Researchers recommend greater action to promote best practice as a new study has revealed a rise in prescriptions of opioids for treating chronic pain between 1998 and 2018. A review of opioid prescribing in the UK has shown that UK doctors are prescribing more and stronger opioid drugs to patients. The research showed a 34 [...]

A new treatment for patients with a form of congenital retinal blindness has shown success in improving vision, according to results recently published in Nature Medicine, led by researchers at the Scheie Eye Institute in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The treatment was designed for patients with CEP290 mutations and a diagnosis [...]

Researchers at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine have, for the first time, been able to observe – live and in real-time – how the human body responds to often lethal fungal blood infections in the lung. In the study, the fungal infection Candida albicans was introduced to mice or human models of [...]

NICE has published final draft guidance recommending a breakthrough cancer treatment, called CAR T-cell therapy, for adults with certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Axicabtagene-ciloleucel, also known as Yescarta and manufactured by Kite, a Gilead company, is part of a new wave of personalised medicine. The therapy is for adults with relapsed or refractory diffuse large [...]

Scientists have discovered a new chemical process – also known as a biosynthetic pathway – in bacteria which could lead to a new generation of antibiotics being produced and manufactured. Researchers at The University of Manchester’s School of Chemistry have said that their new pathway includes an enzyme, called a carboxylase, which adds CO2 to [...]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has permitted the marketing of a new diagnostic test to aid in detecting a type of herpes virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV) in newborns less than 21 days of age. ‘Although most people who become infected with cytomegalovirus face little to no risk of serious illness, the virus has [...]

For people with type 2 diabetes, the task of testing their blood sugar with a fingertip prick and a drop of blood on a special strip of paper becomes part of everyday life. However, a new study has suggested that some of them test more often than they need to. In fact, the research shows [...]

Controlled ingestion of peanut protein could help build tolerance in peanut allergy sufferers. Authors of a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine have said that an oral immunotherapy drug which they tested could be the first FDA-approved medication of its kind for people with a peanut allergy. The medication, called AR101, is derived [...]

A life-extending treatment for some adults with advanced liver cancer has been recommended for use on the NHS by NICE after a rapid review of guidance published earlier in the year. The drug Regorafenib (also called Stivarga and made by Bayer) can now be offered to people with advanced liver cancer if their liver is [...]

The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved Firdapse (amifampridine) tablets for the treatment of Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS) in adults. LEMS is a rare autoimmune disorder that affects the connection between nerves and muscles, and causes weakness and other symptoms in affected patients. This is the first FDA approval of a treatment for LEMS. [...]