Search for: "pregnancy" - 211 articles found

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Article • Preventing clinical errors

Supporting transgender health in the clinical laboratory

Clinical laboratories need to be proactive to attract transgender patients for testing and to ensure that they are comfortable with the services provided. This issue is of great importance to the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), which conducted a scientific session on transgender health at its recent annual meeting in Chicago.

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Sponsored • Trade fair presence

A myriad of French innovations at Medica 2021

This year as every year, the very best in global HealthTech will be converging on Dusseldorf for the Medica trade fair. With more than 127 companies attending the event from November 15-18, France will have one of the largest contingents there. Grouped together under the brand umbrella of “French Healthcare”, the French MedTech companies will be presenting their many innovations to industry…

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Article • Pregnancy imaging

Machine learning predicts placenta health from MRI scans

Machine learning methods are being used to predict the health of the placenta from a 30-second MRI scan. Researchers hope the approach will offer an insight into the health of expectant mothers and unborn babies by detecting the early signs of dangerous conditions such as pre-eclampsia. Researchers from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s College London (KCL)…

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News • Cardiology research

Strong connection between heart health and pregnancy complications

A study of more than 18 million pregnancies has shown a strong and graded relationship between women’s heart health and pregnancy outcomes. The research is published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The researchers examined the presence of four risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women prior to pregnancy: unhealthy…

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Article • Women in surgery

Skull & bones? Female specialists fear not

Currently, 25 percent of the junior physicians in Germany are female – which in international comparison puts the country in one of the top spots. However, only five percent of head of department positions in German university hospitals are held by women and not even 10 percent of orthopaedics professors are women.

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News • Infertility

Beckman Coulter launches Access AMH Advanced

Beckman Coulter announced the launch of an AMH test that uses a validated cut-off to aid in the assessment of poor ovarian response. This new assay helps clinicians predict poor ovarian response in those who plan to undergo controlled ovarian stimulation as part of an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) protocol.

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News • Inconceivable?

Many fertility apps not exactly fussy about data privacy, study shows

The majority of top-rated fertility apps collect and even share intimate information without the users’ knowledge or permission, a collaborative study by Newcastle and Umea Universities has found. Researchers are now calling for a tightening of the categorisation of these apps by platforms to protect women from intimate and deeply personal information being exploited and sold.

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News • Immune response in pregnant and lactating women

Mothers pass on Covid-19 protection to their babies after vaccination

In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have found the new mRNA Covid-19 vaccines to be highly effective in producing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in pregnant and lactating women. They also demonstrated the vaccines confer protective immunity to newborns…

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News • Reproductive medicine study

Seeing double: Why there are more twins than ever

More human twins are being born than ever before, according to the first comprehensive, global overview published in Human Reproduction, one of the world’s leading reproductive medicine journals. Since the 1980s the twinning rate has increased by a third from 9 to 12 per 1000 deliveries, meaning that about 1.6 million twins are born each year worldwide and one in every 42 children born is a…

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News • Human cytomegalovirus in immunocompromised patients

Post-transplant HCMV infection: pre-emptive strike could save many lives

A potential new treatment to protect immunosuppressed patients from human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) has been discovered by scientists at the University of Cambridge. Their study shows that certain epigenetic inhibitors expose and help to destroy dormant HCMV infections, which often reactivate to cause serious illness and death in these vulnerable groups. Subject to clinical trials, their proposed…

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News • Women's health

Hypertension symptoms in women often mistaken for menopause

Pregnancy complications and early menopause increase women’s future risk of heart disease. Cardiologists, gynaecologists and endocrinologists recommend how to help middle-aged women prevent later heart problems in a European Society of Cardiology (ESC) consensus document published in European Heart Journal, a journal of the ESC.

