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Forget 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' If you want to get the real dope on prospective employees, ask job candidates these seven questions.

By now, everyone has heard of the failed bombing of Delta/Northwest flight 253. This was frighteningly close to being a disaster, but the bomb didn't go off. Now the only disaster we have is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and its abysmal handling of the situation. It might surprise you to know that there still isn't anyone leading the TSA right now; President Obama's long-delayed nomination is sitting with the Senate, blocked by a lonely Republican senator. This is unacceptable.

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RxPG News : Latest Research
Medical News and Information

• Acupuncture has added benefits in breast cancer patients
  ( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Not only is acupuncture as effective as drug therapy at reducing hot flushes in breast cancer patients, it has the added benefit of potentially increasing a woman's sex drive and improving her sense of well-being, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study. Study results show that acupuncture, when compared to drug therapy, has a longer-lasting effect on the reduction of hot flushes and night sweats for women receiving hormone therapy for breast cancer treatment. Women also report that acupuncture improves their energy and clarity of thought. The study, published online this week in the Journal of Oncology, is the first randomly controlled trial to compare acupuncture and drug therapy in this way."Acupuncture offers patients a safe, effective and durable treatment option for hot flushes, something that affects the majority of breast cancer survivors. Compared to drug therapy, acupuncture actually has benefits, as opposed to more side effects," says study lead author Eleanor Walker, M.D., division director of breast services in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital. According to the National Cancer Institute, one in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. For these women, conventional medical treatment involves chemotherapy and five years of hormone therapy. With such a long course of treatment, side effects of hormone therapy such as vasomotor symptoms – hot flushes and night sweats – can become a major cause of decreased quality of life, and even discontinuation of treatment. Venlafaxine (Effexor) has been the drug therapy of choice to manage these common and debilitating side effects associated with breast cancer treatment. Venlafixine, however, comes with its own set of side-effects: dry mouth, decreased appetite, nausea and constipation. Since acupuncture has been shown to effectively reduce hot flushes in menopausal women, Dr. Walker and her research team decided to test the use of acupuncture to combat vasomotor symptoms in breast cancer patients as an alternative to drug therapy. To compare the two options, 50 patients were recruited from oncology clinics at Henry Ford. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture or venlafaxine treatment for 12 weeks. The drug therapy group took venlafaxine orally each night, 37.5mg the first week and then 75mg for the remaining 11 weeks. The other group received acupuncture treatments twice per week for the first four weeks, and then once a week for the remaining eight weeks. At the end of 12 weeks, all patients stopped their therapy and were followed for one year. Patients kept a diary to record the number and severity of hot flushes, and took surveys to measure their overall health and mental health. The study found that both groups initially experienced a 50 percent decline in hot flushes and depressive symptoms, indicating that acupuncture is as effective as drug therapy. Differences, however, between the two groups began to emerge two weeks post-treatment: The acupuncture group continued to experience minimal hot flushes, while the drug therapy group had a significant increase in hot flashes. The acupuncture group did not experience an increase in the frequency of their hot flushes until three months post-treatment.
• Inhibition of TNF-receptor associated protein-1possible treatment for prostatic cancer
  ( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Current research suggests that TNF-receptor associated protein-1 (TRAP-1) may prevent cancer cell death. The related report by Leav et al, "Cytoprotective Mitochondrial Chaperone TRAP-1 as a Novel Molecular Target in Localized and Metastatic Prostate Cancer," appears in the January 2010 issue of the American Journal of Pathology. Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the United States, following lung cancer. Prostate cancer most commonly develops in men over the age of 50 and is slow-growing; however, it may metastasize to other organs, particular to the bones and lymph nodes. Metastatic phase prostate cancer claims over 30,000 deaths per year in the United States alone. Prostate cancer cells are often resistant to cell death. Researchers led by Dr. Dario C. Altieri of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, therefore, explored the role of TRAP-1, a protein thought to regulate cell death, in prostate cancer survival. TRAP-1 was highly expressed in both high-grade human prostate cancer lesions and mouse models of prostate cancer, but not in benign or normal prostate tissue. In addition, TRAP-1 overexpression in non-cancer prostate cells inhibited cell death, whereas TRAP-1-deficient prostate cancer cells had enhanced levels of cell death. Moreover, treatment with Gamitrinib, which inhibits TRAP-1, resulted in prostate cancer cell death, but not death of non-cancerous prostate cells. Therefore, targeting TRAP-1 via Gamitrinib treatment may be a viable therapeutic strategy for patients with advanced prostate cancer. Leav et al suggest that "TRAP-1 [is] a novel marker of localized and metastatic prostate cancer, but not normal glands, required for prostate cancer cell viability, in vivo. Taken together with the preliminary safety of Gamitrinibs in preclinical studies, these data suggest that targeting mitochondrial TRAP-1 may provide a novel therapeutic approach for patients with advanced and metastatic prostate cancer" A similar approach may be also suitable for other types of cancer, as TRAP-1 is broadly expressed in disparate human malignancies. In future studies, Dr. Altieri and colleagues plan to "further dissect the biology of TRAP-1 cytoprotection in cancer cells, and test whether disabling its function may overcome drug resistance, the most common reason of treatment failure and dismal outcome in patients with advanced prostate cancer."
• Aortic grafts using patients own veins superior to synthetic and cadaveric grafts
  ( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A vascular surgical technique pioneered at UT Southwestern Medical Center and designed to replace infected aortic grafts with the body’s own veins has proved more durable and less prone to new infection than similar procedures using synthetic and cadaver grafts. Aortic graft infections are one of the most serious complications in patients undergoing aortic grafting procedures for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and aortic aneurysms. PAD reduces blood circulation in the pelvis and lower extremities, and aortic aneurysms result in a weakening of the aortic wall that can cause lethal rupture of the aorta, the largest artery in the body. Patients with PAD and aortic aneurysms often require surgery, and aortic grafting procedures using synthetic grafts are typically the first line of treatment. For patients with PAD, the procedure restores blood circulation to the legs, and for patients with aneurysm, it replaces the weakened aortic wall and prevents rupture. Synthetic grafts made of Dacron, a polyester material, are placed in the aorta and femoral arteries in the abdomen and groin, which feed blood to the legs. But in about 1 percent to 2 percent of these patients, the grafts become infected – a complication that causes amputation and death if left untreated. Dr. G. Patrick Clagett, chief of vascular surgery at UT Southwestern, pioneered a technique called the neo-aortoiliac system (NAIS) that repairs these aortic-graft infections. The procedure involves removing the infected graft and replacing it with sections of femoral-popliteal veins harvested from the patient’s thighs, rather than another synthetic graft or vessels harvested from human cadavers. In a recent study published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, Dr. Clagett and his team reported on 187 patients at UT Southwestern treated for aortic graft infections who underwent the NAIS procedure from 1990 to 2006. It is the largest group of such patients ever studied, and the researchers found that the incidence of re-infection was lower and the procedure resulted in superior durability with much lower long-term amputation rates when compared with other operations to treat this condition.“This operation has gained favor worldwide in the treatment of this devastating condition,” said Dr. Clagett. “Since performing the first operation here in the 1990s, we have accumulated data over the years and have found this procedure to be far superior in overall patient outcomes.” Simply replacing the old Dacron graft with a new synthetic graft can result in devastating infection of the new one, said Dr. Clagett, who is immediate past president of the Society for Vascular Surgery. His team and others also have found that the new synthetic or cadaver grafts tend to develop clots and new blockages.“When we use the patient’s own tissue to construct a new graft, it provides an advantage because they are less likely to form clots within the graft and less likely to develop new blockages,” Dr. Clagett said. “Patients also need fewer subsequent procedures, a common problem with the other treatments for this complication.” He added that patients