(HealthDay News) -- Women can take the two components of the so-called "abortion pill" simultaneously, rather than 24 hours apart, as is typically done, a new study found.
And a second study found the drug is safe for late first-trimester abortions.
Mifepristone, or RU486, aborts a pregnancy by blocking the production of the hormone progesterone. When the drug is used alone, materials linked to conception can remain in the uterus, posing a risk of infection. That's why doctors also prescribe misoprostol, which causes the uterus to contract and safely expel this material.
Both studies are published in the April issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
The first study found that giving mifepristone and misoprostol vaginally at the same time is at least as effective for abortion as spacing the doses 24 hours apart.
"It really gets down to convenience for the woman," said study author Dr. Mitchell Creinin, director of gynecologic specialties at the University of Pittsburgh. "We used to have a world where women who wanted to have medications for abortion would have to go through a process over multiple days. It (simultaneous dosing) gives women flexibility. It doesn't mean they need to do it this way, but it opens up a time window."
For this trial, 1,128 women took mifepristone orally and were then randomly selected to either take misoprostol vaginally immediately in a doctor's office or 24 hours later at home.
The rate of complete abortions was similar in both groups and did not differ by how far along a woman was.
The second study looked at 321 women who were 64 to 84 days pregnant. They were from Rochester, N.Y., Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Pune, India. The women received misoprostol vaginally 24 to 48 hours after taking mifepristone. Up to two additional doses of misoprostol were administered orally or vaginally as needed.
Eighty-nine percent of the women successfully terminated their pregnancies. Most women also reported that they were satisfied (64.8 percent) or very satisfied (28.6 percent) with the experience. Almost all (94 percent) said they would recommend the procedure to a friend. Most (90.4 percent) also said they would opt for a medication abortion if they required another procedure in the future.
Some 55 percent of the 1.3 million abortions performed in the United States each year occur before nine weeks of gestation. An additional 34 percent of abortions occur in women who are 10 to 12 weeks pregnant. Surgical abortion during this time period is effective but not always available. And that procedure can carry significant health risks, the researchers said.
This second study shows that a medical alternative to surgical abortion is safe and effective, the researchers said.
"Medical abortion has been routinely used for early first trimester abortions but not so often for the later end of that trimester," said study lead author Hillary Bracken, a program associate with Gynuity Health Projects in New York City. "Now, with other studies, it is well established that this is an effective and acceptable option for women."
More information
For more on the abortion pill, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Curry Compound May Fight Rare Neurological Illness
(HealthDay News) -- A synthetic compound that's a distant chemical relative of a component of curcumin -- a spice used to make curry -- shows promise against an inherited neurodegenerative disorder called Kennedy's disease, U.S. researchers say.
The disease, which affects only men, resembles a slowly progressive form of Lou Gehrig's disease. There is no treatment for Kennedy's disease, which is caused by a mutant gene.
The University of Rochester team found that ASC-J9, a synthetic chemical compound loosely based on a component of curcumin, dramatically slowed the progression of Kennedy's disease in mice with the mutant human gene that causes the illness.
After treatment with ASC-J9, the mice showed improved muscle strength, could walk much more normally and had near-normal levels of a molecule that keeps nerve cells healthy.
The findings were published in the March issue of the journal Nature Medicine.
While ASC-J9 shows promise, much more research needs to be done to determine if ASC-J9 can be developed into a drug to help people with Kennedy's disease.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about Kennedy's disease.
The disease, which affects only men, resembles a slowly progressive form of Lou Gehrig's disease. There is no treatment for Kennedy's disease, which is caused by a mutant gene.
The University of Rochester team found that ASC-J9, a synthetic chemical compound loosely based on a component of curcumin, dramatically slowed the progression of Kennedy's disease in mice with the mutant human gene that causes the illness.
After treatment with ASC-J9, the mice showed improved muscle strength, could walk much more normally and had near-normal levels of a molecule that keeps nerve cells healthy.
The findings were published in the March issue of the journal Nature Medicine.
While ASC-J9 shows promise, much more research needs to be done to determine if ASC-J9 can be developed into a drug to help people with Kennedy's disease.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about Kennedy's disease.
