety of cells found...

Tandem-Diabodies Constructed for Immunotherapy.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Burkitt's lymphoma was successfully cured in a murine model by the administration of CD3xCD19 tandem-diabodies. "Recently we described the construction of a new generation of tetravalent bispecific...

Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Gene Transfer Evaluated.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Nitric oxide plays a regulatory role in cerebral artery relaxation to bradykinin, according to a presentation at the 25th International Stroke Conference, held in New Orleans, Louisiana. . "Recombinant...

Stem Cell Transplantation Study Gives New Hope to Adult Patients.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, New Jersey, and Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. announced the publication of results from two adult patient case studies from a feasibility study evaluating the...

Etoposide Effective Addition to Pre-Transplant Drug Regimens and Transplant.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Adding etoposide (VP-16) to the pre-transplant drug regimens of pediatric leukemia patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplant can increase patients' chances of event-free survival, despite severe...

Drug Regimen Effective for Treating Mantle-Cell Lymphoma.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- The drug regimen known as Dexa-BEAM, consisting of dexamethasone, carmustine [BCNU], etoposide, cytarabine, and melphalan, appears to be an effective preliminary treatment for patients with mantle-cell...

New Patent Filed for Blood-Equivalent Results from Saliva.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- LifePoint, Inc. (LFP), Ontario, California, announced the filing of a very broad patent that will provide exact blood-equivalent results by testing saliva. Because saliva can be easily obtained from a...

Blood Volume Variation During Surgery Studied.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2000... 2000 MAY 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Blood volume is maintained at normal levels during acute normovolemic hemodilution (ANH) and increased following intraoperative retransfusions of autologous blood, according to a University of Munich study....

Red Blood Cell Modulation Decreases During Storage.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found that storing red blood cells (RBCs) in CPD-saline-adenine-glucose-mannitol leads to an irreparable decline in the metabolic modulation of these cells. The amount of oxygen in RBCs...

Mycophenolate Mofetil Can Prevent Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease in HLA-Mismatched Recipients.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers writing in Clinical Transplantation report that mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), in combination with other immunosuppressive drugs, can prevent acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) in bone marrow...

First Report of Causation By White Blood-Cell-Reduced Red Blood Cell Infusions.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers in Ishikawa, Japan, have reported that transfusions with white blood-cell-reduced red blood cell (RBC) preparations may lead to transfusion-associated graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD) in an...

Anticoagulation Agent Has Favorable Effect for Treating Acute Stroke.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with ancrod, an anticoagulation agent, had favorable neurological outcomes at 90 days after stroke, according to an article appearing in the May 10, 2000, issue of...

Cell Cycling Does Not Influence Hepatocyte Transduction.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers from the United States explored transduction efficiencies of recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors (rAAV) in hepatocytes. "rAAV show promise in preclinical trials for the treatment of...

Aetna U.S. Healthcare's InteliHealth Allies with Harvard, Johns Hopkins Dropped.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Consumer health information site InteliHealth will become the home of Harvard Medical School content on July 31, 2000, NewsRx.com reports. Harvard will replace Johns Hopkins as InteliHealth's primary...

Japanese Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation Patients at Lower Risk than Caucasian Patients.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Japanese patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) may have a lower thromboembolic risk than Caucasian patients with the same condition, researchers say. Because the coagulation activity in...

Biofeedback Is Effective Treatment.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Biofeedback (BF) is a useful treatment for both white-coat and essential hypertension, according to researchers at Harvard University, Massachusetts. M. Nakao and colleagues studied the relative...

Maine and Georgia Governors Sign Mandatory Safety Needle Legislation.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- The Med-Design Corp. (MEDC), Ventura, California, reported that on April 14, 2000, Maine's Governor, Angus S. King, Jr., and on April 20, Georgia's Governor, Roy E. Barnes, signed into law legislation...

Me and My Marrow Guides Children through Bone Marrow Transplants.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Bone marrow transplants can be complicated and overwhelming, especially for pediatric patients. Fortunately, a new book, Me and My Marrow, is available to help guide kids through this difficult procedure....

Serum Inhibition of Polycationic Transfer Overcome by Ca(2+) Ions.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Serum inhibition of polycationic gene transfer can be overcome by Ca(2+) ions, researchers in Germany reported. "One of the drawbacks of polycationic and cationic liposomal gene transfer is its...

White Blood Cell Filtration Can Reduce Transmission of Rickettsial Disease.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found that third-generation white blood cell (WBC)-reduction filters can help reduce the transmission of scrub typhus rickettsiae during transfusions. F.C. Mettille and colleagues at...

New System Evaluated.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- The Membrane Autotransfusion System (MATS) developed at the Hyogo College of Medicine in Hyogo, Japan, is faster and induces less trauma than other systems, according to the researchers who developed it. ...

Leucocyte-Depleted Blood Curbs Thrombocytopenia.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Depleting leucocytes prior to red cell transfusions to thrombocytopenic patients can keep their thrombocytopenia from progressing to a more severe state, according to researchers in Oxford, England. A....

