High-tech scan a boon for bone marrow cancer patients

Here comes a unique Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan that could improve care for bone marrow cancer patients, says IANS.

The new whole-body, diffusion-weighted MRI scans showed the spread of cancer throughout the bone marrow of patients with myeloma – one of the most common forms of blood cancer – more accurately than standard tests.
The scans also showed whether the patients were responding to cancer treatments, said researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. In the study, 26 patients had whole-body MRI scans before and after treatment.

In 86 percent of cases, experienced doctors trained in imaging were able to correctly identify whether patients responded to treatment. The doctors also correctly identified those patients who weren’t responding to treatment 80 percent of the time.
Using the scanning technique, doctors could pinpoint exactly where the cancer was in the bones, with the results available immediately. Conventional tests include bone marrow biopsies and blood tests but neither shows accurately where the cancer is present in the bones.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to obtain information from all the bones in the entire body for myeloma in one scan without having to rely on individual bone X-rays,” said Nandita deSouza, professor of translational imaging at the Institute of Cancer Research.

“We can look on the screen and see straight away where the cancer is and measure how severe it is. The scan is better than blood tests which don’t tell us in which bones the cancer is located,” she added. “It also reduces the need for uncomfortable biopsies which do not reveal the extent or severity of the disease,” said the study.
“In the future, we hope this new tool would help doctors extend the life of more myeloma patients,” added Faith Davies, member of the Myeloma targeted treatment team at the Institute of Cancer Research and honorary consultant at The Royal Marsden.

Source: The Free Press Journal

Famous Amnesia Patient’s Brain Cut into 2,401 Slices

Image of the frozen brain at the level of the temporal lobes during the cutting procedure.

A new examination of the brain of Patient H.M. — the man who became an iconic case in neuroscience when he developed a peculiar form of amnesia after parts of his brain were removed during surgery in 1953 — shows that his surgeon removed less of his brain than thought.

At age 27, H.M., whose real name was Henry Molaison, underwent an experimental surgical treatment for his debilitating epilepsy. His surgeon removed the medial temporal lobe, including a structure called the hippocampus.

Thereafter, H.M. was unable to form new memories. His case brought about the idea that the hippocampus may have a crucial role in retaining learned facts, replacing the notion that memories are scattered throughout the brain. H.M. became the focus of more than 50 years of memory research, working closely with the researchers who had to introduce themselves every time they met.

“Much of what we know about human memory, it has one way or another to do with H.M.,” said study researcher Jacopo Annese, director of The Brain Observatory in San Diego.

After H.M.’s death in 2008, Annese and his colleagues cut the patient’s frozen brain into 2,401 slices, each 0.7-millimeters thick. They took a picture of every slice, and created a high-resolution, 3D model of his brain.

In the new study detailed online today (Jan. 28) in the journal Nature Communications, they report that a significant portion of the hippocampus, which was thought to have been removed in surgery, was actually intact.

What happened to H.M.?

Research on H.M. showed that there are in fact different kinds of memory. He was unable to learn new facts, remember the events happening around him or learn people’s names, but he was able to recall events from his childhood. He also could learn skills, for example, he could get better at a new motor task with practice.

“Over 50 years of studies, the picture [of memory] was a little bit complicated,” because H.M. had some types of memory but not others, Annese said.

The only way to start teasing out H.M.’s memory impairment in light of the anatomy of the brain was to know what exactly had happened during the surgery

Until the 1990s, the researchers had only sketches drawn by the surgeon, Dr. William Scoville, to refer to. But after the advent of neuroimaging, researchers scanned H.M.’s brain in 1992 and found that a portion of the hippocampus had been spared.

In the new study, Annese and his colleagues measured the exact length of H.M.’s hippocampus, and found the spared portion was even larger than what brain scans had shown.

The posterior part of the hippocampus deals with memory, and the brain slices show this part wasn’t removed, and in fact, was undamaged at the cellular level, the researchers said.

“The most beautiful finding I think was the fact that we realized … that Scoville missed the posterior hippocampus,” Annese said.

The memory impairment

The new findings shed light on what happened to H.M., but likely won’t revolutionize what researchers know about memory, and are in fact in line with modern views of hippocampal function

Almost all connections from the hippocampus to the cortex go through a part of the temporal lobe called the entorhinal cortex, which Annese found had been removed from H.M.’s brain. As this region connects the hippocampus to other brain regions, the surgery may have nearly isolated the hippocampus from the rest of the brain.