New Eye Condition Striking Young Chinese Americans
(HealthDay News) -- Young and middle-aged Americans of Chinese descent are prone to a new eye syndrome that ophthalmologists are often mistaking for blinding glaucoma, researchers warn.
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, in California, tracked 16 people for seven years and observed more than 100 others. They concluded that there's a new eye syndrome occurring in the young Chinese population in the United States.
Fortunately, this new syndrome may be less likely than typical glaucoma to cause severe vision loss or blindness, the authors said. They published their findings in the March issue of Ophthalmology.
Glaucoma results from damage to the optic nerve, which transmits information from the eye to the brain. It's believed that the optic nerve damage is caused by high eye pressure. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world, affecting one in 200 people over the age of 50.
The Stanford researchers said that many young Chinese patients diagnosed with glaucoma have normal eye pressure. They suspect that the optic nerve damage is actually caused by stretching of the eye associated with nearsightedness, which rarely gets worse after age 30, meaning optic nerve damage may slow or stabilize.
This means that doctors need to carefully assess young Chinese patients with suspected glaucoma and not rush into aggressive treatment, such as surgery.
"If they don't appear to be progressing toward blindness right now, they shouldn't be treated as if they have a blinding condition, especially since surgery is associated with significant risks," Dr. Kuldev Singh, professor of ophthalmology, said in a prepared statement.
He noted that other researchers have reported an increase in nearsightedness among people of Chinese ancestry.
Singh and his colleagues are currently surveying young people of Chinese ancestry at Stanford. Their preliminary findings show a high prevalence of optic nerve damage.
"The next step is to learn more about the natural history and genetics of this condition and see whether there are subsets of the population more prone to it," Singh said.
More information
The U.S. National Eye Institute has more about glaucoma.
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, in California, tracked 16 people for seven years and observed more than 100 others. They concluded that there's a new eye syndrome occurring in the young Chinese population in the United States.
Fortunately, this new syndrome may be less likely than typical glaucoma to cause severe vision loss or blindness, the authors said. They published their findings in the March issue of Ophthalmology.
Glaucoma results from damage to the optic nerve, which transmits information from the eye to the brain. It's believed that the optic nerve damage is caused by high eye pressure. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world, affecting one in 200 people over the age of 50.
The Stanford researchers said that many young Chinese patients diagnosed with glaucoma have normal eye pressure. They suspect that the optic nerve damage is actually caused by stretching of the eye associated with nearsightedness, which rarely gets worse after age 30, meaning optic nerve damage may slow or stabilize.
This means that doctors need to carefully assess young Chinese patients with suspected glaucoma and not rush into aggressive treatment, such as surgery.
"If they don't appear to be progressing toward blindness right now, they shouldn't be treated as if they have a blinding condition, especially since surgery is associated with significant risks," Dr. Kuldev Singh, professor of ophthalmology, said in a prepared statement.
He noted that other researchers have reported an increase in nearsightedness among people of Chinese ancestry.
Singh and his colleagues are currently surveying young people of Chinese ancestry at Stanford. Their preliminary findings show a high prevalence of optic nerve damage.
"The next step is to learn more about the natural history and genetics of this condition and see whether there are subsets of the population more prone to it," Singh said.
More information
The U.S. National Eye Institute has more about glaucoma.
Fish Helps Statins Protect the Heart
(HealthDay News) -- People taking cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins who also consume omega-3 fatty acids -- typically found in fish and fish oil -- have a better chance of avoiding heart problems than patients who take statins alone.
That's the conclusion of a new study by Japanese researchers that is published in the March 31 issue of The Lancet.
"Our study shows that long-term use of EPA (an omega-3 fatty acid) at therapeutic doses is effective for prevention of major coronary events in hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol) patients given statins in Japan who consume a large amount of fish," said lead researcher Dr. Mitsuhiro Yokoyama. He is a professor of medicine at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine.
In the study, called the Japan EPA Lipid Intervention Study, Yokoyama and his colleagues assigned 18,645 people to receive either 1,800 milligrams of one of the omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), every day plus a statin, or a statin alone.
