Medical Bulletin 11/January/2024

Here are the top medical news of the day:

Combining anti-tumor drugs with chemo may improve rare children’s cancer outcomes

Children who develop neuroblastomas, a rare form of cancer which develops in nerve cells, may benefit from receiving certain anti-tumour drugs as well as chemotherapy, a new trial has found.

The results of the BEACON trial conducted by the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham found that combining anti-angiogenic drugs, which block tumours from forming blood vessels, alongside various chemotherapy drugs led to more young people seeing their tumours shrinking, from 18% in the control group to 26% among those on Bevacizumab.

The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Reference: Combining anti-tumor drugs with chemo may improve rare children’s cancer outcomes; Journal of Clinical Oncology; DOI:10.1200/JCO.23.00458.

Severe MS predicted using machine learning

A combination of only 11 proteins can predict long-term disability outcomes in multiple sclerosis (MS) for different individuals. The identified proteins could be used to tailor treatments to the individual based on the expected severity of the disease. The study, led by researchers at Linköping University in Sweden, has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

In multiple sclerosis, the immune system attacks the person’s own body, damaging nerves in the brain and in the spinal cord. What is attacked primarily is a fatty compound called myelin, which surrounds and insulates the nerve axons so that signals can be transmitted. When myelin is damaged, transmission becomes less efficient.

Reference: Severe MS predicted using machine learning; Nature Communications; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42682-9

Train your brain to overcome tinnitus

An international research team has shown that the debilitating impact of tinnitus can be effectively reduced in just weeks by a training course and sound therapy delivered via a smartphone app.

The team from Australian, New Zealand, French and Belgian universities report these findings today in Frontiers in Audiology and Otology.

The initial trial worked with 30 sufferers, of whom almost two thirds experienced a ‘clinically significant improvement’. The team are now planning larger trials in the UK in collaboration with the University College London Hospital.

Reference: Train your brain to overcome tinnitus; Frontiers in Audiology and Otology; DOI: 10.3389/fauot.2023.1302215