This may mean that H.M.’s amnesia had more to do with the entorhinal cortex being removed, than with the parts of the hippocampus being removed, Annese said, although more study is needed to know for sure.

The new study presents “an extremely detailed post-mortem investigation of the remaining anatomy of [H.M.’s] brain,” said Neil Burgess, a memory researcher at University College London, who wasn’t involved in the new analysis. “These extra details will no doubt continue to fuel the debate as to which bits of the medial temporal lobe are responsible for which aspects of memory.”

Source: live science

Anti-VEGF drugs making a difference in vision, longterm care

eye

A treatment introduced less than 10 years ago has already made a difference in the number of Americans losing their vision and being admitted to nursing homes, according to a new study.

Two Duke University economists looked at Medicare beneficiaries with so-called “wet” macular degeneration and found those diagnosed after the introduction of anti-VEGF drugs were less likely to go blind and less likely to move into long-term care.

“At last we have found a way of managing this horrible and very common disease among the oldest of the old,” said Frank Sloan, who led the new study.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the number one cause of blindness in the U.S. affecting older adults, usually after age 65. Most AMD patients have the dry form of the disease, but about 10 percent have wet AMD, which progresses more quickly than the dry form.

Past treatments weren’t very effective at managing wet AMD, but retinal surgeons began using injections of vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors, known as anti-VEGF, in the mid 2000s.

Previous clinical research has indicated that anti-VEGF treatments are effective for wet AMD, but Sloan said those types of studies don’t let you see longer-term outcomes or how well the therapy works in a real-world setting.

The researchers used Medicare claims information from 1994 to 2011 to examine the vision outcomes and long-term care facility admissions of wet AMD patients who were treated with older methods or with the new anti-VEGF drugs.

The two most commonly used drugs, ranibizumab (Lucentis) and bevacizumab (Avastin), were introduced for eye therapy in 2006.

The researchers discovered that the use of anti-VEGF therapy reduced vision loss by 41 percent and the onset of severe vision loss and blindness by 46 percent, compared to earlier forms of treatment.

They also found that patients who received anti-VEGF were 19 percent less likely to be admitted to long-term care facilities during a two-year follow-up period compared to those treated before the drugs came into use.

The findings were published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

The new treatments may be changing the way some doctors think about wet AMD.

“We used to say it was better to have the dry form because it tended to be milder and slowly progressive as opposed to the wet AMD, which has a rapid onset and much more severe vision loss,” Dr. Michael Stewart told Reuters Health.

Stewart, who chairs the ophthalmology department at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, was not involved in the new study.

Stewart said results like these actually call into question whether or not that old statement is still true because the anti-VEGF drugs are so effective.

“By and large, we are maintaining good vision in most people that we treat,” Stewart said.

Stewart also says the new drugs have revolutionized the way retinal surgeons approach these patients.

He says that early diagnosis with quick initiation of treatment is the best way of preserving vision. The typical course of treatment is to give an injection of the drug in to the eye, about one time per month, but treatment can be tapered to the patients’ needs.

“Patients and family – and most of us, actually – think of a needle in the eye as one of the worst medical procedures we can imagine,” Stewart said, “but the reality is patients tolerate them very, very well and very few patients actually forgo the treatment because of either imagined or real pain, discomfort and anxiety.”

Source: Reuters

Natural cosmetics, fresh from a winter garden

Sof McVeigh, author of ‘Treat Yourself Natural’, shares three recipes for cosmetics you can make using ingredients from your garden this winter

Winter is the time to hunker down and make the most of what you have gathered over the year. Don’t worry if you didn’t collect much; there are still many evergreen herbs available to use, such as rosemary and sage.
This is also the time of year when the kitchen spice rack comes into its own: cinnamon, ginger and cloves all make great cold busting remedies.

With the cold winter days this is a fantastic time of year for indoor activities and making presents is a fun way to keep out of the cold – even after Christmas. Try making ginger chocolates, relaxing bath salts or invigorating body scrubs. Whatever gifts you choose to make, adding a personal label and a pretty ribbon makes all the difference, so let your creativity run wild.

