Washington, Nov 9 : A research team led by an Indian origin scientist has pioneered a new form of bone marrow transplantation that can prove safe and effective in curing sickle cell disease.

The research team led by Dr Lakshmanan Krishnamurti, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children''s Hospital developed a new approach of bone marrow transplantation which relies on reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC).

RIC regimens are less toxic to patients and therefore can be offered to patients with severe sickle cell disease because they eliminate life-threatening side effects generally associated with bone marrow transplantation.

Taipei - A Taiwan man, infertile due to cancer, has become the father of twins after the sperm he had frozen 13 years ago, was used to impregnate his wife, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Doctors at the Taipei Medical University's College of Medicine set the local record for the use of the longest-preserved sperm in helping the couple have children, the China Times reported.

The man, identified only as Chen, was 23 and a university student in 1995 when he contracted testicular cancer. Fearing chemotherapy would make him infertile, he stored nine tubes of sperm in a sperm bank.

Washington, November 7 : A new study has revealed that leprosy, also known as Hansen''s disease, is still prevalent in the United States.

"Approximately 150 cases are diagnosed each year with 3,000 people in the U. S. currently being treated for leprosy,” says Dr. James Krahenbuhl, director of the Health Resources Service Administration''s National Hansen''s Disease Program (NHDP) in Baton Rouge, LA.

A recent research has shown that many African Americans avoid getting screened for cancer hearing public service announcements and cancer news stories that highlight the fact that African Americans are often diagnosed with cancer at a later stage and have a lower survival rate as compared to whites.

London, November 7: A Canadian researcher team says that the efficacy of anti-cancer drugs in destroying tumours, or in keeping them in check, may be improved with the aid of a virus called reovirus.

Brad Thompson, CEO of Canadian company Oncolytics Biotech that has been developing the virus as a product called Reolysin, has revealed that this virus harmlessly infects most people at some time in their lives.

He says that the reovirus destroys tumour cells because they lack the cellular machinery that keeps the virus in check in healthy cells.

Washington, Nov 8 : People who develop kidney stones are at a greater risk of developing chronic kidney disease, according to a new study.

It is known that kidney stones lead to CKD in patients with rare genetic diseases and in extreme cases individuals with CKD caused by kidney stones may even need dialysis or kidney transplants.