During an average follow-up of 4.6 years, the researchers found a 19 percent reduction in major coronary events among patients taking EPA. Patients taking EPA also had 19 percent fewer non-fatal events -- including non-fatal heart attack, unstable angina, and coronary revascularization -- than people taking statins alone. However, the incidence of sudden cardiac death and death from heart disease did not differ between the groups.
The preventive effects of EPA are of both clinical interest and therapeutic importance, Yokoyama said. "EPA is thought to exert its plaque-stabilization effect via mechanisms that are independent of a reduction in cholesterol," he added.
Sickness and death from coronary artery disease is very low in Japan in comparison with the United States and northern Europe, Yokoyama said. "This difference might be explained partly due to differences in dietary habits, including fish consumption. We want to know whether our results can be generalized to other populations who consume a small intake of fish and have very high mortality from coronary artery disease," he said.
One expert thinks the study results aren't surprising, but they are interesting, because the research was done in a country where people eat more fish than they do in the United States.
"This study is further evidence of the benefit of omega-3 fatty acids for protecting against heart attacks and other cardiac events," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and author of an accompanying editorial in the journal.
Mozaffarian said that the trial was done, in part, to see if combining EPA with a statin could be effective in reducing cardiac events.
While there did appear to be a benefit in taking EPA, coupling it with a statin in one pill isn't necessary, Mozaffarian said. "The pharmaceutical manufacturers are facing the end of patents on their statins," he said. "The idea of putting a statin and EPA in a single pill is really just marketing," he added.
Mozaffarian noted that a healthful diet should provide enough EPA to reduce the risk of heart trouble. "People should be able to get a cardioprotective dose of omega-3 fatty acids by eating fish twice a week," he said.
More information
The latest recommendations on omega-3 fatty acids are available from the American Heart Association.
That's the conclusion of a new study by Japanese researchers that is published in the March 31 issue of The Lancet.
"Our study shows that long-term use of EPA (an omega-3 fatty acid) at therapeutic doses is effective for prevention of major coronary events in hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol) patients given statins in Japan who consume a large amount of fish," said lead researcher Dr. Mitsuhiro Yokoyama. He is a professor of medicine at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine.
In the study, called the Japan EPA Lipid Intervention Study, Yokoyama and his colleagues assigned 18,645 people to receive either 1,800 milligrams of one of the omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), every day plus a statin, or a statin alone.
During an average follow-up of 4.6 years, the researchers found a 19 percent reduction in major coronary events among patients taking EPA. Patients taking EPA also had 19 percent fewer non-fatal events -- including non-fatal heart attack, unstable angina, and coronary revascularization -- than people taking statins alone. However, the incidence of sudden cardiac death and death from heart disease did not differ between the groups.
The preventive effects of EPA are of both clinical interest and therapeutic importance, Yokoyama said. "EPA is thought to exert its plaque-stabilization effect via mechanisms that are independent of a reduction in cholesterol," he added.
Sickness and death from coronary artery disease is very low in Japan in comparison with the United States and northern Europe, Yokoyama said. "This difference might be explained partly due to differences in dietary habits, including fish consumption. We want to know whether our results can be generalized to other populations who consume a small intake of fish and have very high mortality from coronary artery disease," he said.
One expert thinks the study results aren't surprising, but they are interesting, because the research was done in a country where people eat more fish than they do in the United States.
"This study is further evidence of the benefit of omega-3 fatty acids for protecting against heart attacks and other cardiac events," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and author of an accompanying editorial in the journal.
Mozaffarian said that the trial was done, in part, to see if combining EPA with a statin could be effective in reducing cardiac events.
While there did appear to be a benefit in taking EPA, coupling it with a statin in one pill isn't necessary, Mozaffarian said. "The pharmaceutical manufacturers are facing the end of patents on their statins," he said. "The idea of putting a statin and EPA in a single pill is really just marketing," he added.
Mozaffarian noted that a healthful diet should provide enough EPA to reduce the risk of heart trouble. "People should be able to get a cardioprotective dose of omega-3 fatty acids by eating fish twice a week," he said.
More information
The latest recommendations on omega-3 fatty acids are available from the American Heart Association.
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