Health Report

THE GOOD NEWS

The FDA has approved a new drug for treating the terrible suffering caused when breast or prostate cancer spreads to the bone. Called Metastron, the drug kills the pain of the cancer (though not the cancer) with radioactive strontium-89 delivered by injection. Metastron works better than narcotics for many patients, and a single shot lasts up to six months.

Researchers in Germany and the U.S. think they're homing in on a cause of dyslexia, the brain abnormality that makes language processing -- especially reading the printed word -- difficult for about 3% of the population. At least some cases of dyslexia are genetic, and now two labs have evidence that they are close to finding a specific gene that may be responsible.

THE BAD NEWS

The average time that patients live after congestive heart failure has barely increased in 40 years, despite ostensible improvements in treatment, says a report. It was, and remains, two to three years.

After a decade of decline, drug use among young people is on the way back up, according to a survey. The percentage using marijuana in 1992 was 27.7%, compared with 26.5% in 1991, and LSD users went from 5.1% to 5.7%. The 1981 figures were 51.2% and 6%, respectively.

Hyperactive kids have troubles enough: they do badly in school and in social situations. Now a study says that as adults they're five times as likely as average to develop drug-abuse problems and twice as likely to have mental disorders.

SOURCES: National Institutes of Health; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Circulation; Archives of General Psychiatry; Lancet