iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- When Richard Kaminski had an unusual mole removed from his cheek in 1998, he thought it was the end of his experience with melanoma.
But more than 10 years later, Kaminski developed a cough that didn't go away. Medical tests confirmed the diagnosis: metastatic melanoma that had spread to his lungs.
Melanoma is a form of skin cancer that kills 85 percent of its victims within five years if it has spread. It is responsible for about 9,000 deaths in the United States a year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Kaminski was floored. "I had this awful thing working in my lungs," he said.
Doctors treated Kaminski with a drug typically used against this form of cancer, but without success. It was only when his oncologist put him in touch with Dr. Anna Pavlick at New York University, who enrolled him in a clinical trial of a medication called vemurafenib, that he began to turn the corner on the deadly illness.
Before treatment, Kaminski recalled, "I had great difficulty breathing. I couldn't put sentences together because I couldn't get a deep breath. I had pain in my chest." Three weeks after beginning the drug, "A lot of that was greatly diminished," he said.
Within three months, Kaminski's symptoms disappeared. Scans showed his tumors starting to regress. By the end of 2010, the tumors were gone.
Kaminski, now 65, is understandably thankful.
"In two weeks, I will be two years on this drug," he said. "It was a lifeline."
On Wednesday, the results of the clinical trial in which Kaminski was enrolled appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the study conducted at 13 centers in the U.S. and Australia, researchers followed 132 patients with Kaminski's type of melanoma who had failed to respond to standard treatment. In about half of them, vemurafenib shrunk their tumors. For another third of the patients, the tumors showed no progression once the drug regimen had kicked in. Dr. Lynn Schuchter at the University of Pennsylvania, another of the study's authors, called these numbers "unprecedented."
"I've treated patients [with melanoma] for almost 25 years and never seen a drug with this kind of activity," Schuchter said. "It's so much better than the therapies that have been available to us before."
Also impressive was the improvement in survival; patients on the drug lived, on average, for an additional 15.9 months after treatment began, compared with the six to 10 months typically seen with the disease. A larger trial, also published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the drug brought about improved survival at six months. But the authors of the new study were able to follow some of their patients much longer -- for more than a year after they'd started treatment.
For patients like Kaminski who fail standard treatment, the new drug offers hope. Unlike many other cancer drugs, vemurafenib was just as effective in patients who had failed a previous treatment as it was in patients who had received the drug right off the bat -- a rare finding when it comes to cancer treatments.
The drug is not without its limits. In targeted therapy, cancer cells can mutate slightly and stop being a target, a process called resistance. In this study, cancer tended to recur in patients after about seven months of treatment. Dr. Kelly McMasters, chairwoman of surgery at the University of Louisville who treats melanoma patients, points out, "It can cause the tumors to shrink, but they will recur on average in about six months."
That being said, McMasters said, "In some patients...vemurafenib offers the hope to shrink the tumors enough to allow [surgical removal]."
So far, resistance hasn't been an issue for Richard Kaminski. Two years into treatment, he continues to enjoy a relatively normal life. He loves to garden, although he does have to take precautions out in the sun since one of the side effects of the medication is sun sensitivity.
FDA/iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- A U.S. Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee Wednesday recommended approval of the weight loss drug Qnexa, a treatment many hope will help millions of Americans who struggle with obesity.
In voting 20-2 for approval, the committee said Wednesday that Qnexa’s weight-loss benefits for the chronically obese outweighed the risks of birth defects and cardiovascular problems that have been associated with the drug. An FDA advisory panel recommended against approval in 2010 over concerns about the drug’s side effects, and the FDA rejected it shortly after that. Vivus, the drug’s manufacturer, recently submitted additional research.
The committee Wednesday recommended that the manufacturer take a number of steps to prevent the drug from causing birth defects like cleft palate, including a possible warning label targeted toward women of childbearing years.
The FDA has considered numerous anti-obesity drugs in the past 20 years, but most have failed to meet the agency’s standards for safety and effectiveness. But so far, data on Qnexa suggests that the drug is the most effective in helping patients shed up to 10 percent of their body weight. Those changes, along with diet and exercise modifications, could go a long way toward alleviating some of the health problems associated with obesity, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
Critics say the risk of potentially dangerous side effects of Qnexa, which include increased heart rate, heart attacks and arrhythmias, are too great to make the drug available to millions of people, especially because long-term effects of the drug are still largely unknown.
