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One In Four HIV-Positive Women Does Not Undergo Cervical Cancer Screenings, Study Finds
About one in four HIV-positive women in the U.S. does not opt to undergo an annual Pap test for cervical cancer even though they are at an increased risk for the disease, according to a study in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, Reuters reports. For the study, Alexandra Oster and colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed the responses of 2,417 HIV-positive women from 18 states who participated in interviews for the Supplement to HIV/AIDS Surveillance Project.The researchers found that 23% of the women had not undergone a Pap test in the year before the interviews and that older age and a poorly functioning immune system were independent predictors of whether women had Pap tests.They wrote, "The risk of cervical cancer has not decreased since the introduction of (highly active antiretroviral) therapy, highlighting the continued importance of cervical cancer screening in this population." They added that "cervical cancer screening should be a high priority" for HIV-positive women (Reuters, 7/30).
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Regional Center For Biodefense And Emerging Infectious Diseases Research Funded By NIH
A consortium of research centers in the Tri-state Region, including Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, has received a $46 million grant to conduct research on emerging infectious diseases.
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Canadians Watch U.S. Reform Effort Closely
American health care reform has become a "hot topic north of the border," the Washington Times reports. "If Mr. Obama succeeds, the U.S. could draw even more Canadian doctors and nurses to the U.S., exacerbating a shortage of medical professionals, said Dr. Brian Day, a Canadian health care critic and former head of the Canadian Medical Association. If Mr. Obama fails, perhaps Canada could open its system to "medical tourism" from the U.S., Dr. Day said." Under the Canadian system, everyone is insured and has "access to basic health care without ever seeing a doctor or hospital bill." But 70% of Canadians also have "some form of supplemental health insurance," in part because of long wait times for tests and treatments under the government plan. For Canadian citizens who become ill in the U.S., it is often cheaper to "ride on a private Lear jet back to Canada" than to be treated in a U.S. hospital.
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Understanding The Anticancer Effects Of Vitamin D3

The active form of vitamin D3 seems to have anticancer effects. To try and understand the mechanisms underlying these effects, researchers previously set out to identify genes whose expression in a human colon cancer cell line was altered by the active form of vitamin D3. One gene identified in this previous study was CST5, which is responsible for making the protein cystatin D. Now, a team of researchers, at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientĂ­ficas-Universidad AutĂönoma de Madrid, Spain, and the Universidad de Oviedo, Spain, has studied this protein in detail and determined that it has tumor suppressor activity that likely accounts for some of the anticancer effects of the active form of vitamin D3. The team, led by Alberto Muñoz and Carlos LĂöpez-OtĂ­n, initially established that the active form of vitamin D3 directly activates the CST5 gene in human colon cancer cell lines, increasing levels of cystatin D protein. Functionally, cystatin D was shown to inhibit the growth of human colon cancer cells lines in vitro and when they were xenotransplanted into mice. As knocking down expression of cystatin D in human colon cancer cell lines rendered them unresponsive to the antiproliferative effects of the active form of vitamin D3, the authors conclude that CST5 is a candidate tumor suppressor gene and that it mediates a large proportion of the anticancer effects of the active form of vitamin D3. These data provide rationale for clinical trials examining the preventive and therapeutic potential of the active form of vitamin D3 in colon cancer. TITLE: Cystatin D is a candidate tumor suppressor gene induced by vitamin D in human colon cancer cells Karen Honey Journal of Clinical Investigation


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