Deal Made for Virus Inactivation Technology.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- A technology to inactivate dangerous and sometimes unknown viruses in blood, plasma proteins, and other biopharmaceutical products will be made widely available following a deal announced between Amersham...

E5 Murine Monoclonal Antiendotoxin Antibody Treatment on Trial.
May 18, 2000... 2000 MAY 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers from the United States evaluated E5 murine monoclonal antiendotoxin antibody for the treatment of gram-negative sepsis in a randomized controlled trial. "Context, knowledge, and understanding...

Erythropoietin, Lactate May Be Indicators in Newborns.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Anemia in newborns may be assessed by measuring the concentration of erythropoietin (Epo) in plasma and the concentration of lactate in blood, according to researchers. J.A. Widness, of the University of...

Antithymocyte Globulin May Promote Hemopoietic Progenitor Cells.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found evidence that, in aplastic anemia (AA) as well as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), antithymocyte globulin may facilitate hematological recovery by augmenting the number of hemopoietic...

Methods for Reducing Low Hematocrit Risk Developed.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found that a low-prime cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) circuit, combined with other methods of reducing prime, can increase hematocrit (Hct) during CPB surgery. Because of the dangers...

Catheter-Related Bacteremia Generally Requires Catheter Removal.
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- In a recent study, researchers reported on episodes of bacteremia in pediatric patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis on an outpatient basis. P.G. Chawla and colleagues from the University of Minnesota...

Lowered Bone Marrow Store of Granulocytes May Explain Ethnic Differences.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found evidence that the lowered counts of white blood cells and neutrophils observed in healthy people of African descent, as compared with healthy Caucasians, may be due to a smaller reserve...

Direct Visualization of Blood Provides Information on Memory Cells.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine say that direct visualization of patient blood will enable practitioners to ascertain the antigen-specific memory cell status of patients...

New Blood Thinner Shows Promise.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- A new class of blood thinner shows promise in warding off dangerous blood clots after surgery and is more convenient to take than the standard drug, report researchers from AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish...

Hemostatic Effects of Platelet Inhibitors, Low-Molecular-Weight Heparin Assessed.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Antithrombotic products given to patients before coronary bypass surgery appear to disrupt hemostasis, according to researchers. Marc R. Moon and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis,...

FDA Orphan Drug Designation Received for rhATIII to Treat Heparin Resistance.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Genzyme Transgenics Corp., Framingham, Massachusetts, and Genzyme General, Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation for their...

Bill Would Give Company Exemption from Ban on Paying Blood Donors.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- A southern California blood products company is asking the state legislature for a permanent exemption to the state's law banning paid blood donations. The Sherman Oaks-based company, HemaCare, supplies 30%...

Correlations Found Between Blood Pressure, Nitrate/Nitrite, and Endothelin-1.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Researchers have found that nitrate and nitrite concentrations are associated with blood pressure (BP) in normoalbuminaric subjects, while endothelin-1 correlated with BP in patients that have high urinary...

Aprotinin Does Not Protect Platelets During Cardiopulmonary Bypass Surgery.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Although earlier studies suggested that aprotinin could preserve normal platelet function during cardiopulmonary bypass (CBP) surgery, researchers in Spain report that they found no such effect. "Bleeding...

Recombinant Coagulation Factor VIIa is Effective Therapy for Difficult-to-Treat Patients.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- NovoSeven Coagulation Factor VIIa (recombinant) is the first and only recombinant coagulation Factor VIIa, which is a reliable, effective treatment for inhibitor patients. Because its unique mechanism of...

AML1 Gene May Be Target in 21q22 Amplicon.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- AML1 could be a target gene in the amplification in the 21q22 chromosomal region observed in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), researchers say. Building on previous work, in which they...

Alliance Formed to Develop Tests for Residual Disease.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Epoch Biosciences (EBIO), Redmond, Washington, formerly Epoch Pharmaceuticals, and Specialty Laboratories, Santa Monica, California, announced that the companies will jointly develop highly sensitive assays...

General Motors Launches Organ, Marrow Donor Campaign.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- General Motors Corp. says it will spend more than $1 million in the next six months to launch organ, bone marrow, and stem-cell donor drives among its 395,000 employees. "My hope is that we will physically...

Center to Open in Birmingham, Alabama.(Brief Article)
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Birmingham, Alabama's Children's Hospital will open a stem cell transplant unit for children, one of only a handful of such centers in the U.S. The eight-bed, $2.1 million Lowder Stem Cell Transplant Unit...

Grant Awarded to Study Blood-Clotting Protein.
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Enrico Di Cera, MD, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, has received a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. National Heart,...

Clearance Received to Market Product for Blood Clotting Disorders.
May 25, 2000... 2000 MAY 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- Corgenix Medical Corp. (COGX), Denver, Colorado, has announced that it has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin marketing a product for the laboratory diagnosis and...