Recent study showed that fampridine, developed by Acorda Therapeutics Inc (ACOR. O) can help people with multiple sclerosis by improving their walk.

Doctors at SSKM Hospital were successful in helping Pratima, a four-and-half-year-old girl to breathe comfortably again. She swallowed a bulb of 2mm diameter while playing outside her home 10 days back. The bulb got struck in her left bronchus - a branch of the windpipe.

Arunabha Sengupta, an associate professor at the ENT department of SSKM, said: "The bulb had got stuck in her left lung. Her condition was deteriorating fast and only surgery could save her. We had to make sure that the bulb did not break. We managed to pull it out by its filament."

Recent study revealed that combination of two drugs can help in fighting extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

Researchers said that AstraZeneca's (AZN. L) MERREM I. V., also called meropenem, used together with clavulanate, sold by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK. L) in combination with amoxicillin as the drug Augmentin, killed laboratory-grown strains of TB.

Recent study revealed that person sitting on the window seat faces double risk of developing a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) as compared to those sitting on the aisle or in a middle seat. A DVT clot can cause death if it passes through a passenger's bloodstream to the lungs, causing pulmonary embolism.

Research team from Leiden University Medical Centre found that obese people have six times higher risk of developing a blood clot when seated by the window. Hence obese passengers should prefer to sit either in the middle or aisle seats.

Melanotan I and Melanotan II popularly sold as "injectable tan" can lead to worrying changes in skin moles. Medical experts have issued warning regarding use of such tanning jab as these products are not been tested for safety, quality or effectiveness and that its side-effects were unknown. These products are advertised and sold illegally on the internet and in some tanning salons and body building gyms.

Two recent cases of women who had injected "Melanotan" shortly before noticing the problem of skin moles highlighted the risk from these tanning jab.

Recent research revealed that genetic variations affect the response of patient to treatment for lymphoblastic leukemia. Researchers believe that these genetic variations explain why some children do not respond to the treatment of this type of blood and bone marrow cancer although about 80 percent of children are cured.