Prior to its approval last year, there was much debate about Xarelto (rivaroxaban), an anti-clotting drug designed to prevent stroke among patients with atrial fibrillation, a common heart arrhythmia.

Minor infections during childhood could have more devastating consequences. Common infections could put kids at a higher risk of stroke during the initial month following an infection.

Usually, drug companies are the organizations that discover new medicines. It's rare for drugs to come out of academic labs, but that's just what happened with the first medication found to be effective against advanced prostate cancer.

All of the drugs used to treat glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, tend to use the same method of attack on a highly resistant point. Traditionally this has not gone very well.