A rare but potentially serious problem with a newer class of heart stents that results in the tiny tubular devices made of wire mesh to shrink, or lengthen, after implantation is being investigated by health regulators.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the problem appears to occur most frequently in the Promus and Ion devices made by Boston Scientific Corp.

Boston Scientific, the biggest manufacturer of stents with more than a third of the $4 billion global market, declined to comment on discussions with the FDA. Boston Scientific had a 36 percent share of the global market and a 49 percent share of the U.S. market at the end of the third quarter.

The company’s business has struggled on several fronts in recent years, including a series of stent recalls that date to 2004 and a heavy debt load from its ill-fated acquisition of stent and pacemaker manufacturer Guidant Corp in 2006.

Concerns about stent deformation were raised in two smaller cardiology journals published in the United States and Europe, and the issue was the subject of a discussion at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting in San Francisco earlier this month.

“FDA is actively working with (drug-eluting stent) manufacturers, including Boston Scientific, to better understand longitudinal stent deformation with respect to its causes, predisposing underlying anatomic conditions, operator techniques that can reduce the likelihood of its occurrence, and treatment strategies should it occur,” the agency said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide the fate of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, with an election-year ruling due by July on the U.S. healthcare system’s biggest overhaul in nearly fifty years.

The court would be expected to rule during its present session, which lasts through June.

The decision had been widely expected since September, when the Obama administration asked the country’s highest court to uphold the centerpiece insurance provision and 26 of the 50 states separately asked that the entire law be struck down.

At the heart of the legal battle is whether the U.S. Congress overstepped its powers by requiring all Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty, a provision known as the individual mandate.

Legal experts and policy analysts said the healthcare vote may be close on the nine-member court, with five conservatives and four liberals. It could come down to moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often casts the decisive vote.

“My guess is that for voters in the middle if the Supreme Court says the law is constitutional that probably makes them a little bit happier with Obama. If they say it’s unconstitutional that may make them a little less happy,” Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, said.

The Obama administration recently said $1 billion of federal funds allocated in last year’s health reform law would be going toward innovation programs designed to boost jobs and improve patient care.

The announcement is the latest attempt of the administration to show that it is working outside of a deeply-divided Congress to create jobs.

From Reuters.com:

The administration will award grants in March to people who come up with the best ideas to lift care and save money for those enrolled in the federal healthcare programs Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

However, the administration did not say how many jobs the measure would create.

Don Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said a good example includes the Baylor Heart Hospital in Dallas which has worked to lower readmission rates for congestive heart failure.

“We are concerned that at a time of significant uncertainty for the fiscal health of the U.S. government, funds are being expended by the Innovation Center with little to no actual value provided,” three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee wrote to Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

A company executive from Bioven has announced that British patients will soon take part in a trial of a Cuban-designed therapeutic lung cancer vaccine, the first of its kind.

“A new clinical study of the therapeutic lung cancer vaccine (called Cimavaz-EFG)” will begin “in a matter of days with a group of patients in the United Kingdom,” said Erik D’Hondt, scientific director for the Malaysian drug company Bioven.

The vaccine was developed by scientists at the Molecular Immunological Center (CIM) in Havana.

Its tests in Cuba found promising results in more than 1,000 patients.

CIM researcher Zoraida Acosta said scientists are encouraged because the drug has shown benefits in terms of extending life span and improving quality of life even in late-stage lung cancer patient.

D’Hondt did not specify the number of patients taking part in the study.

Texas Medical Board may restrict or even block the experimental stem cell procedure that Texas Gov. Rick Perry underwent this summer, under new rules.

The safety and wisdom of the procedure are being questioned by some top scientists and doctors say it may run up against federal rules.

From news.yahoo.com:

The Republican presidential candidate had stem cells taken from fat in his own body, which were then grown in a lab. They were injected into Perry’s back and his bloodstream during an operation in July to fuse part of his spine.

Adult stem cells have long been used to treat leukemia, lymphoma and other cancers. While the cells are being studied to treat other ailments, from heart disease to diabetes, experts say it’s too soon to know if the approaches are safe or effective. The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved using adult stem cells to help people heal from surgery — but experimentation is common.

“Texas is a leader in innovation in many fields,” Perry wrote after his surgery. “It is critical that we continue to foster an environment that encourages technological advancement in the health care arena.”

A new study has suggested that an experimental drug that targets and kills fat cells in the blood appears to help obese rhesus monkeys lose weight.

The approach may help obese humans in future to lose weight, as per University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers.

From news.yahoo.com:

However, this new drug works by attaching itself to fat cells in the blood vessels and triggering a synthetic protein that causes the cell to die. These cells are then reabsorbed and metabolized, the researchers explained.

When the drug was tried on monkeys that were naturally obese they lost about 11 percent of their body weight over a month, Arap’s team found.

In addition, the treated monkeys also improved their insulin resistance, which is a marker for developing type 2 diabetes. After treatment, the monkeys used 50 percent less insulin, the researchers found.

The report was published in the Nov. 9 issue of Science Translational Medicine.