Skip to main content

World markets dive as Trump sparks trade, North Korea worries

Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain...

Men May Gain More From Cancer Immunotherapy

Male cancer patients seem to fare significantly better following immunotherapy treatment than female patients, new research indicates.
"Both sex and gender can potentially affect the strength of the body's immune response," explained study author Dr. Fabio Conforti, from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, Italy.
For example, Conforti noted that women generally show stronger immune responses than men in reaction to medical treatment. That, he said, seems to explain why infections occur less frequently -- and are often less serious -- among women than men, and why women also typically respond better to vaccines than men.
"On the other hand, women account for roughly 80 percent of all patients with systemic autoimmune diseases worldwide," Conforti said. "Therefore, it's possible that differences in the immune system of women and men could be relevant to the natural course of chronic inflammatory conditions such as cancer, and potentially how they respond to drugs."
The new finding is based on a review of 20 studies that assessed survival rates among cancerpatients. All were treated with immunotherapy drugs, a type of advanced cancer therapy developed over the last decade that has now become the standard treatment for several types of cancer, including melanoma and non-small-cell lung cancer.
Taken together, the studies had enrolled more than 11,000 patients. Researchers found that all the patients fared better on immunotherapy treatment than they would have on another treatment (or no treatment at all). But following treatment, male cancer patients saw their survival extended by twice as much as female patients.
Patients in the studies were struggling with advanced cancers, including melanoma, kidney cancer, urothelial cancer, head and neck cancer, and lung cancer.
The investigators noted an important caveat in their finding: In roughly half of the studies women only accounted for less than a third of participants, making it hard to conclusively identify gender differences in outcomes.
Conforti and his colleagues reported their findings in the May 17 issue of The Lancet Oncology.
In an accompanying editorial, Omar Abdel-Rahman, of Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and the University of Calgary in Canada, wrote that "caution needs to be exercised before jumping directly to radical conclusions and before changing the current standard of care."
He noted that the analysis includes a diverse group of solid tumors that might act differently in men and women.
"Moreover, there are also lifestyle or behavioral characteristics that differ between men and women that might also have confounding effects," Abdel-Rahman added.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

World markets dive as Trump sparks trade, North Korea worries

Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain...

APDA, PDP, commend INEC for “timely” release of 2019 elections’ timetable.

The Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA) and the Peoples Democratic Party have commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) “for early release of timetable and schedule of activities for the 2019 general elections.” The political parties gave the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday. The APDA National Publicity Secretary, Mr Tosin Adeyanju, described the timetable and schedule of activities as a welcome development for political parties. Adeyanju said that the early release of the timetable would enable political parties to have enough time to prepare for the elections. He added that it had also cleared all rumours and speculations, especially date of primaries and other pre-election activities for political parties. He noted that “we in APDA believe that the timetable would afford political parties the opportunity and enough time to adequately prepare and plan for the elections. “This ...

Hoodlums vandalise APC secretariat in Rivers, one person dies.

One person died in Port- Harcourt on Friday as unidentified persons, suspected to be political thugs vandalised the Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) located at the Old Government Residential Area in Port Harcourt, Rivers. The Rivers Command of the Nigerian Police quickly intervened by deploying tear-gas to stop further destruction of the party’s secretariat. Gun shots were fired into the air to scare riotous members and in the process one death was recorded. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that APC members aspiring for various positions at the Ward levels had come to the party secretariat to pick their forms before the incident. A Ward Chairmanship aspirant told NAN that he was unable to pick the form after paying the required amount through the bank. He said that trouble occurred after a long wait by the aspirants. Read More:  Ward congress: Lagos CP reads riot act to APC members “As you can see, most of us that are vying f...