News for June, 2009

Judge orders WHI follow-up data be released to Wyeth

whi logo 100x100U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. has ordered scientific data collected by the Cancer Research Center since August 2005 as a follow up to a study on the effects of hormone replacement therapy () on postmenopausal women should be released to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals as it defends itself against numerous lawsuits over the safety of its meds.

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Researchers working on safer synthetic HRT for menopause

Researchers in Ottawa, Canada are hoping to ease women’s fear of hormone replacement drugs by creating and testing synthetic hormones to combat aggravating symptoms of menopause, according to Canada.com. The research follows an earlier grant from the Canadian Foundation to explore the re-engineering of estrogen estradiol, which is one of the components of the popular replacement therapy () Premarin. The new grant, funded by a $267,000 research grant from the Canadian Foundation, seeks to evaluate those compounds of synthesized molecules on the liver, cardiac and other types of cells. The goal is that it must relieve menopausal symptoms while not promoting breast or uterine cancer.

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Prempro increases risk of dying from small cell lung cancer

Women who took Wyeth’s hormone replacement therapy () Prempro at least five years are at greater risk of dying from non-small cell lung cancer, according to a recent study presented at an American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

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Tamoxifen with antidepressants may raise risk of breast cancer recurrence

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to issue a warming to doctors about an increased risk of the recurrence of with patients taking both the drug tamoxifen and select antidepressants, according to a study released last week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.

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