Should all men be screened for prostate cancer? | Health | Reuters

Reuters By Anthony J. Brown, MD

Fri Sep 25, 2009 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Screening all men for prostate cancer using a currently available common blood test is not worthwhile, according to a new study.

The study suggests that doctors need better tests before they can recommend large-scale screening, study co-author Dr. Mattias Johansson told Reuters Health. "In particular, tools that help distinguish rapidly growing and potentially lethal tumors from slow growing tumors are warranted in order to minimize overdiagnosis and overtreatment."

Johansson, from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and his colleagues looked at more than 500 men with prostate cancer and more than 1000 case without it with similar characteristics.

They found that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) - a common blood test used to detect the disease - could not reliably distinguish between slow-growing prostate cancers that were not likely to cause any harm, and those that were likely to become aggressive and deadly.

The authors did, however, find that a very low PSA level -- below 1.0 nanograms per milliliter of blood -- virtually rules out prostate cancer. Given that many men would have higher values, however, it would be unclear what to do with many results.

In an analysis accompanying the study in the BMJ, Dr. Jennifer Stark, from Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues examined the benefits and harms of PSA screening and concluded that at present there is simply not enough data to support population-based screening.

Moreover, they note, further studies with more precise measures are needed to gauge the financial and psychological toll of false positive PSA results, overdiagnosis, and overtreatment of prostate cancer.

Before men undergo PSA screening, they should be fully informed of the benefits, harms, and uncertainty associated with the test, Dr. Stark and colleagues emphasize.

SOURCE: BMJ, Online First September 25, 2009.

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Poland okays forcible castration for pedophiles...

Reuters

Fri Sep 25, 2009 WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland on Friday approved a law making chemical castration mandatory for pedophiles in some cases, sparking criticism from human rights groups.

Under the law, sponsored by Poland's center-right government, pedophiles convicted of raping children under the age of 15 years or a close relative would have to undergo chemical therapy on their release from prison.

"The purpose of this action is to improve the mental health of the convict, to lower his libido and thereby to reduce the risk of another crime being committed by the same person," the government said in a statement.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said late last year he wanted obligatory castration for pedophiles, whom he branded 'degenerates'. Tusk said he did not believe "one can use the term 'human' for such individuals, such creatures."

"Therefore I don't think protection of human rights should refer to these kind of events," Tusk also said.

His remarks drew criticism from human rights groups but he never retracted them.

"Introducing any mandatory treatment raises doubts as such a requirement is never reasonable and life can always produce cases that lawmakers could never have even dreamt of," said Piotr Kladoczny from the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights.

"If somebody is of sound mind, we punish him. If he is sick, we try to cure him -- that's how it works in Polish law. This bill introduces both approaches. As far as I know, this makes our law the strictest in Europe on this issue," Kladoczny said.

The bill, which also increases prison sentences for rape and incest, must still be approved by the upper chamber of parliament. This is seen as a formality as Tusk's Civic Platform party holds a majority of its 100 seats.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Clinical trial of new HIV vaccine...

Clinical trial of new HIV vaccine

Saturday, September 26, 2009. A clinical trial of a new HIV vaccine has proved effective in cutting the infection rate of the virus that leads to Aids.

The US Army carried out tests on 16,000 HIV-negative volunteers in Thailand.

It found that infections were prevented in over a third of the 8,000 people who received the vaccine, compared with the other 8,000 who were given the placebo.

The study, which started in 2003, used a combination of two vaccines, both of which have proved to have little or no effect on infection rates when used as single doses in previous trials.

In the final analysis, 74 placebo recipients became infected with HIV compared to 51 in the vaccine regimen group.

Although a difference of 23 people is not huge, the 31.2% decrease has given scientists hope that in the future there could be a way of preventing the spread of this highly contagious virus which infects around 6,800 people a day.

Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker, Surgeon General, US Army said: 'We are very excited and pleased with the outcome of this trial and congratulate all those who participated in it.'

The purpose of the study was to evaluate how well the vaccine could prevent infection as well as reduce the amount of HIV in the blood of someone who has already tested positive.

