Infectious Disease

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Echinacea, the irrepressible alternative cold remedy, is ascendant again in the topsy-turvy world of evidence-based medicine.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Although the recent withdrawal of tegaserod from the market has left a hole in the options available to treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), there are still many available.

TORONTO -- If avian flu holds the potential for a human pandemic, one possible strategy is to vaccinate the birds.

ATLANTA -- Rapid HIV testing with on-the-spot results during emergency room visits or at community events appears to be a feasible way to identify people who are infected with the virus and don't know it.

TORONTO -- To quantify flu vaccine's effectiveness for children with more specificity, a new surveillance network is able to provide consistent and potentially valuable estimates, CDC researcher said here.

NEW YORK -- Motor symptoms of advanced Parkinson's disease were significantly improved in a small investigational gene-therapy trial, according to investigators here.

DUBLIN -- When alcohol turns fighting into biting, it's a problem for the emergency department.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., yet health care professionals don't always offer immunization to their most vulnerable patients.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- For smoldering multiple myeloma, the risk of progression to active disease may be predicted by a pair of factors at diagnosis, according to researchers here.

TORONTO -- An investigational oil-and-water adjuvant for flu vaccines -- tested in conjunction with a vaccine against avian flu -- is safe, a researcher said here.

BALTIMORE -- When treating hepatitis B and HIV co-infection, physicians should use caution with the antiviral drug entecavir (Baraclude), researchers here said.

TORONTO -- The trivalent inactivated flu vaccine appeared to outperform the newer live attenuated vaccine in a large study of military personnel, a U.S. Army researcher reported here.

HOUSTON -- Myocardial infarction and other acute cardiac events closely track pneumococcal pneumonia, which suggests a need for multiple admitting diagnoses.

TORONTO -- Highly pathogenic avian flu is rarely transmitted to people and apparently never in a mild or asymptomatic form, a Thai researcher said here.

TORONTO -- The tests used to evaluate influenza vaccines are so unreliable they can vary up to 700-fold from one lab to another, according to a British researcher.

LONDON, Ontario, June 18 -- Although sudden sensorineural hearing loss is typically treated with systemic steroids, little evidence exists to support this or any other treatment, researchers said.

HOUSTON -- Psoriasis patients who had extended exposure to high-dose etanercept (Enbrel) responded without increased infections or other serious adverse effects, researchers reported.

ATLANTA -- Borrelia burgdorferi are winning the Lyme disease war, at least in 10 endemic states that were targeted for a sharp reduction. Instead, with a vaccine no longer available, Lyme rates worsened, said the CDC.

DENVER -- Andrew Speaker, the focus of the storm over extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, will have surgery next month to remove part of his lung, doctors here announced.

CAMDEN, N.J. -- In a head-to-head trial, anidulafungin (Eraxis) was at least as effective in treating invasive candidiasis as fluconazole (Diflucan), researchers here said.

GUELPH, Ontario -- A visit to a petting zoo can expose youngsters to creatures that aren't so cute and cuddly -- Escherichia coli, Cryptosporidium, and Salmonella, among others.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Fewer hours in residency training do not appear to have led to substandard care, as some had predicted, according to a pair of studies.

BALTIMORE -- The old system of targeting high-risk persons for HIV testing is more efficient than screening all patients routinely, according to a researcher here.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Children who are given antibiotics during the first year of life may be at significantly greater risk of developing asthma, researchers here found.

MUNSTER, Germany -- Children who have a cerebral venous thrombosis before the age of two are unlikely to have another, found researchers here.

MINNEAPOLIS -- For children with leukemia who need a transplant, five-year disease-free survival rates from allogeneic cord blood appear to equal those from allele-matched marrow or peripheral blood stem cells.

CHICAGO -- A new regimen that includes both a targeted agent and cytotoxic drugs appears to be at least as effective as standard regimens for the treatment of unresectable metastatic colorectal cancer.

SAN FRANCISCO -- After a 43-year-old woman returned from Peru with fever and an enlarged spleen, researchers here have identified a previously unknown pathogen related to those that cause trench fever and cat-scratch fever.

CHICAGO -- Bevacizumab (Avastin) given before surgery for curative resection of liver metastases from colorectal cancer did not increase the risk of bleeding, researchers reported here.

CHICAGO, June 5 -- Docetaxel (Taxotere) added to both concurrent radiation and platinum-based chemotherapy did not significantly improve survival in patients with non-resectable phase III non-small cell lung cancer.