Marijuana may raise testicular cancer risk — study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Marijuana use may increase the risk of developing testicular cancer, in particular a more aggressive form of the disease, according to a US study.

The study of 369 Seattle-area men ages 18 to 44 with testicular cancer and 979 men in the same age bracket without the disease found that current marijuana users were 70 percent more likely to develop it compared to non-users.

The risk appeared to be highest among men who had reported smoking marijuana for at least 10 years, used it more than once a week or started using it before age 18, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer.

Stephen Schwartz of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, one of the researchers, said the study was the first to explore marijuana's possible association with testicular cancer. "This is the first study to look at this question, and by itself is not definitive. And there's a lot more research that would have to be done in order to be more confident that marijuana use really is important in a man's risk of developing testicular cancer," Schwartz said in a telephone interview.

The study found the increased risk appeared to be in the form called nonseminoma testicular cancer. It accounts for 40 percent of cases and can be more aggressive and more difficult to treat, Schwartz said.

Experts are unsure about the causes of testicular cancer, which often strikes men in their 20s and 30s. The disease is seen more commonly in men who have had an undescended testicle or have a family history of testicular cancer.

The disease usually responds well to treatment and has a five-year survival rate of about 96 percent, according to the American Cancer Society. About 8,000 men in the United States are diagnosed with testicular cancer per year, and there are about 140,000 US men alive who have survived the disease, the group said. The researchers said they were not sure what it was about marijuana that may raise the risk. Chronic marijuana use also can have effects on the male reproductive system including decreased sperm quality, they said.

Respiratory virus is common in US kids

BOSTON (Reuters) — A highly contagious respiratory virus is far more widespread among children than once thought and puts more of them in the hospital than influenza, US researchers reported.

They projected that the respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, affects 2.1 million children under the age of five each year.

Over four years, from November through April, the virus was responsible for 20 percent of hospitalizations, 18 percent of visits to emergency rooms and 15 percent of office visits for respiratory infections in children under age five in three US counties, Dr. Caroline Breese Hall of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York and colleagues found.

She said the findings show that researchers should place more emphasis on finding a vaccine for RSV. Until now, most of the concern around the virus had been for newborns, up to one year of age, and children with high-risk medical conditions.

Hall's team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that only three percent of the RSV cases were correctly diagnosed, and that most of its victims were older than one year.

Most of the children who became ill had no previous health problems. In many instances, because the illness was misdiagnosed, the children were treated with antibiotics, which are ineffective, Hall said

Stroke campaign aims to halve deaths

LONDON (Reuters) — Deaths from strokes can be halved if people recognise the signs of an attack and call an ambulance immediately, the National Health Service said.

New clot-busting treatments can produce "Lazarus-like" effects and have patients up and about within a day if administered within three hours of a stroke, said Roger Boyle, the National Director for Heart Disease and Stroke.

"In the past, we would normally expect about a third (of stroke patients) to die, a third to require long-term institutional care and a third to get home but to be quite badly damaged," he said. "We now know that if we treat stroke as a medical emergency we can make a big difference."

Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in Britain, killing 67,000 people a year. It the single largest cause of adult disability with around 150,000 people suffering a stroke annually.

From Monday, the NHS will start a three-year publicity campaign to make people more familiar with the signs of a stroke.

Adverts will tell people to dial 999 immediately if they see one of three visible symptoms — a drooping face, paralysed arms or slurred speech. Using the acronym FAST — Face, Arms, Speech, Time — it aims to raise public awareness of stroke symptoms to a similar level to that for heart attacks.

"Most of us now would acknowledge that (if you see) chest pain, arm pain, difficulty in breathing, you dial 999 for the possibility of a heart attack," said Health Minister Ann Keen.

Under the government's National Stroke Strategy, patients with a suspected stroke — a loss of function due to a clot or bleeding in the brain — should get an immediate scan on arrival at hospital. This will determine whether a clot is stopping blood reaching the brain — which accounts for around three-quarters of strokes — or there has been a haemorrhage.