The following is a review of diagnostics related medical research worldwide

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According to a report in the July issue of the journal Urology, monitoring the amount of free PSA in relation to total PSA is useful to determine recurrence of prostate cancer even when biopsy results are negative. The study found that men who have a total PSA level between 0.6 and 2.0 ng/mL often, but not always, have traces of cancer in their body even after treatment. Men with a total PSA of less than 0.5 ng/ml rarely have a cancer recurrence and those with total PSA over 2 ng/ml often do.
Source: Urology 1998;52:100-105.

Recent experiment in cloning mice have lead to possible new ways to find a cure for cancer, make possible organ farms for transplants and offer new ways to make valuable drugs. Cloning technology offered ways to retrain cells. It might be possible, for example, to grow brain cells to use to treat patients with Parkinson's disease. Other applications include growing containers of skin for grafts or of kidneys for transplant.

Reporting in the July 17, 1998, issue of Science, researchers have announced that they have sequenced the complete genome for Treponema pallidum. Syphilis can be treated with injections of penicillin or other antibiotics - but the early symptoms can be mild or absent, so that many people do not seek treatment when they first become infected. The new genetic map of T. pallidum should make it easier to develop tests for early diagnosis and screening.

Invision International, has manufactured Silver 100 Ionic Silver Complex, a compund which it claimsoutperforms most antibiotics, yet is all-natural and harmless to the body. To date, the data indicate Silver 100 kills the vast majority of strains of germs, while regenerating healthy tissue at a remarkable rate, according to Jay Newman, Invision International president. "We expect Silver 100 will replace many antibiotics, which are not only limited in their germ-killing capabilities but are increasingly suspect in terms of toxicity, side effects, acquired resistance and especially the mutated strains of super germs they create. Silver 100 kills many more germs than do most antibiotics, and it does so without any of the problems associated with antibiotic use." Doctors at New York University, who have been using an FDA-approved topical gauze-type wound dressing, which gradually releases silver ions on exposure to the body's fluids, report that the silver is substantially outperforming antibiotics. Silver 100 was introduced last fall in the southeast U.S., and is being rapidly rolled out on a nationwide basis to health food stores and pharmacies.

Scientists in the UK and Japan have identified a new hepatitis virus. The virus, transfusion-transmitted virus or TTV, was first identified in a Japanese patient with post transfusion hepatitis of unknown etiology last year. Dr. Peter Simmonds, found TTV viremia in 1.9% of 1,000 blood donors, a frequency of infection that suggests that asymptomatic carriage can occur. Low level TTV contamination was found in 10 of 18 batches of factors VIII and IX concentrates manufactured using blood from donors, and in 7 of 16 batches of commercially available blood products.
Source: Lancet 1998;352:191-197,164.

Guidelines from the American College of Physicians suggest that women over 50 years of age should be screened once every 5 years for thyroid disorders. The ACP guidelines, formulated on the basis of a review of the literature are published in the July 15th issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. Following their review of 55 different studies, the authors found that about 1 in every 71 women over the age of 60 years tests positive for either overt hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism. Therefore, they conclude that it is reasonable to screen women older than 50 years of age for unsuspected but symptomatic thyroid disease. Given the slow progression of thyroid disease, they say that screening need only be repeated once every 5 years.

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