“Public health cannot tolerate another diet drug approved that has not been accepted for cardiovascular risk especially in light of the suggested findings of Qnexa,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the health research group at Public Citizen, an advocacy group.
Obesity currently plagues one-third of Americans and has been linked to high blood pressure, diabetes and a range of other chronic, expensive health problems. Doctors and dietitians routinely recommend changes in diet and exercise as the safest and most effective way to shed pounds. But some acknowledge that these strategies just don’t work for a large number of obese patients. Bariatric surgery, though largely successful in producing weight loss, is not a viable option for many people.
Dr. Melina Jampolis, an obesity specialist in San Francisco, said the current options for treating obesity are “frustratingly limited,” and said it would be helpful if patients had additional tools to aid their weight loss.
“I think that combination therapy is essential as there are numerous individual and overlapping mechanisms that make weight loss difficult,” she said. “So the more of them that you can address with medication therapy when necessary, the more effective a regimen will be.”
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.) -- A California plastic surgeon is keeping it in the family by performing multiple cosmetic procedures on his own young daughters.
Dr. Michael Niccole, founder of the CosmetiCare Plastic Surgery Center in Newport Beach, Calif., gave his daughter Brittani, now 22, breast implants when she was 18. Brittani also had a rhinoplasty. Niccole performed surgery on his daughter Charm, now also 22, when she was 10 to turn her “outtie” belly button into an “innie.”
Dr. Niccole said he has performed surgery on other family members as well and felt comfortable operating on his daughters, both of whom are adopted.
“Who would give them the time -- that extra little look during surgery more than I would?” the surgeon said.
Brittani told 20/20 she wanted breast augmentation surgery to “build my self-esteem.”
“I didn’t have large breasts when I was younger, and all my friends did…I felt very self-conscious about it,” she said.
Both Brittani and Charm also receive regular injections of Botox to prevent wrinkles and undergo other cosmetic procedures.
Though critics say women Brittani and Charm's age have no business undergoing cosmetic procedures, Dr. Niccole defends his work on his daughters as “maintenance.”
“I’m not changing their looks in any means. They want maintenance,” he said. "They don’t want to get old. They want to stay young.”
Hemera/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- According to a new study, women with a history of migraines are 41 percent more likely to develop depression than their migraine-free counterparts.
"Our study shows that migraine is a potential risk factor for depression," said study author Dr. Tobias Kurth, a neuroepidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "If you have a chronic intermittent pain condition, you may be more likely to develop depressive symptoms or even depression because you're so bothered by the pain. And it's also possible the conditions share similar pathophysiological features in the brain."
The study followed 36,154 women, 6,456 of whom had a history of migraines. Over an average of 14 years, 3,971 women developed depression -- a diagnosis much more common among migraine sufferers. Kurth and colleagues will present their results in April at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
Dr. Joel Saper, director of the Michigan Headache and Neurological Institute, said the study confirms a long-suspected link between migraines and depression.
"They can intermingle with each other, and they can masquerade each other," said Saper, adding that both conditions have genetic routes. "And having one makes the other one worse."
Previous studies have found people with depression are more likely to get migraines, suggesting the risk goes both ways.
"It emphasizes the importance of treating both conditions at the same time," said Saper. "Sometimes we can treat both with the same medication."
Migraine and depression are more common in women than in men, which Saper attributes to fluctuations estrogen levels.
"Estrogen makes both of these worse," he said, describing the headaches and mood changes often triggered by the menstrual cycle. "Women are more prone to depression and more prone to migraines, and women who take oral contraceptives are often worse off."
Chris Polk/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) -- Rihanna debuted her sexually charged “Birthday Cake” remix Monday, and the man who bloodied and bruised her three years ago, Chris Brown, appears on the new version, rapping about how he wants to “f***” her and “give it to her in the worst way.” Listeners can also hear Rihanna’s vocals featured on the new version of Chris Brown’s “Turn Up the Music,” which was released Monday.
While some fans have expressed acceptance and even excitement about the collaboration, others are outraged, announcing their loss of respect for the pop princess for what seems like welcoming her former abuser back into her life.
