— Assambleya

A woman in Hong Kong is seriously ill in hospital with bird flu – the first human case of the disease to be diagnosed in the territory since 2003.

Officials said the 59-year-old fell ill shortly after returning from a visit to the Chinese mainland.

It is not yet clear whether she contracted the potentially fatal disease there or in Hong Kong.

The territory has raised its alert level to «serious», meaning there is a risk of contracting the disease.

The last outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Hong Kong killed six people in 2003.

Health chief York Chow said there was no sign yet that the virus has been spread between humans and that investigations were focusing on poultry as being the source of the infection.

«But we will be concentrating on people who were in contact with her when she showed symptoms and also when she was in Hong Kong,» the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

«The chances of her catching it is most likely on the mainland, but you cannot rule out Hong Kong,» he said.

The woman is reported to have travelled to the mainland with her husband and daughter, and to have visited Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing.

Mr Chow said officials would meet on Thursday to decide what further precautions are needed.

The first time the virus crossed the species barrier between poultry and humans in 1997, every chicken in Hong Kong was culled.

The World Health Organization says more than 500 cases of bird flu have been diagnosed worldwide since 2003. Of those, 302 cases were fatal.

© bbc.co.uk

Annual screening for women in their 40s with a family history of breast cancer may save lives, research suggests.

The NHS breast screening programme currently offers mammograms to women aged between 50 and 70.

But UK researchers say a pilot study suggests regular mammograms should be given to younger women who have relatives with breast cancer.

A cancer charity said more data was needed to weigh up risks and benefits.

The study, published in the journal Lancet Oncology, looked at women deemed at moderate risk of breast cancer because they have relatives with the disease.

Screening is considered unjustified in women with no family history of breast cancer because of the risk of a false-alarm.

Women at high-risk – because they are thought to have a gene mutation associated with the disease – are already closely assessed, with many given MRI scans or offered early surgery.

False alarms

The study recruited 6,710 moderate risk women across the UK who were given mammograms to check for signs of breast cancer every year for four years.

These women are not currently included in the main NHS breast screening programme, which offers mammograms to women aged 50-70 every three years.

The researchers, led by Professor Stephen Duffy of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, compared cancer rates and deaths in this group with women from other trials who were not given annual screening.

They say the women given screening were significantly more likely to be alive 10 years after a diagnosis of cancer than women in the two control groups.

Professor Duffy told the BBC: «It means that annual mammography does reduce the risk of dying of breast cancer in this group of moderate risk women.

«It means they can go and seek medical help knowing that there is something that can be done.»

Rough figures suggest that it would probably save an extra 50 lives a year, he added.

«It doesn’t sound like much but it means alot to the people who are in that group because they have relatives who have had breast cancer,» he explained. «It’s not a huge expense to the NHS.»

Surveillance

But Hazel Nunn, senior health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said the full picture was not yet clear.

«Since it seems 5,000 women would need to be screened to save one life, it will be important to weigh up these benefits carefully against potential risks of routine mammography before deciding whether screening really is the best course of action for this group,» she said.

«We await the results of further research measuring the risks.»

The NHS Breast Screening Programme said plans were in place to extend screening to women with a family history of breast cancer in the future.

Assistant Director, Sarah Sellars, said current guidelines for women at risk of breast cancer because of their family history recommend that certain women should be offered surveillance.

She said these services were currently commissioned locally but in the future would be run by them.

«In the future, the NHS Breast Screening Programmes will be taking on responsibility for routinely screening higher risk women under 50,» she said.

«Several breast screening sites are currently testing the software to be able to manage these women effectively.

«This service will sit alongside our current breast screening programme for women aged 50 years old and over.»

© bbc.co.uk

A tiny capsule could help smuggle anti-cancer drugs past a barrier designed to protect the brain from attack.

The «nanocarrier» containing the drug was tested on tumours in mice, and proved better at reducing them than the drug alone.

A conference in Berlin was told that the method could also cut the side-effects of powerful medication.

Cancer drugs which could reach the brain are urgently needed, say UK experts.

The ‘blood brain barrier’ is a defence system designed to protect the sensitive brain from large, potentially toxic molecules circulating in the blood.

However, this function means it ends up protecting cancer cells in the brain from drugs.

Trigger

The researchers from Germany’s Max-Delbruck Centre for Molecular Medicine have tried to hijack the barrier’s own mechanisms to help get the drugs through.

Molecules which are needed by the brain activate receptors at the barrier, and are actively pulled through.

The team found a molecule which could trigger this process, and constructed a capsule containing the drug mitoxantrone, with this molecule attached to its surface.

The disguise appeared to work, at least in mice with breast tumours implanted into their brains.

In comparison with untreated mice, the «nanocarrier» mitoxantrone reduced tumour area by 73%, and more importantly, by 45% in comparison with mice simply given the drug on its own.

Also, the researchers noted the extent of side-effects in the mice.

While those given only the drug had weight loss, dehydration, and stomach disorders, there were no noticeable side effects in those given the nanocarrier treatment.

This, they said, was because the molecule on the surface of the liposome capsule marked it for delivery to brain cells, stopping it from wreaking havoc in other parts of the body.

Andrea Orthmann, one of the researchers, said the «nanocarrier» could potentially hold not only other cancer drugs, but also drugs aimed at other brain conditions.

She said: «The liposomes have the potential to be used in several other diseases, including neurodegenerative ones such as Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s and Huntingdon’s disease, as well as other tumours.»

However, she conceded that much more time-consuming work would be needed before the technology could be used in humans.

Roy Rampling, professor emeritus at Glasgow University and a specialist in neuro-oncology, said that other researchers in the UK and abroad were using similar approaches.

He said: «The idea is to encapsulate drugs to deliver their payload once they reach the brain.

«You need to get sufficient drug into the brain without increasing side-effects, and because it is encapsulated, it doesn’t produce the same level of toxicity in other organs, particularly the bone marrow.»

Trevor Lawson, from Brain Tumour UK, which supports similar projects, said that there was an urgent need to find new ways to deliver drugs across the blood brain barrier.

He said: «In addition to the terrible impact of primary tumours in the brain, which claim more children and adults under 45 than any other cancer, there are already reports that secondary brain cancer is increasing as we get better at treating cancer elsewhere in the body.

«Some oncologists predict that the brain will be the final battleground against cancer, so drugs developed at this nano-molecular level will be an essential weapon.»

© bbc.co.uk