PET imaging validates use of common cholesterol drug to enhance HER2-targeted cancer therapy

A novel therapeutic approach that combines human epidermal growth receptor factor 2 (HER2)-targeted therapies with the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin can reduce the number of cancer treatments required to prevent tumor growth. Monitored by immuno-PET scans, this combination therapy has the potential to personalize treatment for cancer patients and spare them from harmful side effects.

Researchers suggest new approach for testing treatments for osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis and is among the top 10 conditions contributing to Years Lived with Disability—a measure reflecting the impact an illness has on quality of life before it resolves or leads to death. To date, no treatments are approved that slow disease progression. Treatment development has been frustrating in part because animal models of disease caused by joint trauma poorly reflect human disease which usually occurs over many years and without preceding trauma.

Study finds clinic-based community program improved food security and health

The FISH (Food Insecurity and its Sequalae on Health) Study, led by Tiffany Wesley Ardoin, MD, FACP, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at LSU Health New Orleans’ Baton Rouge Regional Campus, reports that a clinic-based community program improved food security scores, healthy eating behaviors, and depression scores in a vulnerable, food-insecure population in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The findings are published in the journal, Nutrients.