The research found the vaccine had no effect on the amount of virus in the blood of volunteers who became HIV-infected during the study.

Although the findings show potential for a successful vaccine in the future, scientists say more research needs to be done into how this particular vaccine reduced the risk of infection.

Sky News health correspondent Thomas Moore said: 'This is the first time we have seen such a big effect from an Aids vaccine trial.'

But he added that the results 'were not significant enough for you to be confident relying on this vaccine to protect yourself from a deadly disease'.

There is currently no cure for Aids but anti-retroviral drugs can be taken to limit the symptoms.

Colonel Nelson Michael, Director, Division of Retrovirology, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Director, US Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) said: 'These results show that development of a safe and effective preventive HIV vaccine is possible.'

More detailed results of this study will be presented next month at the Aids Vaccine Conference in Paris, France.

Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex..

By Jason Rhodes

Friday, 11 Sep 2009. ZURICH (Reuters) - German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.

Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called "plastination," that removes water from specimens and preserves them with silicon rubber or epoxy resin.

"It's not my intention to show certain sexual poses. My goal is really to show the anatomy and the function," Body Worlds creative director Whalley told Reuters in an interview, adding the sex exhibition may open next year.

Body Worlds exhibitions, visited by 27 million people across the world, have been criticized for presenting entire corpses, stripped of skin to reveal the muscles and organs underneath, in lifelike and often theatrical positions.

Von Hagens has already triggered uproar with a new exhibit which shows just two copulating corpses.

German politicians called the current "Cycle of Life" show charting conception to old age "revolting" and "unacceptable" when it showed in Berlin earlier this year because it included copulating cadavers.

The way a plastinate is exhibited can vary from country to country to reflect local sensibilities. A vote of local employees decided that one of the copulating female cadavers should wear fewer clothes in Zurich than was the case in Berlin.

"Switzerland is the first country that already said from the outset that we could show whatever we wanted," said von Hagens.

"Zurich is ready ... but it's maybe not so easy in every other town," he said. "We have discussed whether it is proper to show homosexuality and in what way. This is a very delicate subject."

Von Hagens and Whalley said they both intended to donate their bodies for plastination, but would not leave instructions about how to display them, dismissing this as vanity.

"I find it a great opportunity to give something to others by donating my body, namely self-awareness," said Whalley.

Von Hagens said he and some other body donors even saw plastination as an alternative to burial or cremation, giving them more certainty about would happen to their bodies after death.

"Cremation for me is hell," he said.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Que shiraz, shiraz!...

Wed Sep 9, 2009 SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian wine that was once considered a non-collectable item has sold at a record price, surpassing the country's most acclaimed vintage as wine lovers target rare bottles from the last century.

At the annual Penfolds Wine Auction this weekend, the Penfolds 1957 Shiraz St. Henri was hammered off for A$8,110 ($6,991) a bottle, the highest price ever paid for a St. Henri.

Bottles of 1955, 1959 and 1971 St. Henri also beat the records for the same vintages of the famous Penfolds Grange, widely recognized as Australia's most coveted and expensive wine.

"The result is extraordinary, probably ten times what they expected to bring, we don't see that very often," Stewart Langton of Langton's wine auction house told Reuters.

"I don't think any wine is intrinsically worth A$8,000 a bottle and basically people who spend that on a bottle aren't going to drink that wine, they put it away, it's a trophy," said Winsor Dobbin of "Food and Wine" magazine.

While Penfolds Grange was seen as a collectable wine, St. Henri was usually drunk, making older bottles of it quite rare.

St. Henri's first commercial vintage was 1957 and it gained a new lease of life in the 1990s as wine connoisseurs started to appreciate its distinctive style.

"People are focusing on those hard to find rare bottles that occasionally come up, so we are seeing price rises across the board from the wines from the 50s and early 60s," Langton said.

Penfolds, one of Australia's oldest wineries with an extensive product range, was founded in 1844 by British physician Christopher Rawson Penfold. The winery is now part of the beverage giant Foster's Group.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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