Sage makes a good toner for oily skin due to its antibacterial and astringent properties. Create your own oily skin toner with sage, witch hazel (to tighten the pores) and rosemary (to increase circulation to dull skin). Also for a lovely smell add either rose essential oil to soothe, or lavender essential oil to cleanse. Apply nightly with cotton wool, although it is important to carry out a skin sensitivity test before using for the first time. Once made up, this skin toner will last for three months.

What you need
• 200ml (7fl oz) still spring water
• 4 tsp (20ml) glycerine
• 2 tsp (10ml) sage tincture*
• 1 tsp (5ml) witch hazel tincture*
• 1 tsp (5ml) rosemary tincture*
• 5 drops of rose essential oil or lavender essential oil
1. Mix all of the above in a bottle.
2. Use nightly with cotton wool.

Winter body scrub

This was one of the first ‘potions’ I ever made and is incredibly easy; it also makes a great present with the addition of a pretty ribbon and label. Body scrubs are great for reviving dull winter skin: the salt sloughs away dead skin and the oil moisturizes it. Depending on the herbs you use, a body scrub can be invigorating or relaxing. Your herb choice is personal: you can choose ones whose scent you like, or you can choose them for their benefits. Mint, eucalyptus and rosemary or sage work well together as a winter decongestant body scrub, which is also invigorating and warming.

You can use this as a body scrub or add a spoonful to a hot bath rather like bath salts. However please don’t use it if you have sores or cuts, as it will really sting. If you can’t find some of the herbs or plants, just add a few drops of their essential oil instead.

What you need
To make enough to fill two 300ml (10fl oz) jam jars:
• 600ml (20fl oz) fi ne sea salt, or enough to fill both your jars
• Approximately 3 sprigs of rosemary, or 20 sage leaves, 30 mint leaves and 20 eucalyptus leaves
• 650ml (1¼ pints) olive or sunfl ower oil, to fill both your jars plus a little extra
• Pan
• Sieve lined with muslin
• 2 clean jars and labels

1. Roughly chop the plants and put them in a pan.
2. Cover them with oil and warm them on a very low heat for one hour. Do not even simmer, as the idea is just to warm the contents, encouraging the plants to release some of their goodness into the oil.
3. Line a sieve with muslin and drain the mixture into a bowl, keeping the oil; the leaves can be thrown away.
4. In another bowl pour in your sea salt, then slowly stir the oil into the salt until it reaches a consistency where the salt has completelyabsorbed all the oil. Keep any left over oil in a jar for later use.
5. Finally, spoon into clean jars and label.
6. This will last for up to one year, though the smell may start to go.

Alternative herbs
To make your own unique scrub you could try some other ideas:
• Marigold (calendula) makes a healing skin scrub.
• Lavender or chamomile creates a relaxing and soothing one.
• Honey, with it natural antibacterial properties, will add an extra element to any body scrub, as well as providing it with a great consistency and smell.
• As well as changing the herbs you use, you can also replace the salt with any of the following: sugar, ground almonds, ground oats, ground rice, bran, jojoba exfoliating grains, or apricot kernel powder. The latter two are even smooth and gentle enough to use on your face

Witch hazel spot gel

This recipe makes a strong gel to put on individual spots only, as it is very drying. Always carry out a skin sensitivity test before using.

What you need
• 40ml (1½fl oz) water
• 40ml (1½fl oz) homemade witch hazel decoction*
• 1 tsp xanthum gum
• 5 drops of tea tree oil
• 5 drops of lavender essential oil
• 12 drops of Preservative 12, used in the vegan food industry in Denmark (optional)
• Small, clean pot, approximately 80ml size
1. First add the witch hazel decoction to the water.
2. Sprinkle on the xanthum gum, whisking it in well so there are no lumps.
3. Add five drops of tea tree oil for its antibacterial properties then five drops of lavender essential oil for its lovely smell and antibacterial properties.
4. Then add 12 drops of Preservative 12 if you want the gel to last; if you don’t use this, the gel will last for a week.
5. Pour the gel into a small pot and dab it on a spot when you need to.