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News • For use across the UK

Covid-19 vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca approved

The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University/AstraZeneca has been given regulatory approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) after meeting required safety, quality and effectiveness standards. Following a rigorous, detailed scientific review by the MHRA’s expert scientists and clinicians and on the basis of the advice of its scientific, independent…

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Article • Detecting coronavirus infections

Covid-19: CRISPR-based test gives GPs quick results

Recent research in Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) has identified two enzymes that can detect Covid-19 RNA as simply as a pregnancy test Jesús Pla, an eminent microbiologist at the Complutense University in Madrid, explained in our exclusive interview. CRISPR technology could help alleviate workloads in packed hospitals and expand testing to primary care and…

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News • Zika and chikungunya

Mosquito-borne viruses could cause stroke

A deadly combination of two mosquito-borne viruses may be a trigger for stroke, new research published in the The Lancet Neurology has found. University of Liverpool researchers and Brazilian collaborators have been investigating the link between neurological disease and infection with the viruses Zika and chikungunya. These viruses, which mostly circulate in the tropics, cause large outbreaks of…

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News • Promising approach for eye diseases

Functional human retinas created in a dish

Scientists have generated accurate replications of human retinas in culture that can be used to pinpoint the specific types of cells affected by genetic eye diseases. The culmination of a six-year effort, this achievement will accelerate progress in developing new therapies and was reported in Cell by a team led by Botond Roska at the Institute for Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB)…

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News • Pregnancy risk

Coronavirus could infect embryos as early as the first trimester

Genes that are thought to play a role in how the SARS-CoV-2 virus infects our cells have been found to be active in embryos as early as during the second week of pregnancy, say scientists at the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The researchers say this could mean embryos are susceptible to COVID-19 if the mother gets sick, potentially affecting the…

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Article • Wearables and apps in cardiology

Digital health: guardian angel or 'Big Brother'?

Cardiologist Professor Martin Cowie raised an important issue on the challenges of the digitisation of cardiovascular healthcare at the ESC Congress 2019 in Paris. In his presentation, he confirmed that, within digital health transformation, the role of physician and the patient-doctor relationship will continue. However, much of the preparation may be conducted remotely.

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News • Coronavirus treatment

Can stem cells treat COVID-19?

Niels-Bjarne Woods, a researcher at Lund University in Sweden, has developed lung-specific mesenchymal stem cells to treat inflammation of the lungs and fibrosis. This research now may be the needed breakthrough for treatment of the severe respiratory issues related to COVID-19. A clinical study may soon be underway contingent on a successful application to the Swedish Medical Products Agency.…

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News • Downloadable helper

World’s first artificial pancreas app licensed for type 1 diabetes

The world’s first licensed, downloadable artificial pancreas app for people with type 1 diabetes now launched, based on over a decade of research by Professor Roman Hovorka at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The CamAPS FX app works with an insulin pump and a glucose monitor to automatically deliver insulin to people living with the condition…

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News • "SOLUS" imaging project

Breast screening breakthrough to end unnecessary biopsies

Scientists from the project SOLUS (Smart optical and ultrasound diagnostics of breast cancer) under the EU funding framework programme Horizon2020 have developed a non-invasive, multi-modal, imaging system that uses ultrasound and light technologies to easily differentiate between benign or malignant lesions – without having to perform a biopsy. Similar to a pregnancy ultrasound appointment, a…

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News • Cesarean consequences

C-section increases obesity risk? False alarm, says new study

Women who have C-sections are no more likely to have children who develop obesity than women who give birth naturally, according to a large study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal PLOS Medicine. The findings contradict several smaller studies that did find an association between C-section deliveries and offspring obesity but did not consider the numerous…

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News • Difficult decisions

5 things women under 40 should know about breast cancer

Breast cancer is rare for women under 40. So, a breast cancer diagnosis can be shocking news for a young woman to hear. “Breast cancer in young women can have its own risk factors and traits, and young women have their own considerations when deciding on a treatment,” says Nadine Tung, MD, head of breast medical oncology and cancer genetics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).…

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News • Hypothyroidism

Underactive thyroid: Study validates treatment guidelines

A study led by the University of Birmingham provides strong support for current recommendations on treating patients with an underactive thyroid and validates latest UK and US guidelines, say researchers. The retrospective cohort study, published in The BMJ, analysed anonymous GP records of over 162,000 patients who have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism – a highly prevalent condition more…

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News • End stage kidney disease

