Test may aid cancer treatment

An experimental test that snags lung cancer cells from a blood sample could give doctors real-time feedback on the most effective therapy, researchers reported Wednesday.

Changes in the number of circulating cancer cells correlated with the effectiveness of a patient's treatment, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Currently, doctors take an educated guess at what treatment would work best, and then wait two to three months to perform a CT scan to see whether any tumors remain, researchers said. Doctors have many drugs and drug combinations to chose from.

The faster-acting blood test, licensed to CellPoint Diagnostics Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., is not yet available. More research is needed to determine whether enough cells can be detected to make the test effective and whether it will work for other types of tumors.

Hidden claws found in frogs

Talk about concealed weapons: Harvard University biologists have discovered that some species of African frogs can puncture the skin of their toes with sharp, hooked bones and use them as claws to fight off predators.

The previously unknown defense mechanism came to light when doctoral student David C. Blackburn picked up one of the fist-sized amphibians in Cameroon and got a bloody scratch when the frog violently kicked its hind legs.

He and colleagues reported in the journal Biology Letters that they later identified 11 species with the ability to flex a muscle that projects the sharp bone through the skin when threatened.

Cholesterol link to dementia seen

The "good" cholesterol that removes fatty plaque from the body may also be linked to memory, and low levels may indicate a risk for dementia, a British study found.

Researchers tracking the health of 3,673 British civil servants found that, at age 55, those with low levels of good cholesterol, known as HDL, were 27% more likely to have memory loss than those with high levels. The gap grew with time, so that memory problems were 53% more common in those with the least HDL by the time they hit age 60.

Still, it's too soon to try to raise HDL to ward off dementia, researchers said. The lower HDL might simply be a sign of increased risk of memory loss or dementia, not a cause of the problem, they said. The study appears in the American Heart Assn.'s journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

From Times Staff and Wire Reports