 TINCTURES

Make a tincture with any part of the plant you choose: put it in a jar, cover it with strong 40 per cent proof vodka and then let it soak for at least two weeks. The alcohol extracts the beneficial properties of the plant and acts as a preservative; if you don’t like the idea of using alcohol, you can substitute it with vinegar. Tinctures last a long time – on average three to four years – and they can be used either externally, or internally for some plants.

DECOCTIONS

Decoctions are easy to make, using just water. Boil the plant in water for between 15 to 20 minutes so that all the goodness from the plant is extracted into the water. Once boiled, drain and throw away the plant and use the liquid either externally, or internally for some plants. The best parts of the plant to use for making decoctions are the ‘tough’ ones: the roots, woody stems, bark, seeds and berries. As decoctions are water-based, bacteria grows in them so they don’t last as long as tinctures and vinegars: either use them straight away or add a preservative, such as sugar or citric acid. Decoctions are the base for many syrups and jellies, and are also useful for some skincare recipes.

Source: The Telegraph

World’s tallest woman recovering after operation to remove tumour

The world’s tallest woman has been saved from being paralyzed and going blind after doctors removed a huge tumor from her brain.

Siddiqa Parveen, who is estimated to be 7ft 8in tall, had a spine on the ‘verge of breaking’ and was feared to be losing her sight.

The 28-year-old suffered from gigantism brought on by a tumour on the pituitary gland, producing excess growth hormone.

She had already suffered fractures to her spine and was unable to stand up straight .

Doctors in India feared her back would “snap” if she went untreated and put weight on.

They also feared the massive tumour would cause her to go blind.

She was forced to travel 1,000 miles from her remote village in West Bengal to Delhi for the life-saving operation.

Neurosurgeon Dr Ashish Suri, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said the operation had been a success.

“The tumour had to be taken out through the nose by inserting an endoscope through the nostrils,” he said.

“She suffered significant blood-loss during the operation as the tumour was a vascular one. But she coped well.”

Siddiqa’s unbelievable size saw her recently crowned the world’s tallest woman by Guinness Book of Records – but it caused significant medical challenges.

Her frame was so large doctors were forced to use a large operating table, as well as additional trolleys to cope.

Dr PK Bithal, head of neuroanaesthesiology said: “Our maximum bed size is six feet, both in the operating theatre and intensive care unit

“Positioning her appropriately for surgery was a big problem. Her head size was enlarged, which made access of the tumour with our instruments, like endoscopes, extremely difficult.

“Anaesthetising her was a problem with her head size, since we did not have endotracheal tubes of her size, and she had difficulty lying down with the multiple fractures in her spine.”

 

But hospital authorities say it is only “the first of multiple steps in her road to complete recovery”.

Siddiqa, who weighs 130kg and has enlarged hands and feet, has been released from the intensive care unit but remains in hospital.

However, her problems are not just physical and doctors say she will need to be treated for a ‘psychosocial crisis’ – having been isolated for much of her life.

Dr Suri said: “She has been confined to her house for the major part of her life. An old teacher from her area is the only one she communicates with and only speaks Bengali.

“She has been silent for so long, it will take us a long time to ensure her complete recovery,” said Dr Tandon.

Siddiqa was mentioned in the 2014 Guinness Book of World Records as the new record holder after the 2012 death of Yao Defen from China who, at 233.3 cm -7 feet 7 inches – was the tallest woman on earth.

Siddiqa’s entry in the latest book states: “The tallest woman living is Siddiqa Parveen of South Dinajpur, India, who in December 2012 was measured by Doctor Debasis Saha from Fortis Hospitals to be at least 222.25 cm (7 feet 3.5 inches).

“Dr Saha estimates her standing height to be at least 233.6 cm (7 ft 8 in).”

Source: healcon

 

Synthetic organ technology moving forward

download

Since 2008, eight patients have successfully undergone procedures in which their badly-damaged tracheas were replaced with man made windpipes.

Now, a Boston-area company is preparing to manufacture the scaffolds used to grow these synthetic organs on a large scale, MIT Technology Review reported.

Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology (HART) makes synthetic windpipes by growing a patient’s own stem cells on a lab-made scaffold. The company is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test the system and is currently conducting trials in Russia.

