It has been rumored that "Dr . Death" turned off a woman's life support ventilator, in an Australian hospital, to operate on another patient.

Due to the number of unconfirmed medical malpractice claims, the government-sanctioned inquiry in the Australian state of Queensland is examining the deaths of 87 patients treated by Indian-trained Dr Jayant Patel

Insulin is produced by islet cells in the pancreas, but scientists have been able to persuade adult liver cells to do the same thing and increase insulin production.

It is hoped the work will one day allow the use of a diabetes patient's own liver cells to treat their condition

Doctors in the south Indian city, Hyderabad claimed that they had carried out a multiple-bypass beating-heart surgery on Friday on a patient as he kept on listening to music, reported The Times of India.

The two-and-a-half-hour operation took place on Friday in Care Hospital in Hyderabad. Chief cardiac surgeon Dr Prateek Bhatnagar, who led the team of doctors, claimed it was the first 'fully-awake' coronary arterial bypass operation performed in India

A recent study at The OregonHealth and Science University has shown that a potentform of Vitamin D may help men dying of prostatecancer extend their lives by upwards of seven months.The study considered men who had advanced tumorsgrowing despite having undergone surgery, radiation orsubsequent drug treatments. In such cases, patientsare given the chemotherapy drug, docetaxel. When the experimental vitamin DN-101 was taken withthe chemotherapy, patients increased their expectancyrates by roughly two years.A two-year survival "is the highest ever seen in arandomized study," said Dr. Bruce Montgomery, aSeattle Cancer Care Alliance prostate cancer expertwho was not involved in the research. "It clearly is abig step forward."Researchers know DN-101 adds at least seven months tothe average survival rate, but they can't yetcalculate the new median life expectancy because halfthe men who took the vitamin for the study are stillalive.The treatment "has a lot of guys I see every daygetting a meaningful chunk of extra time, without anyextra side effect," said Dr. Tomasz Beer, the OHSUCancer Institute scientist who helped develop thedrug.The study folllowed 250 men who were randonly assignedto receive docetaxel alone or along with DN-101. Themedian survival rate of those who took the chemo drugalone was 16.4 months. An additional 7.1 monthsminimum was added to those who combined the chemo andthe vitamin.Beer says the study is big enough to indicate thepills extend life, but it is not big enough to proveDN-101 is market-ready."That will take a study with about 600 men," he added.According to the AP, if DN-101 makes it to market,OHSU stands to profit. The university licensed thedrug to Novacea in 2002, getting payments includingstock in the privately held company and royalties onany sales of the drug

An analysis of 194 trials involving 145,000 women showed treatments such as chemotherapy and hormonal therapy have greatly improved the survival of women diagnosed with early breast cancer.

Both therapies combined can halve the 15-year risk of death from the disease. More than a million women worldwide each year are diagnosed with breast cancer