Pre-eclampsia increases ESKD risk

Women with pre-eclampsia during pregnancy have a five-fold increased risk of end stage kidney disease (ESKD) later in life compared to women who don’t develop pre-eclampsia during pregnancy, according to a new study. Professor Louise Kenny from the University of Liverpool is one of the co-authors of the study, which is published in PLOS Medicine and also involved researchers at University…

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News • Clinical trials beginning

Possible preeclampsia treatment is on the way

For over 20 years, a team of researchers at Lund University has worked on developing a drug against preeclampsia – a serious disorder which annually affects around 9 million pregnant women worldwide and is one of the main causes of death in both mothers and unborn babies. Now the researchers have published a study in the journal Scientific Reports that opens up opportunities for further…

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News • In future pregnancies

Identifying the risk of recurrence of developmental disorder

Having a child with a developmental disorder can cause parents to worry about the outcome of further pregnancies. In cases where the genetic mutation causing the disorder is not present in either parent it is assumed to be a one-off event with a very small chance of recurrence. But in some families, the risk of having another affected child is as high as 50%. Identifying such high-risk families…

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News • Transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy

New treatments for rare disease ATTR-CM approved

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Vyndaqel (tafamidis meglumine) and Vyndamax (tafamidis) capsules for the treatment of the heart disease (cardiomyopathy) caused by transthyretin mediated amyloidosis (ATTR-CM) in adults. These are the first FDA-approved treatments for ATTR-CM. Vyndaqel and Vyndamax have the same active moiety, tafamidis, but they are not substitutable on a…

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News • Personalized medicine

FDA approves first targeted therapy for metastatic bladder cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to Balversa (erdafitinib), a treatment for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer that has a type of susceptible genetic alteration known as FGFR3 or FGFR2, and that has progressed during or following prior platinum-containing chemotherapy. Patients should be selected for therapy with Balversa…

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News • Hormone administration

Contraceptive jewelry could be the future of family planning

Family planning for women might one day be as simple as putting on an earring. A report published recently in the Journal of Controlled Release describes a technique for administering contraceptive hormones through special backings on jewelry such as earrings, wristwatches, rings or necklaces. The contraceptive hormones are contained in patches applied to portions of the jewelry in contact with…

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Article • Vive le algorithme

French government gets ready for AI in healthcare

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has been touted as an important aid for healthcare for at least adecade. However, despite years of research and major technical and scientific advances we are only at the beginning of its use in a medical environment. For AI to function correctly huge amounts of relevant data need to be accessible to its algorithms. France is conscious of being behind…

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News • Benefits of childbirth

Breast cancer: Pregnancy gives (delayed) protection

In general, women who have had children have a lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who have never given birth. However, new research has found that moms don’t experience this breast cancer protection until many years later and may face elevated risk for more than 20 years after their last pregnancy. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health, along with members of the…

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News • Pregnancy

Giving birth raises risk of breast cancer in younger women

Younger women who have recently had a child may have a higher risk of breast cancer than their peers of the same age who do not have children, according to a large-scale analysis co-led by a University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher. The findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, may seem contrary to conventional wisdom that childbirth is…

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Article • Long-term communication success in digitised healthcare

E-health in Denmark

The Danes have shown for some time how e-health can work successfully on a national level. The health portal sundhed.dk (= health), initiated in 2001 and launched in 2003, is part of the public healthcare system. As of January 2018, the Danish national strategy describes sundhed.dk as a national access point for personal health-related data for hospitals, general practitioners and communities,…

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News • Fertilisation

IVF: Why a single embryo sometimes leads to twins or triplets

It has been known for some time that it is better to transfer a single embryo to a woman’s womb during assisted reproduction treatment (ART) to avoid a multiple pregnancy. However, even when single embryo transfer (SET) is performed, some women still become pregnant with twins or even triplets. Researchers have investigated one of the reasons why this happens.

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News • Research

First evidence that soot from polluted air is reaching placenta

Evidence of tiny particles of carbon, typically created by burning fossil fuels, has been found in placentas for the first time, in new research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress. Previous research has indicated links between pregnant mothers’ exposure to air pollution and premature birth, low birth weight, infant mortality and childhood respiratory problems.

