Women With AIDS Face Cervical Cancer Threat

According to a recent report by UNAIDS, access to antiretroviral therapy is beginning to reduce AIDS mortality worldwide. But Dr. Groesbeck Parham, gynecologic oncologist and Director of the Cervical Cancer Prevention Program at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) warns that women being treated for AIDS could end up dying of cervical cancer unless they have access to screening and treatment.

"We are saving women's lives by treating them with antiretroviral therapy, but we could lose a high percentage of them to cervical cancer," said Parham.

Parham and his team have tested more than 10,000 Zambian women in the largest cervical cancer screening program targeting HIV-infected women in the developing world. In a study published last year in the journal Gynecologic Oncology, he reported that 90 percent of HIV-infected women presenting for antiretroviral therapy also harbor cervical cell abnormalities, conditions that left untreated can develop into cervical cancer.

"Before having access to antiretroviral medications, women living in developing nations who had AIDS typically succumbed to it before they could develop cervical cancer," said Parham.

Currently, 80 percent of new cases of cervical cancer and 80 percent of the annual deaths occur in women who live in developing countries. Few women in poor countries have access to cervical cancer screening or treatment.

"As funds are allocated for HIV/AIDS care and treatment, we need to make sure that women's other health issues are not swept under the carpet," said Dr. Mulindi Mwanahamuntu, Co-Director of the CIDRZ Cervical Cancer Prevention Program.

In sub-Saharan Africa, cervical cancer is the most common female cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related death. When cervical lesions are discovered in pre-cancer stage the cure rates are high.

In the CIDRZ program, women are examined by nurses trained in a low-tech, low-cost screening protocol that allows them to identify precancerous or suspected cancer within minutes instead of waiting for results from a pap test. The women can then be treated immediately.

ScienceDaily

Alcoholism & Conduct Disorder Contribute To Having A High Number Of Sex Partners

Previous studies have linked heavy drinking and conduct disorder to high-risk sexual behaviors that can, in turn, lead to unintended pregnancies, infection, and damage to reproductive health. A new study has linked the clinical diagnoses of alcohol dependence and conduct disorder among 18-to-25-year-olds to the risk of having a high number of sexual partners.

"Our study is the first of its kind to link problematic drinking and alcohol dependence with a high number of sex partners," said Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg, research instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and corresponding author for the study. "We have moved beyond self-reports of heavy and/or frequent drinking to utilizing a clinical diagnosis of alcohol dependence in order to improve understanding of how alcohol use influences risky sexual behaviors."

"The relationship between risky sexual behavior and conduct disorder has been well documented, especially among young women," added Denise Hallfors, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. "What was not known was whether alcohol dependence and conduct disorder independently contribute to the number of sexual partners. Previous studies tended to look at either alcohol dependence and conduct disorder, or conduct disorder and sexual risk, or heavy drinking and sexual risk, but not at all three behaviors together."

IHT Examines Efforts Aimed at Providing Prison Inmates With Condoms to Reduce of HIV

The AP/International Herald Tribune on Monday examined nationwide efforts to provide prison inmates with condoms in an attempt to reduce the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. According to the AP/Herald Tribune, efforts by HIV/AIDS and prisoners' rights advocates to distribute condoms in prisons have gone "almost nowhere" because some prison officials and politicians argue that they encourage sexual activity among inmates and can be used to hide drugs.

Vermont and five other cities in the U.S. allow inmates regular access to condoms, the AP/Herald Tribune reports. Vermont's Department of Corrections has provided condom access in prisons since 1992 even though prison regulations ban sexual activity. The program provides inmates one condom at a time if they request it from a health worker. "It's a courageous position that Vermont took then and continues to have now," the corrections department's health services director, Dolores Burroughs-Biron, said, adding that there have been no reports of security problems as a result of the program.

Female Sexual Dysfunction: A Case Study of Disease Mongering and Activist Resistance

The creation and promotion of "female sexual dysfunction" is a textbook case of disease mongering by the pharmaceutical industry and by other agents of medicalization, such as health and science journalists, healthcare professionals, public relations and advertising firms, contract research organizations, and others in the "medicalization industry." Whether one relies on Lynn Payer's original definition of disease mongering ("trying to convince essentially well people that they are sick, or slightly sick people that they are very ill"), her checklist, or the analysis of our pill-popping society that was recently offered by Greg Critser, the sequence of events and cast of participants involved in FSD matches the classic disease-mongering tactics.

