Health Highlights: April 9, 2009

April 10 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Thyroid Drug Can Cause Liver Failure in Children, Doctors Warn

The thyroid disease drug propylthiouracil can cause liver failure in children and should no longer be used to treat them, two U.S. doctors warn in a letter published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Propylthiouracil (PTU) is commonly used to treat youngsters with Graves' disease, the most common cause of overactive thyroid. However, reports over the past six decades have linked the drug to liver failure in children, the Associated Press said.

An analysis of data suggests that five to 10 children in the United States die each year from complications caused by propylthiouracil, said Donald R. Mattison, of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Dr. Scott A. Rivkees of Yale University School of Medicine.

They recommended that doctors not use propylthiouracil as an initial treatment for overactive thyroid, the AP reported. Another drug called methimazole is available, and other treatments are surgery and radioactive iodine.

Propylthiouracil is also used to treat adults with Graves' disease, but the drug appears to cause fewer liver problems in adults, Mattison and Rivkees said.

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Stress During Pregnancy Increases Risk of Asthmatic Child: Study

Stressed-out pregnant women were 60 percent more likely to have a baby who would develop asthma than calmer mothers-to-be, says a U.K. study that included about 6,000 families.

The researchers also found that 16 percent of children with asthma had mothers who had high levels of anxiety during pregnancy, BBC News reported.

"Perhaps the natural response to stress which produces a variety of hormones in the body may have an influence on the developing infant and their developing immune system that manifests itself later on," said Professor John Henderson of the Children of the '90s project at the University of Bristol.