NSAIDS linked to risk of bleeding in heart attack patients

Even short-term treatment with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen increases the risk of bleeding in patients taking anti-clotting drugs after a heart attack, a study published in JAMA suggests.All patients who have had a myocardial infarction (MI) are recommended to take two antithrombotic drugs (aspirin and clopidogrel) as preventive treatment for up to a year after the heart attack, and to continue taking one of the anti-clotting pills thereafter.Risk of bleeding is known to be increased by then adding the use of NSAIDs, and some – ibuprofen, for example – have a counter effect to the preventive heart drugs, inhibiting the antithrombotic effects of aspirin.Guidelines from the American Heart Association, therefore, recommend against the use of NSAIDs in people with established heart disease.

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New nanoparticle gene therapy strategy effectively treats deadly brain cancer in rats

Fast Facts

• Gene therapy may effectively treat glioma, a deadly form of brain cancer, but getting the right genes to cancer cells in the brain is difficult.
• For the first time, Johns Hopkins researchers used biodegradable nanoparticles to kill brain cancer cells in animals and lengthen their survival.
• The nanoparticles are filled with genes for an enzyme that turns a compound into a potent killer of cancer cells.

Despite improvements in the past few decades with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, a predictably curative treatment for glioma does not yet exist. New insights into specific gene mutations that arise in this often deadly form of brain cancer have pointed to the potential of gene therapy, but it’s very difficult to effectively deliver toxic or missing genes to cancer cells in the brain. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have used nanoparticles to successfully deliver a new therapy to glioma cells in the brains of rats, prolonging their lives. A draft of the study appeared on the website of the journal ACS Nano.Previous research on mice found that nanoparticles carrying genes can be taken up by brain cancer cells, and the genes can then be turned on. However, this is the first time these biodegradable nanoparticles have effectively killed brain cancer cells and extended survival in animals.For their studies, the Johns Hopkins team designed and tested a variety of nanoparticles made from different polymers, or plastics. When they found a good candidate that could deliver genes to rat brain cancer cells, they filled the nanoparticles with DNA encoding an enzyme, herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase (HSVtk), which turns a compound with little effect into a potent therapy that kills brain cancer cells. When combined with the compound, called ganciclovir, these loaded nanoparticles were 100 percent effective at killing glioma cells grown in laboratory dishes.

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