Medical centre - 100 Physicians

The system uses a highly accurate image-matching technique called Phase-Only Correlation (POC). The technique is used to align images and measure their similarity. With POC, the system registers images, corrects distortion and calculates a matching score.

Gail said that he and others had been concerned for some time about the assumptions they were making for women of African American and other racial and ethnic origin. He said it “turns out that we have been underestimating the risk for African American women”.
Currently, all cases of dental identification in the wake of a mass disaster have to be handled one by one by forensic experts.

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Pharmaceutical researchers are testing 92 medicines and vaccines to treat or prevent HIV/AIDS and related conditions, according to a report released by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

December 1 marks the 20th anniversary of “World AIDS Day” — a global awareness campaign that originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programmes for AIDS Prevention.

“We are greatly encouraged by the new, critically-important medicines and vaccines in development to treat and prevent HIV infection,” says PhRMA President and CEO Billy Tauzin.

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The drug watchdog in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has expressed concerns regarding the anti-smoking drug Chantix.

The concerns come in the form of an ‘early communication’ about the drug and warns of reports of erratic behaviour in some taking Chantix.

An ‘early communication’ represents an ongoing safety review and reflects the FDA’s current analysis of available data concerning drugs.

It does not in itself mean that FDA has decided that there is a relationship between the drug and the emerging safety issue but rather that the agency is evaluating post-marketing adverse event reports about a drug.

Chantix (varenicline), is a prescription medicine designed to help adults stop smoking, and the warning comes as a result of the FDA’s request for information from Pfizer for adverse reports.

The company submitted reports to the agency describing suicidal thoughts and erratic behavior in an individual who had used Chantix, along with at least one death potentially linked to the medication.

The FDA has asked the company for any information on additional cases that may be similar in patients who have taken the drug.

When the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research completes their analysis of the available information and data, it says the conclusions and recommendations will be communicated to the public.

For now the FDA advises doctors to closely monitor patients taking Chantix for behavior and mood changes in patients within days to weeks of starting treatment.

Patients taking Chantix are advised to contact their doctors if they experience behavior or mood changes.

The FDA also advises patients to use caution when driving or operating machinery until they know how using Chantix may affect them.

Many drugmakers say the FDA is toughening up its stance on safety following the 2004 debacle over Merck’s arthritis drug, Vioxx, and recent safety concerns about the diabetes drug, Avandia, produced by GlaxoSmithKline.

Some analysts suspect the FDA is being overly safety conscious because of such cases.

Pfizer says adverse event reports following a drug’s approval are voluntarily submitted to companies by consumers and doctors and are a very sketchy indicator of any potential trends.

Pfizer is the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company and Chantix apparently earned the company $241 million in the third quarter of 2007.

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Affiris GmbH has been granted a Europe-wide patent for key elements of its Alzheimer’s vaccine. As a result, the company has exclusive rights of use to the peptide sequences for an innovative approach to vaccine development. The tolerability of the first Affiris vaccine, AFFITOPE AD01, is currently being tested as part of a phase I clinical trial. The lead investor in the company, MIG-Fonds, is extremely satisfied with the expanding patent portfolio of Affiris GmbH.

Earlier today, the Austrian company Affiris GmbH, based in Vienna, announced that it has been granted a Europe-wide patent for a pool of peptide sequences that are of key importance to an innovative Alzheimer’s vaccine. (Content Read …)

Wearing a pedometer and having a daily step goal can boost your activity level, according to a new analysis of research.

“Our major result is pedometer users increased their physical activity,” says Dena Bravata, MD, senior research scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine and a doctor in private practice in San Francisco. With her colleagues, she analyzed 26 published studies on the devices and the effect they have on increasing daily physical activity.

Those who wore the devices also reduced body weight and blood pressure , she and her colleagues report in the Nov. 21 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Content Read …)

The biotechnology company Celgene said Sunday that it would pay $2.9 billion in cash and stock to acquire Pharmion, strengthening Celgene's cancer drug portfolio and its distribution in Europe.

It is one of the first big acquisitions for Celgene, a company most known for reviving the drug thalidomide, which caused birth defects in the 1950s and 1960s, as an effective cancer treatment.

Celgene's biggest-selling drug is Revlimid, a derivative of thalidomide intended to be more potent and have fewer side effects.

The acquisition will help Celgene expand from mainly an American company to a global one. Pharmion distributes Celgene's thalidomide in Europe under the brand name Thalomid.

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Health officials from , which oversees organ procurement programs and hospitals in the U.S., are investigating the three hospitals involved in the case of four transplant recipients in the Chicago area who in January contracted HIV and hepatitis C from a high-risk organ donor, the reports (Tanner, AP/Google.com, 11/16).

According to officials at — the organ procurement agency that tested and approved the organs for donation — a screening questionnaire determined that the donor had engaged in high-risk behavior. (Content Read …)

Obese men may have prostate cancer despite relatively low values on a prostate cancer screening test called the PSA test, a new study suggests.

The PSA test detects PSA - prostate-specific antigen - in the blood. Only prostate cells give off PSA. PSA levels can rise as prostate tumors grow.

Earlier studies showed that obese men have slightly lower PSA concentrations than lean men do. It’s not clear why this is so. New findings from Duke University researcher Stephen J. Freedland,MD, and colleagues now suggest an answer.

“Being a big guy, you have enormous blood volume, so PSA is diluted,” Freedland tells WebMD. (Content Read …)

"This is the first paper to show an improvement in mortality, so that adds to the potential that having rapid response teams can really change the outcome," said Dr. Richard Brilli, author of an editorial that accompanies the article in the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"This validates with research that this is a good process. It's sound, reliable and shows an improvement in outcomes," added Audrey Hubbard, director of children's services at The Children's Hospital at Scott & White in Temple, Texas.

A rapid response team (RRT) is composed of experts from different disciplines who are available 24-7 to evaluate patients who are hospitalized but not in the intensive care unit (ICU).

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Federal Recovery Coordinator Donald Powell on Thursday said community health clinics are a “viable model” for delivering health care in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, the reports (Monteverde, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 11/16).

earlier this year allocated $195 million in a one-time round of grants to Gulf Coast health services. About $100 million of the grant money went toward clinics that provide primary care to low-income and uninsured residents in an effort to reduce dependency on emergency departments and ensure residents receive basic care (, 5/29). (Content Read …)