Several studies on the therapy of MDR bacteria pneumonia with nebulised colistin revealed a trend of favourable use.
"One of the most common questions patients ask me is about these things they have snookered away in their purses and pocketbooks," said Dr. Bruce Cheson, a hematologist at Georgetown University, who moderated a news conference on the studies of the therapies.
The mindfulness treatment "may be contraindicated for this group of patients," S. Helen Ma and Dr. Teasdale of the Medical Research Council concluded in a 2004 study of the therapy.
Dr. Lock is now conducting the largest controlled study of the therapy -- indeed, of any treatment for adolescents with anorexia -- comparing 6 months and 12 months of treatment in about 86 patients, about 9percentt of them boys.
Earlier this month, a large federal study of the therapy was halted because the drugs, a combination of estrogen and progestin, caused slight but significant increases in the risk of breast cancer.
Dr. Katharine L. Loeb, a research scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan who is directing a pilot study of the therapy, said many parents expressed perplexity about ways to induce a resistant teenager to eat.
"We had hoped, but couldn't have predicted that the response would be so profound and rapid," said Dr. Renier J. Brentjens, the first author of a new study of the therapy and a specialist in leukemia at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Renier J. Brentjens, a leukemia specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the first author of a new study of the therapy, said, "We had hoped, but couldn't have predicted that the response would be so profound and rapid".
Two years ago, the Penn team began a small safety study of the therapy in humans with collaborators at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
