Although it “doesn’t take much to save the life of a person living with HIV,” there are 40 million people living with HIV worldwide, which means there are “40 million lives that need saving,” Laurent Fischer, who serves on the board of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, writes in a San Jose Mercury News opinion piece. [click link for full article]

In 2005, the overall cost of patients’ time spent on cancer care was $2.3 billion in the first year after diagnosis, according to a new study in the January 3 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The time costs for the 11 cancers studied and for different phases of cancer care varied widely, they write. [click link for full article]

A study in the January 3 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute quantifies the risk of hereditary retinoblastoma survivors developing specific subtypes of soft tissue sarcomas and finds that this risk persists for decades after the original retinoblastoma diagnosis. The findings emphasize the importance of regular medical surveillance for these patients, the authors say. [click link for full article]

Although FDA’s approval in November 2006 of silicone breast implants means “big money for easy surgery” for U.S. plastic surgeons, “women will become the experimental lab rats for these implants,” Dallas-based surgeon Edward Melmed writes in a [click link for full article]

A “growing number of families and patient advocates are fighting” for health insurance coverage of eating disorders, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, insurance companies “have been reluctant to pay for extended treatment for eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, claiming they are psychological in nature, not physiological, and should fall under mental health coverage, which is typically limited. [click link for full article]

Monocytes and macrophages are prominent cell types involved in the body’s response to the development of atherosclerotic plaques - a build-up of cholesterol and fatty material within arteries due to the effects of the inflammatory condition atherosclerosis. [click link for full article]

Although an April 9, 2006, New York Times Magazine [click link for full article]

The time that cancer patients nationwide spend when they travel to, wait for and receive inpatient and outpatient treatment costs an estimated $2.3 billion in the first year after diagnosis, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the AP/South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. [click link for full article]

Cancer is caused when a population of cells starts to grow in an inappropriate and uncontrolled manner. In many cancers the tumor cells express increased levels of a family of proteins (that includes BCL2 and MCL1) that protect them from a form of cell death known as apoptosis. Exactly how these proteins are important for tumor cell survival, and thereby inappropriate and uncontrolled growth, has not been completely clear. [click link for full article]

Atherosclerosis is a disease of the blood vessels that causes many problems, including heart attacks. It is caused by a buildup of fat (lipid)-containing macrophages (the rubbish-collecting cells of the immune system) in the arteries. The presence in the blood of high levels of remnant lipoproteins, cholesterol-rich particles that are produced as the large lipoprotein complexes that transport lipids around the body are degraded, potently promotes the development of atherosclerosis. [click link for full article]