Without having treated Rihanna or knowing the full details of the continuing saga of Rihanna and Chris Brown, experts weighed in on the rekindled music relationship. While some said the revived pair is inappropriate and dangerous, others suggest that Rihanna may have healed from the experience and now feels empowered to separate business and personal relationships.
“It is always a little worrisome to see an abused woman readmit her abuser into her life,” said Alan Hilfer, chief psychologist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. “This is, however, quite common and we often see women willing to forgive men for some of the awful things that they have done. As psychologists, we are always working to get people to change their behaviors and hope we can be successful. We advocate the ability to forgive, but not necessarily forget.”
The cycle of domestic abuse can be a confusing one for all those involved or witnessing it, said Dr. Sudeepta Varma, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine and a member of the American Psychiatric Association. While common sense tells most people to permanently stay away from something so damaging, victims can fall back into their abuser’s web of charm, promises of change and grand gestures of apology.
“The highs the abusers provide their victims are like no other, and the memory and potency of the positive experiences draws the victim back in for more,” said Varma. “The victim is often someone who is psychologically vulnerable to this type of charm, deceit and grandiose behavior. Underneath the debonair exterior of the abuser lies a person with gross lack of empathy, disregard for rules and norms of society. [These are] many qualities we see in people with personality disorders.”
Rihanna seemed to allude to the situation with her former flame Tuesday while accepting best international female artist at the Brit Awards. “At times when I feel misunderstood, my fans always remind me that it’s O.K. to be myself,” she said during her speech.
Varma said society doesn’t expect women who are beautiful, talented, wealthy, and who have many options surrounding her to fall prey to such behavior, but, “domestic violence is an equalizer.”
It is more about psychological dependence, low-self esteem, and believing that this person, who is good to you sometimes, is really your best and only option out there, Varma continued.
“You are willing to overlook the bad, because the good feels so good,” said Varma. “It sends a confusing message to concerned parties and continued contact with a former abuser sends a message that you have accepted, tolerated and maybe even condoned this type of behavior.”
Nevertheless, Martin Binks, clinical director & CEO of Binks Behavioral Health, said women who are victims of abuse do not have to remain victims of their abuser forever.
“Why must we insist on disempowering victims by questioning their judgment without all the facts?” said Binks. “People may be forgetting that perhaps she has recovered and is a strong independent woman who is empowered enough to make this decision thoughtfully and without there being some pathological explanation. Only she and her therapist are qualified to have an opinion on this topic, in my opinion,” he said.
Chris Polk/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) -- Rihanna debuted her sexually charged “Birthday Cake” remix Monday, and the man who bloodied and bruised her three years ago, Chris Brown, appears on the new version, rapping about how he wants to “f***” her and “give it to her in the worst way.” Listeners can also hear Rihanna’s vocals featured on the new version of Chris Brown’s “Turn Up the Music,” which was released Monday.
While some fans have expressed acceptance and even excitement about the collaboration, others are outraged, announcing their loss of respect for the pop princess for what seems like welcoming her former abuser back into her life.
Without having treated Rihanna or knowing the full details of the continuing saga of Rihanna and Chris Brown, experts weighed in on the rekindled music relationship. While some said the revived pair is inappropriate and dangerous, others suggest that Rihanna may have healed from the experience and now feels empowered to separate business and personal relationships.
“It is always a little worrisome to see an abused woman readmit her abuser into her life,” said Alan Hilfer, chief psychologist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. “This is, however, quite common and we often see women willing to forgive men for some of the awful things that they have done. As psychologists, we are always working to get people to change their behaviors and hope we can be successful. We advocate the ability to forgive, but not necessarily forget.”
The cycle of domestic abuse can be a confusing one for all those involved or witnessing it, said Dr. Sudeepta Varma, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine and a member of the American Psychiatric Association. While common sense tells most people to permanently stay away from something so damaging, victims can fall back into their abuser’s web of charm, promises of change and grand gestures of apology.
“The highs the abusers provide their victims are like no other, and the memory and potency of the positive experiences draws the victim back in for more,” said Varma. “The victim is often someone who is psychologically vulnerable to this type of charm, deceit and grandiose behavior. Underneath the debonair exterior of the abuser lies a person with gross lack of empathy, disregard for rules and norms of society. [These are] many qualities we see in people with personality disorders.”
