During a one year period, among clinical trials published in high-impact journals that reported results on a public clinical trial registry (ClinicalTrials.gov), nearly all had at least 1 discrepancy in the study group, intervention, or results reported between the 2 sources, including discrepancies in the designated primary end points for the studies, according to a study in the March 12 issue of JAMA.

Melbourne scientists are a step closer to creating a new drug to stop a heart attack in its tracks and reduce the damage caused, without any side effects. The Monash University research, published today in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (PNAS), offers new hope to thousands of people who experience heart attacks and heart failure - one of the major causes of death worldwide.

An experimental drug aimed at restoring the immune system's ability to spot and attack cancer halted cancer progression or shrank tumors in patients with advanced melanoma, according to a multisite, early-phase clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and 11 other institutions. All patients had experienced disease progression despite prior systemic therapies, and most had received two or more prior treatments.

University of Pennsylvania researchers have successfully genetically engineered the immune cells of 12 HIV positive patients to resist infection, and decreased the viral loads of some patients taken off antiretroviral drug therapy (ADT) entirely - including one patient whose levels became undetectable. The study, appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first published report of any gene editing approach in humans.

Several fertility clinics across the country are beginning to administer testosterone, either through a patch or a gel on the skin, to increase the number of eggs produced by certain women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Women are also purchasing the over-the-counter supplement DHEA, which is converted by the body into testosterone, to boost their chances of pregnancy with IVF.

Cincinnati Cancer Center (CCC) and UC Cancer Institute researchers have found that a vaccine, targeting tumors that produce a certain protein and receptor responsible for communication between cells and the body's immune system, could initiate the immune response to fight cancer. These findings, published in the Feb. 27 online edition of the journal Gene Therapy, build on previously reported research and could lead to new treatments for cancer.

A molecule in cells that shuts down the expression of genes might be a promising target for new drugs designed to treat the most frequent and lethal form of brain cancer, according to a new study by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James).