Short Takes

Vertigo, Osteoporosis Linked. Patients with osteoporosis are more likely to also have vertigo, according to a new study (Neurology 72: 1069-1076). Researchers followed 209 people with benign positional vertigo without known cause and compared to 202 people with no history of dizziness. They found that those with vertigo were three times more likely to have osteoporosis and people with osteopenia were twice as likely to experience vertigo as those who didn't suffer from the disorder. "In both women and men, the lowest T scores were decreased in patients with BPV compared with those in controls," the authors write. "Furthermore, the prevalences of osteopenia (–2.5 < T score < –1.0) and osteoporosis (T score ≤–2.5) were higher in both women and men with BPV than in controls."

Tick, tick, tick. A protein in tick saliva has shown potential to limit the severity of myasthenia gravis in an animal model (Annals of Neurology 65(1):67-75). Previous research showed rEV576 works as a complement inhibitor to avoid setting off an immune response in ticks' hosts. In rats with mild and severe myasthenia gravis, rEV576 treatment improved the health of rats with reduced weakness and weight loss.

FDA Actions
EEG System Cleared. Astro-Med, through its Grass Technology Product Group, has won FDA approval to sell a new neuromonitoring system. It received the OK for the intended use of recording the EEG and computed EEG trends over extended time periods to assist health care professionals observe long-term changes. As well as displaying and recording the EEG waveforms, the device also computes graphical trends of EEG features like amplitude integrated EEG trend, frequency trends and Burst-Suppression Patter trends.

Sleep Drug Coming Soon. Patients requiring pharmacologic assistance for sleep initiation will have access to Edluar (zolpidem, Orexo/Meda), which was formerly called Sublinox. The 5mg and 10mg sublingual tabets received FDA clearance last month for short-term treatment of insomnia. The agent will be marketed inthe US by Meda with a launch date in the second half of this year.