Rihanna seemed to allude to the situation with her former flame Tuesday while accepting best international female artist at the Brit Awards. “At times when I feel misunderstood, my fans always remind me that it’s O.K. to be myself,” she said during her speech.
Varma said society doesn’t expect women who are beautiful, talented, wealthy, and who have many options surrounding her to fall prey to such behavior, but, “domestic violence is an equalizer.”
It is more about psychological dependence, low-self esteem, and believing that this person, who is good to you sometimes, is really your best and only option out there, Varma continued.
“You are willing to overlook the bad, because the good feels so good,” said Varma. “It sends a confusing message to concerned parties and continued contact with a former abuser sends a message that you have accepted, tolerated and maybe even condoned this type of behavior.”
Nevertheless, Martin Binks, clinical director & CEO of Binks Behavioral Health, said women who are victims of abuse do not have to remain victims of their abuser forever.
“Why must we insist on disempowering victims by questioning their judgment without all the facts?” said Binks. “People may be forgetting that perhaps she has recovered and is a strong independent woman who is empowered enough to make this decision thoughtfully and without there being some pathological explanation. Only she and her therapist are qualified to have an opinion on this topic, in my opinion,” he said.
Don Arnold/WireImage(NEW YORK) -- Kim and Khloe Kardashian may have gotten themselves into legal hot water with their promotion of the diet drug QuickTrim.
According to the New York Post, the New York City law firm Bursor & Fisher has filed a class-action against QuickTrim’s manufacturers, Windmill Health Products in New Jersey, for the product’s promotion and marketing claims, which include the Kardashian sisters as celebrity users of QuickTrim.
In an email sent to Quick Trim customers, the Post reported, the company noted, “The active ingredient in QuickTrim weight loss products is a large dose of caffeine...The FDA has determined that caffeine is not safe or effective for weight loss.”
QuickTrim was hitched to Kim and Khloe’s star in 2009 when the duo became the product’s celebrity endorsers. In January 2010, Kim claimed that she used QuickTrim and dropped 15 pounds. Khloe professed a similar weight loss a few months later. Since then, the product has earned Windmill Health Products $45 million windfall in revenue.
The products are sold nationwide at such chains as Walmart, CVS and Walgreens. The company’s website claims that QuickTrim products, which range from pills to powdery drinks, can help burn calories, cleanse the bodies, curb appetite and boost energy. The website also warns that, “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
Rob Carr/Getty Images(BOSTON) -- Tom Martinez, the man credited for grooming New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for his NFL career, died of a heart attack while undergoing dialysis Tuesday on his 66th birthday.
The retired football coach had been awaiting a kidney transplant for two years, but he had not succeeded in finding a donor. Three months ago, Martinez's doctors told him he had mere months left to live.
"I've been told I'm out of here, and I don't accept that," Martinez told ABC News in January. "I'm going to fight to the end."
Martinez's wife, Olivia, had dropped him off at the Satellitte Dialysis Center in Redwood City, Calif., for a routine appointment. Shortly after, she was called back to the center and was told by staff members that her husband had had a heart attack.
Martinez told ABC News in January that if there was ever a key to success on the field, it's this: Don't quit.
"I tell the kids I don't care who it is, I don't care where we go, I don't care where we play, we don't whine about officials' calls, we don't whine about weather conditions," said Martinez. "You play hard and you play right to the end."
Brady adopted that no-quit attitude to help his longtime mentor Martinez connect with a donor.
Brady spread the word through a banner he circulated online over the past month through MatchingDonor.com, a nonprofit organization that helps interested living organ donors find those who need transplants.
"We don't like to promote one person or another," Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, medical director at MatchingDonor.com, told ABC News in January. "If Tom Martinez is helping people get to this site, then that's great."
Martinez started coaching Brady when he was a 13-year-old at a quarterback football camp Martinez ran at the College of San Mateo in California, and the relationship lasted through Brady's NFL career.
"He's one of the fiercest competitors I have ever known," said Martinez. "He wants to do things 100 percent."
But Brady and Martinez's relationship was better than a great throw.
"He obviously is the summation of everything you attempt to teach," Martinez said.
ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has corrected misinformation regarding her investigation into the medical mystery in an upstate New York town where a group of teenagers has displayed symptoms similar to Tourette syndrome, saying that her research is still preliminary.
