Accuray Incorporated (Nasdaq: ARAY), a global leader in the field of radiosurgery, announced today that the first patients in India have been treated using CyberKnife radiosurgery. The CyberKnife System, which is located at the Apollo Specialty Cancer Hospital in Chennai, India, treated six patients in its first week of operation, with eight more patients in the treatment planning process being readied for treatment.

"Our new CyberKnife System allows us to deliver highly precise radiosurgical treatments to patients with tumors throughout the body," said Prathap C. Reddy, M.D., executive chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group. "We are very glad to have begun treating patients and look forward to witnessing the benefits that the System offers, including real-time tracking of tumors that move with respiration."

The CyberKnife treatment team at Apollo Hospital consists of a trained team of highly experienced radiation oncologists, radiation therapists and a neurosurgeon. The team plans to focus on CyberKnife radiosurgery for lung, liver and prostate treatment as well as head, neck and spine treatments. Lung cancer is currently one of the leading cancer incidences and causes of death amongst men in India. (National Cancer Registry, ICMR-New Delhi)

"Since India is the second most populous nation in the world, we are excited that CyberKnife radiosurgery is now an option for its population and that the first patients have received treatment," said Eric P. Lindquist, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Accuray. "We believe this is just the first step in the opening of a large market for the CyberKnife System, as illustrated by the momentum within this System's first week of use."

Advanced Medical Systems (headquartered in Singapore), the company responsible for placing the CyberKnife at Apollo Hospital, will assist in marketing and providing end user support for the new CyberKnife System through its Accuray trained team of engineers and applications specialists based in India.

A new study conducted by SANE Australia finds almost half of all Australians still have a very limited understanding of schizophrenia and the everyday reality of living with the illness.

The study (conducted in conjunction with Virtual Medical Centre), surveyed nearly 900 people with 49 per cent admitting to having a poor understanding of schizophrenia and its impact.

'The findings are disappointing but not surprising,' says SANE Australia's Executive Director Barbara Hocking. 'A lot of education is still needed about the realities of schizophrenia - the fact is, with treatment, the majority of those affected lead full lives and participate in the community.

'Unfortunately there is still a lot of stigma and discrimination towards those with schizophrenia, which is not helped by persistent myths about the illness. The most common myth confuses schizophrenia with so-called 'split personality', which is not the case.

'Another myth is that people affected by schizophrenia are violent, when in fact research shows that they are more likely to be victims of violence than to commit violent acts themselves.'

One in a hundred people will develop schizophrenia during their lives. More males than females are affected and 75% develop the illness between 16 and 25 years.

Schizophrenia is an illness which influences the normal functioning of the brain, affecting its ability to interpret information and make sense of the world. Symptoms can include confused thinking, delusions, hallucinations, difficulty expressing emotions and withdrawal from others. There is no cure for schizophrenia but treatment, which includes medication, psychological therapy and community support and accommodation programs, can do much to reduce and even eliminate the symptoms.

'Through events such as Schizophrenia Awareness Week we can hope to break down the stigma surrounding the illness by encouraging conversation and help-seeking behaviour,' says Ms Hocking.

SANE produces a number of education resources about schizophrenia to help people understand and make sense of the illness, as a first step to coping with its effects. SANE also operates a StigmaWatch program, which works with the community to monitor media portrayals of mental illness and suicide, advocating for an end to misrepresentations of schizophrenia.

Blacks and others with darker skin might be at greater risk for tobacco addiction than whites and those with lighter skin because the greater the amount of melanin, the coloring pigment in skin, the more nicotine appears to be stored, according to preliminary findings published in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, the New York Times reports. For the study, lead researcher Gary King, a professor of biobehavioral health at Pennsylvania State University, looked at 150 black smokers and measured their levels of melanin and cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine. They also surveyed the participants to determine the level of their smoking habit.

Those with the most melanin were found to smoke the most and have the most cotinine in their system. They also had the highest level of dependence on tobacco. The findings might indicate why some people are more affected by nicotine than others.

The World Health Organization (WHO) urged pharmaceutical companies to donate at least 10 per cent of their H1N1 pandemic swine flu vaccine to poor countries, or at least offer them lower prices, to ensure that they don't get left out as it is likely that demand will outstrip capacity to supply in the months ahead.

Six out of 30 major drug companies have agreed to do so. Their chiefs met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan in Geneva where health ministers from nearly 200 member countries are currently attending the 62nd World Health Assembly.