Researchers hope that in the future, this scaffolding technique could be used to grow other organs as well, such as an esophagus, heart valve or kidney. If successful, the technology could help provide a solution to the country’s organ transplant shortage.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates there are 120,000 people on waiting lists for an organ and this number underestimates the actual need, Joseph Vacanti, a surgeon-scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a leader in tissue-engineering research, told MIT Technology Review.

“The only way we are going to meet that real need is to manufacture living organs,” Vacanti, who is not affiliated with HART, said.

Source: Top news today

 

Common cold prevention and treatment

People sick with a runny nose, sore throat and cough from the common cold will try myriad remedies, but only a few have proved to get results, a Canadian doctor says.

Colds are common, affecting adults about two to three times a year and children under age two about six times a year.

Dr. Michael Allan, of the department of family medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, reviewed and summarized the sometimes conflicting research on treatment and prevention of colds in Monday’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“For treatment of common cold, what you’d be looking at are things like fever and pain control, so acetaminophen or ibuprofen, again kids are a little bit better with ibuprofen for fever,” Allan said in an interview.

“For adults, you could consider some of the over-the-counter remedies, particularly the antihistamine combinations can make you feel a little bit better if you’re desperate, but remember at best one in five will feel better on those.”

For children, Allan suggests honey at bedtime for those troubled with cough. Honey should not be given to infants because of the risk of botulism.

“If you give the two to five age group a single dose at bedtime of either half a teaspoon or two teaspoons, what’s been shown is reduction or improvement in sleep scores.”

Over-the-counter cough remedies and combination products are clearly associated with bad events in children under the age of six, he cautioned.

For prevention at all ages, the review suggests that frequent washing of hands as well as alcohol disinfectants and gloves for health-care workers can be effective.

Trying chicken soup, non-traditional remedies?

Zinc may work to prevent colds in children and possibly adults, based on the findings of two randomized trials that pointed to lower rates of colds and fewer absences from school. There’s also some evidence that zinc lozenges may shorten the duration of a cold, although Allan noted many people complain about the bad taste and zinc can cause nausea.

Antihistamines combined with decongestants or pain medications like acetaminophen and ibuprofen appear to be somewhat or moderately effective in treating colds in children over the age of five and adults.

For non-traditional treatments, the role of ginseng in preventing colds is questionable, Allan and co-author Dr. Bruce Arroll of the University of Auckland in New Zealand concluded.

Results were so inconsistent or small effects for other non-traditional treatments, such as vitamin C, that Allan says it “just not worth it.” He also recommended against Chinese remedies, which were “batting one out of 17” in the studies on benefits with no information on potential side-effects.

“Desperation will lead to just about anything,” Allan said with a laugh. “When people are sick, they’ll try everything, from a spoonful of cayenne pepper, etcetera. Of course there’s very little research, or no research, on any of those kind of things.”

Warm soup falls into that category. It’s warm and gentle on the throat, but improbable that a can of soup will help you get rid of a cold any sooner, Allan said.

Some commuters in Toronto pointed to herbal teas as a soothing option.

“I swear by ginger. Freshly grated ginger tea in the morning sets me right for the whole day,” said Prati Vaidya. “The other is a warm glass of milk with tumeric and a little bit of jaggery,” [sugar].

Source: cbc news

Premature Birth Linked to Asthma in Childhood

A new analysis of existing research suggests that premature babies face a higher risk of developing asthma and wheezing disorders when they’re older.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland examined 30 studies that included about 1.5 million children.

They found that premature children (born before 37 weeks of gestation) were 46 percent more likely to develop asthma or wheezing problems than kids who weren’t born prematurely. Full-term birth is generally considered about 40 weeks’ gestation.

Very premature children (those born before 32 weeks’ gestation) faced an even higher estimated risk — almost three times that of children born at full term, said Jasper Been, from Maastricht University, and his colleagues.

About 11 percent of children are born prematurely, the study authors said in the report, which was published in the Jan. 28 online edition of the journal PLoS Medicine and these chldren suffer a lot when they go to school. Here are the tips to manage Your Child’s Asthma at School

“The current findings do not support prior suggestions that the association between preterm birth and wheezing disorders becomes less prominent with increasing age,” the researchers wrote in the report. “Instead, the strength of the association was similar across age groups [up to 18 years],” which suggests that the effects of preterm birth on the lungs tend to have life-long consequences.