Professor Sparks Debate On Treatment Of Sexual Dysfunction

Over the past decade, a little blue pill has transformed how sexual disorders are perceived by doctors, sex therapists and the public at large. But while a Valparaiso University psychologist and leading sex disorder researcher says looking at sexual dysfunction as a medical problem has helped some people seeking help, too often the behavioral and social factors underlying individuals' sexual problems are being ignored.

An article by psychology professor Dr. David Rowland in the newest edition of the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy outlines the negative impacts of an increasing reliance on medication to solve sexual disorders and calls for more comprehensive assessment of those disorders.

Dr. Rowland's article "Will Medical Solutions to Sexual Problems Make Sexological Care and Science Obsolete?" is the lead article in the journal, with the rest of the issue 16 commentaries by international experts in sexual medicine responding to it.

Vacuum Constriction Devices

The curative application of negative pressure was well established in 19th century medicine. M. Junod used a "Vacuum Exhausting Receiver" to apply negative suction to different areas of the human body including the extremities in order to heal conditions like headache, vertigo or menstruation problems.

By stating that "the glass exhauster should be carefully applied to the part, once a day" the American physician John King was the first to suggest a contnuous and repeated application of a vacuum device to the penis for the cure of impotence in 1874. The Viennese physician Otto Lederer made the signficant improvement of adding a compression ring to the use of the vacuum device to facilitate an odemand erection. His "device for the artificial eretion of the penis" was patented in Germany in 1913 and four years later in the US a patent was issued.

The Future Of Male Contraception

For decades, pundits have predicted new contraceptives for men within the next 5 to 10 years. Are we really getting any closer? Judging from work presented at the second "Future of Male Contraception" conference, the answer may finally be yes.

But will men actually use a new method if researchers make one? Elaine Lissner, director of the nonprofit Male Contraception Information Project, says demand is the least of the problems. "You'll never have all men interested, but attitudes have really changed - studies consistenly show a majority of men would consider it. You have to remember, between condoms and vasectomy, men in the U.S. are already taking care of a third of contraception. Just imagine if they had another non-permanent option."

Hormone Therapy Has No Consequence On Women's Memory

Hormone therapy interpreted inch the world-class few years after menopause does not appear to affect a woman's memory, but may lead to increased sexual interest, according to a study published in the September 25, 2007, offspring of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The bailiwick, the largest to see examining the effects of hormone therapy IN early post-menopausal women, tangled 180 women between the ages of 45 and 55 who had finished their final menstrual cycle in the past unitary to three years. The women were randomly tending placebo or hormone therapy consisting of day-after-day estrogen and progesterone for four months. The women also underwent tests on memory, attention, cognitive run, worked up condition, sexuality, and sleep.

10% Of Women Infected With Human PapillomaVirus

A new study by the Health protection Agency estimates at least 10% of untried women in England have been infected with unrivalled or more strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) by the historic period of 16. The study will be discussed on the net twenty-four hour period of the Health Protection Agency annual conference inward Warwick.

The examine, the 1st of its tolerant in England , investigated the proportion of women of age 10-29 old who had antibodies indicating they had been septic with HPV. Researchers tried and true blood samples from 1483 girls and women for types of HPV that terminate do genital warts and cervical Crab. Results evidence that from the age of 14, the risk of HPV infection increases precipitously.

Or So HPV infections sack do cervical cancers in women and genital warts in both women and men, although about infections with HPV cause no symptoms and exculpated on their own.

Pathophysiology Of Erectile Dysfunction

Given the complexity of the system, it is not surprising that a wide variety of diverse disorders may result in erectile dysfunction. Often, the cause is multifactorial, but vasculogenic causes are the most commonly implicated.

Because the development and maintenance of a rigid erection depend on achieving a high intracavernosal pressure, it is not surprising that disorders affecting the peripheral arterial blood flow are strongly associated with erectile dysfunction.

The most common cause is atheroma involving either the common or internal iliac arteries or their more distal branches. The risk factors for this are similar to those for coronary artery disease (including smoking, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus and obesity).