Archive for October 2014

Hard Lesson in Sleep for Teenagers

(NYTIMES) By JANE E. BRODY

Within a week of my grandsons’ first year in high school, getting enough sleep had already become an issue.

Their concerned mother questioned whether lights out at midnight or 1 a.m. and awakening at 7 or 7:30 a.m. to get to school on time provided enough sleep for 14-year-olds to navigate a demanding school day.

The boys, of course, said “yes,” especially since they could “catch up” by sleeping late on weekends. But the professional literature on the sleep needs of adolescents says otherwise.

Few Americans these days get the hours of sleep optimal for their age, but experts agree that teenagers are more likely to fall short than anyone else.

Researchers report that the average adolescent needs eight and a half to nine and a half hours of sleep each night. But in a poll taken in 2006 by the National Sleep Foundation, less than 20 percent reported getting that much rest on school nights.

Experimental Drug Shown To Improve Survival Rates For Late-Stage Lung Cancer Patients.

(Reuters) – Treatment of a common form of advanced lung cancer with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co’s experimental immunotherapy nivolumab led to a one-year survival rate of 41 percent in a midstage clinical trial, according to data to be presented at a medical meeting, sending the drugmaker’s shares up 8.8 percent.

While the study, called CheckMate-063, did not compare nivolumab with another drug or placebo, the historical one-year survival rate for patients like those in the trial, whose squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had progressed after treatment with two or more prior therapies, is between 5.5 percent and 18 percent, the company said on Thursday. Squamous cell cancer tends to be found in the middle of the lung.

“The data today look very, very good,” ISI Group analyst Mark Schoenebaum said, adding that it bodes well for an ongoing Phase III trial in NSCLC patients following just one prior therapy.

He had estimated a 1-year survival rate of about 20 percent as the number to beat.

Nivolumab belongs to a new class of drugs called PD-1 inhibitors that have generated great excitement in the medical community. They work by blocking a tumor’s ability to camouflage itself, allowing the body’s immune system to recognize and attack the cancer.

Health officials probing death of Tennessee student for possible enterovirus

(Reuters) – Health officials were investigating the death of a middle school student in Nashville after preliminary tests suggested the pupil had a potent virus that has infected hundreds of children nationwide.

Specific testing to confirm or rule out the student had Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) was pending, according to an email sent to middle school parents on Friday by the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and the Metro Public Health Department.