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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

FDA Approves Device to Treat Stroke

The first medical device designed to remove blood clots from the brains of people suffering ischemic stroke has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The approval of the Merci Retriever, made by Concentric Medical of Mountain View, Calif., was announced Monday.

The device is inserted through a surgical opening in the groin and threaded through an artery leading to the brain. When it reaches the target area, the Merci Retriever captures and removes the blood clot, according to the FDA.

An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain, which can lead to severe disability or death.

The FDA approval of the Merci Retriever was granted after the device was tested in a clinical study of 141 ischemic stroke patients at 25 medical centers in the United States.

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Nicotine Patches Help Teens Quit Smoking

Teenagers who used nicotine patches to quit smoking had success rates similar to those of adults, says a study in the August issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

"That's encouraging, because past literature addressing smoking cessation for teens has been dismal. This short-term response may give us the foundation to help teens with longer-term quitting," study author Joel Killen, professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, told HealthDay.

The study included 211 teens who smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day and had been smoking for at least six months prior to the study. One group of teens received the nicotine patch alone and the other group received the nicotine patch and the antidepressant buproprion. Both groups went to weekly counseling sessions.

After 10 weeks, 28 percent of those on the nicotine patch alone and 23 percent of those on the patch and buproprion had quit smoking. After 26 weeks, seven percent of those on the patch and eight percent of those on the combination treatment were still not smoking.

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Brain Disease Rates Soaring, Pollution Link Cited

Deaths from brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neuron disease appear to have soared in the past two decades in the world's most developed nations, and researchers are blaming the increase on higher levels of pesticides, industrial chemicals, car exhaust and other pollutants.

A report on the study by a Southampton University team, published in the journal Public Health, finds that dementia rates have trebled in men and increased by 90 per cent among women, according to The Independent.

In the late 1970s, there were about 3,000 deaths a year from brain diseases in England and Wales. At the end of the last decade, that figure had risen to 10,000, researchers found.

The study examined rates of the diseases in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, the U.K. and the United States between 1979 and 1997.

Meanwhile, from Spain came more hopeful news: An ingredient in marijuana may be useful for treating brain cancers, Spanish researchers reported Sunday.

The chemicals called cannabinoids could starve tumors to death by halting the growth of blood vessels that feed them, according to a team from Complutense University in Madrid.

Their research, published in the Aug. 15 issue of Cancer Research, showed that the cannabis extracts block a key chemical needed for tumors to sprout blood vessels -- a process called angiogenesis.

And for the first time, the team has shown the cannabinoids impede this chemical in people with the most aggressive form of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, which is notoriously difficult to treat.

They took samples from two patients with glioblastoma multiforme who had not responded to surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, BBC reported. Samples were taken before and after the patients were treated with cannabinoid solution infused directly into the tumor. In both patients, the tumor was reduced following treatment.

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Rolling Stones Drummer Has Throat Cancer

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts is being treated for throat cancer.

A spokesman for the band said Watts, 63, was diagnosed in June and has completed four weeks of a six-week course of radiotherapy at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, the Associated Press reported.

"He is expecting to make a full recovery and start work with the rest of the band later in the year," the spokesman said. He said Watt's treatment had not interfered with any tour or recording plans for the Stones, who have been "relaxing between work commitments" following a world tour last year.

Known as the most laid-back member of the band, Watts joined more than 40 years ago. He gave up smoking more 15 years ago.

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Major HIV Drug Trial Stopped

A major HIV human vaccine trial in Cambodia has been shelved amid claims it violated people's human rights.

The trial was supposed to be one arm of an international study to see if Tenofovir, which is used to fight HIV, can also protect uninfected but sexually active adults against the virus that causes AIDS.

Some 960 sex workers were slated to take part in the trial, partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but they boycotted it, saying they wanted medical insurance for side effects for up to 40 years after the study, according to wire service reports.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has now stopped the trial, saying his country is not a test bed for "out-of-date" technologies. He also suggested that the drug should be tested on animals before any human trial was launched.

Family Health International, the U.S. organization that is spearheading the trials, expected to involve 8,000 people, rejected claims that they violate human rights. Trials have already started in Botswana, Ghana and Malawi. Plans are also under way to test the drug on people in the United States, Thailand and Nigeria.

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Newlywed's Public Plea for Liver Donation Pays Off

A Texas newlywed's very public plea -- on huge freeway billboards and on the Internet-- for a liver donation has succeeded.

Todd Krampitz, 32, was recovering Saturday in the intensive care unit of Houston's Methodist Hospital after undergoing transplant surgery with a donated organ, the Associated Press reported.

Krampitz was diagnosed in May with liver cancer and by July his doctors said only a transplant would save his life. His family mounted a media campaign, including two billboards along a Houston freeway and a Web site that detailed his plight and raised awareness about organ donation.

In a statement, his wife, Julie Krampitz, said that "a generous family" donated the organ, and that it was given specifically for her husband.

The donor was from out of state, but no other information was being released, said Catherine Graham, a spokeswoman for the organization that coordinated efforts to bring the liver to Houston after it became available Thursday morning.

Graham did not know when the donor died. "The donor is not seeking publicity. The family is in mourning at this time," she said.

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