© 2005 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
In Brief
National Academies Releases Guidelines for Embryonic Stem Cell Research
A National Academies panel has recommended that institutions conducting embryonic stem cell research create embryonic stem cell research oversight committees to ensure that the panel's new guidelines are followed.
The committees would comprise experts in biology and stem cell research, legal and ethical experts, and representatives of the public, and they would work separately from, but not replace, institutional review boards.
Such committees should review proposals for research that creates stem cells from excess blastocysts from in vitro fertilization and those created specifically for stem cell research. The guidelines also address donor consent and emphasize that donors should not be paid for their services and should be informed that they will not share in any financial benefit if their cells are used in a commercial product.
The National Academies panel urged the formation of an independent national body to periodically review these guidelines and update them to reflect evolving scientific advances and public attitudes.
The report is available online from the National Academies at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11278.html.
Study Examines Long-Term Outcomes After Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
Men with low-grade prostate cancer have a low risk of dying from the disease, according to new results from a long-term study.
In a retrospective, population-based cohort study of 767 men diagnosed with clinically localized prostate cancer between 1971 and 1984, the rate of prostate cancer mortality was 33 per 1,000 person-years in the first 15 years of follow-up and 18 per 1,000 person-years in the later years of follow-up. Men with low-grade (Gleason score of 2–4) prostate cancer had a much lower rate of prostate cancer death (six deaths per 1,000 person-years) during the 20 years of follow-up than that of men with high-grade (Gleason score of 8–10) prostate cancer (121 deaths per 1,000 person-years).
The authors conclude that their data do not support aggressive treatment for localized low-grade prostate cancer. The results of the study appear in the May 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
NIH Open-Access Policy Takes Effect
The National Institutes of Health's final policy on public access to NIH-funded research went into effect on May 2.
The new policy "requests and strongly encourages" NIH-funded researchers to submit their peer-reviewed final manuscripts to the NIH National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central database upon acceptance at a journal. The manuscripts will be made available to the public anywhere from immediately after the official publication date to 12 months after the publication date, depending on the requirements of the journal in which the manuscript was published.
The author self-archiving policy of Oxford University Press, publisher of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, includes information on submissions to PubMed Central and is available at http://www.oupjournals.org/selfarchivingpolicy.
Information about the NIH policy is available at http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess.
See News, Vol. 96, No. 19, p. 1416, "Proposal for Public Archive Draws Support, Criticism."
Endometrial Cancer Risk Increased With Use of Some Hormone Replacement Therapies
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that uses only estrogens or tibolone—a synthetic steroid that is not licensed in the United States but used as HRT in many countries—increases a woman's risk of endometrial cancer, whereas combined estrogen–progestogen HRT decreases this risk, according to a new study.
The Million Women Study, which consists of women who were ages 50–64 between 1996 and 2001, includes 716,738 postmenopausal women. The Million Women Study Collaborators collected information about HRT use by these women, as well as other details, and followed the women for an average of 3.4 years. The results of their study appear in the April 30 issue of The Lancet.
During follow-up, 1,320 women were diagnosed with endometrial cancer. Compared with women who did not use any type of HRT, women who used either tibolone or estrogen-only HRT had an increased risk of endometrial cancer, and women who used combined estrogen–progestogen HRT had a decreased risk. However, because the combined estrogen–progestogen HRT increases the risk of breast cancer, the authors conclude that there is a greater increase in total cancer incidence with this combination HRT than from the other two regimens.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||