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New York State Compensation Policy For Egg Donors 'Seems Justifiable,' New York Times Editorial States
Although New York state"s decision to allow state-funded embryonic stem cell researchers to compensate women for donating their eggs "has provoked criticism from some ethicists and runs counter to guidelines issued by" NIH and the National Academy of Sciences, it still "seems justifiable" to pay the women "for undergoing an arduous procedure and to spur progress on potentially important research that has been slowed because of a lack of human eggs," a New York Times editorial states. The state"s Empire State Stem Cell Board last month made the decision to allow researchers to pay women up to $10,000 as compensation.According to the editorial, "[w]omen already get paid comparable sums to donate their eggs to help infertile women have a child through in vitro fertilization," so it "is hard to see why they should not be paid for contributing their eggs for research." The editorial notes that the "money is meant as reimbursement for travel, housing, child care or medical expenses," and it also would "compensate the women for the considerable time, burden and inconvenience of harvesting their eggs, a process that can take 56 hours spread out over many weeks.""The board set reasonable constraints, insisting that the research be rigorously reviewed and approved by oversight committees, that donors be fully informed of potential physical and psychological risks and that they give informed consent to the procedure," the editorial states. It adds, "One concern has been that payments could induce women, especially poor women, to provide eggs without fully considering potential risks." The editorial continues, "In an effort to mitigate that possibility, the stem cell board will follow the guidelines of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, which require justification for payments of $5,000 or more and deem sums above $10,000 inappropriate."The editorial adds, "Human eggs are highly prized for some of the most promising research, notably studies that require matching embryonic stem cells to a particular patient with a particular disease," concluding, "It has proved almost impossible to recruit women to go through the arduous process for free," so the "board was right to allow fair compensation" (New York Times, 7/11).
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Childhood Radiation Therapy Increases Future Breast Cancer Risk, Study Finds
Women who underwent radiation therapy for cancer as children have an increased long-term risk for developing breast cancer, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Reuters reports. However, when the childhood treatments included a high dose of radiation to the ovaries, women"s risk of developing future breast tumors was "sharply reduced," according to the study.For the study, Peter Inskip of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues examined 120 women diagnosed with cancer before age 21. All women in the study were treated with radiation between 1970 and 1986 and survived at least five years. The women were compared with four women who also were diagnosed at a young age but did not receive radiation.The study found that the more radiation a woman received as a child, the more likely it was that a tumor would eventually develop. The study did not find that chemotherapy for the first cancer increased the risk for a second cancer (Reuters, 7/20).
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Induction Of Labour After 37 Weeks Recommended For Women With Gestational Hypertension/Mild Pre-Eclampsia (Hypitat Study)
Pregnant women with mild hypertensive disorders such as high blood pressure/mild pre-eclampsia^ should have their labour induced once they complete 37 weeks of their pregnancy. This is the conclusion of the HYPITAT study, published in an Article Online First and in an upcoming edition of The Lancet, written by Dr Corine M Koopmans, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University Medical Centre Groningen, Netherlands, and colleagues.
Oncology

Surgery No Better Than Drugs For Heart Disease Survival In Diabetes Patients

An international landmark study found that death rates for patients with both type 2 diabetes and heart disease was the same whether they received drugs or had prompt surgery or angioplasty. The research was led by a team from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and was published online on 7 June in the New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM. It was also presented at the American Diabetes Association 69th Scientific Sessions. The researchers also found that the risk of a further major cardiac event was lowered when diabetes patients with more severe heart disease had prompt bypass surgery. Many of the 20 million Americans with type 2 diabetes also have heart disease said lead investigator Dr Sheryl F. Kelsey, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, explaining that: "We began this study because we don"t know how best to treat this deadly duo that is affecting more and more people at increasingly younger ages." Kelsey said their findings will provide much needed guidance on how to treat patients with both diseases. Called BARI 2D (short for Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes), the study started in 2001 when it signed up 2,368 patients who had both type 2 diabetes and stable heart disease and who were being treated by their doctor for cholesterol and blood pressure. The researchers randomly assigned each participant to one of two groups. One group received drugs and underwent prompt surgery to restore blood flow: this comprised either angioplasty (where a balloon is inflated inside a blocked blood vessel) or bypass surgery (where the blood vessels are cut away and re-connected to bypass the blocked artery). The other group just received drugs. Across the two groups there was also another split: there were two types of drug therapy, one where the patient received insulin and the other where the patient"s resistance to insulin was lowered (using metformin or rosiglitazone) and the researchers analysed which of these treatments led to better outcomes. They did not however compare angioplasty and bypass surgery, the point of the study was to compare prompt surgery and drugs on their own. The results showed that: *5-year survival rates did not differ significantly between the surgery with drugs group (88.3 per cent) and the drugs only group (87.8 per cent). *There was also no significant difference in survival between those who received insulin (87.9 per cent) and those who had drugs to reduce insulin resistance (88.2 per cent). *But the group that had bypass surgery had fewer patients experiencing major cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, stroke and deaths (22.4 per cent) than the drugs only group (30.5 per cent). *And the lower risk of further cardiovascular events appeared to be more likely among those who had bypass surgery and the drugs that reduced insulin resistance. Dr Robert L. Frye, who chairs BARI 2D and is professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, said: "We observed that patients with more severe heart disease did better over time when they received bypass early compared to those who received drug therapy alone." "Those who underwent bypass surgery seemed to do particularly well on insulin-sensitizing drugs," he added. But he cautioned that this result should be treated as "preliminary because we did not set out to answer this question with our study design". Dr Saul Genuth, director of the BARI 2D diabetes management center and professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University said that overall the study is reassuring in that it confirms the current drug therapies for treating diabetes are appropriate and it also suggests that: "When a patient with type 2 diabetes has more severe heart disease it may be better to do bypass surgery early than to wait and simply treat with medication." "For patients with milder disease who are candidates for angioplasty, it is appropriate to treat with drug therapy first," he added. "A Randomized Trial of Therapies for Type 2 Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease. The BARI 2D Study Group. N Engl J Med Published online 7 June 2009. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0805796 University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today


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