Washington, April 16 : Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can benefit patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES), according to a new study.

PNES is a condition that is marked by seizures resembling epileptic seizures. However, unlike epilepsy, seizures in patients with PNES are not caused by the same brain cell firing that occurs with epilepsy.

Washington, April 16 : Researchers at Rush University Medical Center are trying to determine whether or not a gel treatment can reduce the size of tumours in patients with oesophageal cancer non-surgically.

The researchers have revealed that the unique drug therapy delivers a highly concentrated dose of chemotherapy injected directly on to the hard-to-reach tumours in the oesophagus.

Oesophageal cancer patients are usually diagnosed at very advanced stages. They have to undergo chemoradiation therapy, and may also have an oesophagectomy, which is a surgical procedure to remove a part of or the entire oesophagus.

Washington, April 16 : Studying HIV-infected people with a particular gene, scientists have gained fresh insights into how the virus mutates and evolves in response to the body's immune pressure.

Dr. Eric Hunter of the Emory Vaccine Center and Oxford University graduate student Hayley Crawford studied people in Zambia and South Africa with one form of the HLA gene that helps the immune system control HIV, called HLA-B*5703.

HLA genes encode molecules that display fragments of viral proteins, known as epitopes, on the surface of infected cells.

Washington, Apr 16 : A gene, known as RGS17, has been identified as a distinct gene linked to increased lung cancer susceptibility and development in a new study.

Cancer cell biologists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) say that this gene can predispose people with a strong family history of lung cancer towards developing the disease.

They say that further research may make the gene a marker to identify high-risk patients who may benefit from earlier, more aggressive lung cancer screening.

London, Apr 16 : Scientists from The University of Texas Health Science Centre at Houston have identified a genetic variant linked to increased risk of ischemic stroke.

While analysing the genomes, or DNA, of almost 20,000 individuals from the United States and Europe, the research team discovered a variant on chromosome 12 near one gene associated with brain injury repair called NINJ2 and another connected to blood pressure control called WNK1.

The data suggests that about 20 percent of whites and 10 percent of blacks have at least one copy of this genetic variant and that each copy increases the risk of ischemic stroke by approximately 30 percent.