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News • Research

Zika virus proteins inhibit brain development

In healthy individuals, the Zika virus causes flu-like symptoms. If a pregnant woman becomes infected, the unborn child can suffer from severe brain abnormalities as a result of mechanisms that have not yet been explained. A study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPI-B) shows that Zika virus proteins bind to cellular proteins that are…

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Article • Weak heart

The many causes of dilated cardiomyopathy

A major study has been launched to investigate the interaction between genes and lifestyle factors and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Led by Professor Stuart Cook, at the National Heart and Lung Institute, this, the largest ever DCM study, will investigate why people develop DCM, with a focus on who is most at risk of sudden death or heart failure (HF). Six hospital trusts across England –…

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News • Harmful chemicals

Phthalates: increased exposure through dining out

Dining out more at restaurants, cafeterias and fast-food outlets may boost total levels of potentially health-harming chemicals called phthalates in the body, according to a new study. Phthalates, a group of chemicals used in food packaging and processing materials, are known to disrupt hormones in humans and are linked to a long list of health problems. The study is the first to compare…

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Article • Women's health

Benign gynaecology specialist centres are needed

The recently opened Uterine Repair Center (URC) in VUmc (Amsterdam) serves women suffering non-cancerous gynaecological disorders, such as myomas, adenomyosis (endometriosis of the uterus), niches (caesarean scar defects) or congenital uterine abnormalities. Gynaecologist Professor Judith Huirne leads the clinic – but has greater aspirations.

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News • Is the "American Dream" slipping away?

Drugs, alcohol and suicides contributing to alarming drop in US life expectancy

Drugs, alcohol and suicides are contributing to an alarming drop in US life expectancy, particularly among middle-aged white Americans and those living in rural communities, warn experts in The BMJ. They argue that the ideal of the “American Dream” is increasingly out of reach as social mobility declines, and fewer children face a better future than their parents.

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News • Melanoma therapy

Why pregnancy could literally save your skin

Researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a new therapeutic target for the treatment of melanoma. For decades, research has associated female sex and a history of previous pregnancy with better outcomes after a melanoma diagnosis. Now, a research team from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania says it may have…

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News • Risk for pregnancy

How Zika infection drives fetal demise

A powerful antiviral protein may act as a checkpoint for keeping or ending a pregnancy. When exposed to Zika virus before birth, mouse fetuses with the protein commit cell suicide, while fetuses without it continued to develop. The result, published in Science Immunology, suggests that the protein, a receptor involved in immune cell signaling, plays a role in spontaneous abortions and other human…

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News • Study

Asthma and food allergies predictable at age one

Children at one year old who have eczema or atopic dermatitis (AD) and are sensitized to an allergen are seven times more likely than other infants to develop asthma, and significantly more likely to have a food allergy by age three. This new finding from the Canadian CHILD Study will help doctors better predict which children will develop asthma and allergies, according to a paper published by…

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Article • prenatal diagnostics

Ultrasound is indispensable in prenatal exams

‘In prenatal diagnostics, particularly in the first trimester, ultrasound continues to be the modality of choice when looking for malformations,’ says Professor Markus Hoopmann, deputy director of prenatal medicine and gynaecological ultrasound at the Women’s Health Clinic in Tübingen University Hospital. This case for ultrasound is significant because today fetal DNA that circulates in…

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News • Prenatal care

Fever itself in early pregnancy might cause birth defects

Duke researchers now have evidence to suggest the fever itself, not its root source, could interfere with the development of the heart and jaw during the first three to eight weeks of pregnancy. Researchers have known for decades that fevers in the first trimester of pregnancy increase risk for some heart defects and facial deformities such as cleft lip or palate. Exactly how this happens is…

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News • Recommendations

First European advice on deep vein thrombosis

The first comprehensive European advice on deep vein thrombosis is published in the current issue of European Heart Journal. The recommendations were produced by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Working Group on Aorta and Peripheral Vascular Diseases and Working Group on Pulmonary Circulation and Right Ventricular Function.

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Interview • Infection control

Virologists are today’s universal necessities

Globalisation has been a defining term in this 21st century: with almost anybody able to visit any place at any time, diseases, viruses and bacteria can be travel companions. Thus virology is gaining increased attention. Professor Barbara Gärtner, President of the German Association of Virology, talks about the issues and challenges arising from this development.