Although the study found an association between premature birth and respiratory problems such as asthma later in life, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Source: web md

FDA: Aleve may be safer on heart than other drugs

Federal health officials say the pain reliever in Aleve may be safer on the heart than other popular anti-inflammatory drugs taken by millions of Americans.

A Food and Drug Administration review posted online Tuesday said naproxen — the key ingredient in Aleve and dozens of other generic pain pills — may have a lower risk of heart attack and stroke than rival medications like ibuprofen, sold as Advil and Motrin. FDA staffers recommend relabeling naproxen to emphasize its safety.

The safety review was prompted by a huge analysis published last year that looked at 350,000 patients taking various pain relievers. The findings suggest naproxen does not carry the same heart risks as other medications in the class known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs.

The agency released its memo ahead of a public meeting next month where outside experts will discuss the new data and whether naproxen should be relabeled. The agency is not required to follow the group’s advice, though it often does.

If ultimately implemented, the labeling changes could reshape the multibillion-dollar market for drugs used to treat headaches, muscle pain and arthritis.

The change could make Aleve and other naproxen drugs the first choice for patients with a higher risk for heart problems, according to Ira Loss, a pharmaceutical analyst with Washington Analysis. But he added that all NSAIDs will continue to carry warnings about internal bleeding and ulceration, a serious side effect that is blamed for more than 200,000 hospital visits every year.

Source: nbc news

Think twice before giving your child paracetamol!

A new study has found that paracetamol can interfere with the brain development of children, and can even be dangerous for unborn kids.

Researchers at Uppsala University examined paracetamol, one of the most commonly used drugs for pain and fever in children, by giving small doses of it to ten-day-old mice. They later carried out tests on the behavioral habits of the mice in adulthood.

They found that the mice could be hyperactive in adulthood, could display behavioural disturbances, and could have lower memory capability compared to the mice that weren’t given the dose, the Local reported.

Researchers said that the exposure to and presence of paracetamol during a critical period of brain development can induce long-lasting effects on cognitive function and alter the adult response to paracetamol in mice.

They added that parents should be careful in administering the drug. (Read: Why you don’t need medicine every time you have slight fever)

Researcher Henrik Viberg told the Upsala Nya Tidning newspaper that this shows that there are reasons to restrict the use of paracetamol at the end of pregnancy and to hold back from giving the medicine to infants.

The study was published in the online Toxicological Sciences journal.

So when should I take antipyretics like Paracetamol?

Fever up to 38 degree (102° F) might be considered as a safe, beneficial level that should not be interfered with antipyretics every time. Antipyretics should be used only when the temperature of the body is raised high enough to cause discomfort. In general, body temperature between 102° F and 104°F may cause uneasiness, so it’s better to bring it up to or below 102° F. Fever that rises above 104° F is definitely harmful and should be reduced with quick action. (Read: Apollo Hospitals launches fever clinic to tackle recurring, unknown fevers)

Adverse effects

The use of antipyretics to reduce fever is still controversial. Since all the available anitipyretics are pretty effective in managing fever, safety should be the main criteria while taking them. Common side-effects of frequent use of antipyretics include nausea, vomiting, stomach ache, breathing difficulties and headache. (Read: Painkillers or analgesics: Side-effects and precautions)

Most adverse effects due to antipyretics are a result of overdose (due to ignorance and negligence). Most of them have been cited in western literature and therefore may differ from Indian population. Overdose of paracetamol use has shown to cause liver toxicity and may also have an effect on circadian rhythm in healthy individuals. Ibuprofen is may lead to digestive disorders and, rarely, gastrointestinal bleeding. Kidney insufficiency and gastritis are also known adverse effects of antipyretics. (Read: Ibuprofen — why you shouldn’t pop these pills indiscriminately)

To summarize, antipyretics should not be used to bring down fever completely. The use of antipyretics should be limited just for symptomatic relief and to ensure that it is not raised to a dangerous level. Most of the times people also use antipyretics when there is minimal fever or to prevent fever from recurring. However, there is no evidence suggesting that antipyretics prevent fever from recurring. Also, half of times the dosage taken is incorrect. With this the chances of toxicity and adverse effects increase. Therefore, it is better to check the labels before taking an antipyretic drug and think about the long term complications you might have to face.

source: newsr