Ban said there was still a need for vigilance over the H1N1 virus:

"We may be in a grace period with H1N1 but we are still in the danger zone," said Ban, as reported by the BBC.

By grace period Ban was referring to Chan's opening speech on Monday where she used the phrase "grace period" to refer to the fact that the virus has not yet reached developing countries, giving us time to help them prepare for it.

She said if and when the virus reaches developing countries they were likely to be more vulnerable and experience a higher proportion of serious cases and deaths than we have seen so far because their populations carried 80 per cent of the world's burden of chronic diseaeses such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

According to the WHO, there are now nearly 10,000 confirmed cases of new H1N1 swine flu in 40 countries, including 79 deaths, most of them in Mexico where the outbreak was first reported.

Many rich countries such as Britain, Canada, Denmark, France and Switzerland have already agreed contracts with drug companies to supply millions of doses of pandemic vaccines as they come off the production line.

However, Chan said the drug companies have given "very serious commitments" to helping developing countries when she met them on Tuesday.

Ban called for global solidarity in confronting the new H1N1 virus, and said it was important for the drug companies and governments to work together to lessen the impact.

Solidarity "must mean that all have access to drugs and vaccines," said Ban, according to a report by the Associated Press.

"Partnerships with the private sector are absolutely vital," he added.

But the manufacturers said it will take months to produce large quantities of the vaccine, and production cannot start before mid-July, which is weeks later than anticipated.

One of the reasons that the manufacturers will not be able to start making vaccine until mid-July is because the new H1N1 strain is proving very slow to grow in laboratories, said the WHO.

Eric Althoff, a spokesman for Novartis AG, a large Swiss drug company said:

"I don't think that all of the answers are there yet."

GlaxoSmithKline PLC, which is British based, said they would donate 50 million doses and offer more at discount prices.

According to the AP report, another drug company with much less capacity said they would share half their doses. The WHO did not say which company as the deal was still in negotiation.

And other smaller companies also said they would offer 10 per cent of their vaccine doses to the UN at lower prices.

There is also confusion about how many doses will be available and by when. Some experts say 5 billion doses should be ready within a year of starting full scale production, while others say that is too optimistic.

David Fedson, a vaccine expert who used to be a medical professor at the University of Virginia, said we need to be cautious about predictions, and just "go forward with production as quickly as possible".

Another area of debate is whether to dedicate all vaccine making capacity to the new H1N1 strain and not develop any seasonal flu vaccine for the coming season. Seasonal flu kills up to half a million people worldwide every year.

The United States has not reserved any swine flu vaccine capacity, and is working to enhance seasonal flu production capacity so that it can switch over to pandemic flu vaccine if necessary.

Boys show signs of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) for 2 ½ years before they obtain a diagnosis and disease-specific treatment, about the same length of delay children have endured for the past 20 years despite advances in genetic testing and treatment. A simple and inexpensive blood test for any boy with symptoms and signs of motor delays and abnormalities could speed up the process while pilot studies on newborn screening are conducted.

Recent University of Rochester Medical Center research published in the Journal of Pediatrics shows that boys who are eventually diagnosed with DMD show signs of the disease for more than a year before families bring it to the attention of a health care provider. It takes another year before these children are screened with a serum CK test - a simple and inexpensive blood test for creatine kinase, an enzyme that leaks out of damaged muscle.

"The CK test is an easily available and cheap test," said Emma Ciafaloni, M.D., associate professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of the paper. "If they get the test and the diagnosis earlier, they can start treatment earlier and access the best care in the appropriate clinics and the best available services in their school. Early diagnosis will avoid unnecessary and costly tests and numerous unnecessary referrals to the wrong specialists. Parents and maternal relatives can also seek genetic counseling before they plan to have more children."

DMD, the most common muscular dystrophy in children is a particularly devastating form of the disease that affects 1 in 3,500 boys. It is an X-linked recessive genetic disease with onset of symptoms in boys between 2 and 6 years old. It progresses rapidly, rendering patients wheelchair bound by 10 or 11 years old. Most patients die in their mid-late 20s.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded study analyzed medical records of 453 boys born since 1982 with DMD or Becker Muscular Dystrophy in the Muscular Dystrophy Surveillance, Tracking and Research Network (MD STARnet). Of those, 156 boys had no known family history of muscular dystrophy. The first signs of the disease in those boys were seen at an average of 2 ½ years old, but the average age when families brought the signs to the attention of a health care provider was 3 ½ years old. The average age for children to receive the CK test or to see a neurologist was more than 4 ½ years old.