Nearly two dozen people, including one 36-year-old, in the upstate New York village of LeRoy are now experiencing uncontrollable tics, seizures and outbursts that might have been caused by a chemical spill in the town more than 40 years ago.
In a statement released Tuesday, Brockovich said she is still investigating a plume from a 1970 train derailment in LeRoy, which dumped cyanide and trichloroethylene (TCE) -- a chlorinated hydrocarbon used to de-grease metal parts -- within three miles of the village's high school.
The Environmental Protection Agency says that TCE can affect the central nervous system, and cause dizziness, headache, sleepiness, nausea, confusion, blurred vision and facial numbness. It is suspected of being linked to the symptoms among LeRoy's local teens.
Brockovich associate Bob Bowcock reportedly said on Feb. 11 that samples taken from the wells of private residences had not migrated west and south -- toward LeRoy High School -- as some had feared. Although at the time Browcock said that the investigation would continue for the next several months, Brockovich on Tuesday said that the tests he referred to were preliminary.
"Contrary to an erroneous news report, I want to make clear that my investigation into possible sources of environmental contamination in LeRoy, New York that may or may not be linked to the serious illnesses suffered by various members of the community is not complete," Brockovich said in a statement. "In fact, it appears the number of people in the area displaying alarming health issues that can be caused by TCE is growing."
"It took the EPA 40 years to investigate the contamination from the train derailment and it will take us more than 40 days to get to the root of the problem in LeRoy. I want to further stress that we have not ruled out the TCE plume from the train derailment as a source of contamination at LeRoy High School," she added.
Brockovich, 51, added that her team has many more areas of LeRoy to test, including the local quarry, six fracking wells at the high school and the Methyl tert-butyl ether (MtBE) contamination in local wells, while stressing that thoroughness is key in her investigation.
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Men and women who shoehorn themselves into skin-tight jeans, battle to button their trousers or knot their neckties too tightly might unknowingly suffer nerve damage, digestive disturbances and even potentially deadly blood clots.
They're victims of fashion's hidden health hazards. Even some favorite accessories, like waist-cinching belts, can compress delicate nerves in the abdomen or constrain breathing and deprive the heart and brain of needed oxygen.
"Who hasn't tried to squeeze into a too-small pair of shoes, or wriggle into too-tight jeans?" said Dr. Orly Avitzur, a neurologist in Tarrytown, N.Y., who started warning about too-constricting skinny jeans on her Consumer Reports blog back in 2009. "Sometimes we realize right away that our choice of wardrobe or fashion is the culprit; other times, it only dawns on us when we begin to really suffer."
When patients seek medical help for pain radiating into the thigh, or feelings of numbness or tingling, it's unlikely they suspect that the cut of their jeans might be the problem. But sharp-eyed physicians like Dr. Malvinder S. Parmar, medical director of Timmins & District Hospital in Ontario, Canada, might recognize the hallmarks of meralgia paresthetica, the compression of a nerve running from the pelvis into the outer thigh.
In 2003, Parmar published a description of "tingly thighs" in three "mildly obese" women who wore low-rise jeans throughout the previous few months. Their discomforts resolved after four to six weeks "avoiding hiphuggers and wearing loose-fitting dresses," according to Parmar's 2003 correspondence in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Some clothing-related maladies go by mundane-sounding names that hardly hint at their potential to sicken. For example, a middle-aged or older man whose belly hangs below the waist of his pants may suffer from "tight pants syndrome," a term coined in a 1993 article by Dr. Octavio Bessa, an internist in Stamford, Conn.
Bessa described a collection of gastrointestinal symptoms including abdominal pain, heartburn and reflux a few hours after meals that he would see in 20 to 25 men every year. The common thread: All wore ill-fitting pants with waistbands several inches smaller than their bellies, Bessa reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Three years later, two diagnostic imaging specialists from Wales described a "sporting variant" of tight-pants syndrome that they linked to tight Neoprene bike shorts worn to prevent muscular injury.
Wearing tight neckties and shirts with constricting collars can also impede blood flow through neck veins and arteries and may affect vision. In a 2003 study of 40 men, half with glaucoma, three minutes with a tightened tie raised eye pressure among the majority of those with and without the disease. Elevated eye pressure is a key element of diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness.