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Article • Imaging Infections

Zika birth defects decrease, but…

ECR 2017 Guest Lecturer Maria de Fatima Vasco Aragao, a radiologist from Pernambuco state, Brazil, has been tracking the Zika virus ever since it broke out in her country in 2015. She will highlight how CT and MRI can help reach diagnosis, especially in the absence of microcephaly. In an exclusive interview with European Hospital correspondent Mélisande Rouger, the radiologist warned there might…

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Sponsored • compact & life saving

Point-of-care ultrasound helps enhance medical care in Africa

In Western society, access to high quality medical treatment is frequently taken for granted. Elsewhere, the reality is that many less developed countries struggle to provide healthcare services. Zanzibar has taken a unique approach to resolving this issue, working closely with the charity Health Improvement Project Zanzibar (HIPZ) to improve its hospital services. Dr Ru MacDonagh, founder of…

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Article • Frontline medical advances

Virology is now a key discipline

Virology is fast emerging as a key discipline within modern healthcare against a backdrop of a shifting global demographic and the impact of climate change.

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Article • Legislation

IVDs under the microscope

European regulators have turned the world of in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) upside down with new legislation that will come into effect at the end of this year. The new EU legislation gives manufacturers five years to meet strict standards. That may not be enough time.

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News • Pediatrics

Technology reveals fetal brain activity

NIBIB-funded researchers at the University of Washington have pioneered an approach to image functional activity in the brains of individual fetuses, allowing a better look at how functional networks within the brain develop. The work addresses a common problem of functional MRI; if the subject moves during the scanning, the images get distorted.

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Diabetic biomarker test successfully verified

EKF Diagnostics announces that its newly introduced Glycated Serum Protein (GSP) LiquiColor® diabetic biomarker test has been verified for use on the Siemens Vista chemistry analyzer. In a scientific poster published by scientists at the Memorial Healthcare System, Hollywood, USA [1], it was demonstrated that EKF’s GSP assay enhances the versatility of the Vista system for the specialized…

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News • Related Fears

The impact of Ebola on facility-based child deliveries

The first known household survey examining the collateral harm to pregnancy services in areas affected by the West African Ebola epidemic suggests a significant slide backwards in child and maternal health. The study, conducted in Liberia, points to the deep disruptions caused by the Ebola epidemic — even in parts of the country with relatively limited transmission.

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News • Infection

Zika: 1.6 million childbearing women are at risk

Research by scientists in the US and UK has estimated that up to 1.65 million childbearing women in Central and South America could become infected by the Zika virus by the end of the first wave of the epidemic. Researchers from the WorldPop Project and Flowminder Foundation at the University of Southampton and colleagues from the University of Notre Dame and University of Oxford have also found…

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News • Infection

Antibodies identified that thwart Zika virus

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified antibodies capable of protecting against Zika virus infection, a significant step toward developing a vaccine, better diagnostic tests and possibly new antibody-based therapies. The work, in mice, helps clarify recent research that also identified protective Zika antibodies but lacked important details on how the…

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Article • Disaster areas

Winners on the firing line

Jens Hahn MD is an Internal Medicine and Intensive Care Specialist who works with the international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF in English: Doctors Without Borders). Here he describes his work in Afghanistan and South Sudan, and the use of rapid diagnostic tests in the field.

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News • Mutation

Prevention of genetic breast cancer within reach

An international team led by researchers at the Austrian Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) in Vienna and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore discovered that genetically determined breast cancer can be largely prevented by blocking a bone gene. An already approved drug could be quickly available and would then be the first breast cancer prevention drug.

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News • Experts

Europe needs to be prepared for Zika virus epidemic

The Zika epidemic has long assumed global proportions, experts told the Congress of the European Academy of Neurology in Copenhagen. Europe needs to get prepared to deal with the relentless spread of the health threat, in particular with a view to “imported” infection. Awareness for prevention and personal protection is important, in particular with thousands of athletes and fans soon…

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News • Epidemic

Global spread of Zika "of utmost concern"

The President of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN) Prof Raad Shakir (London), said today that following the first confirmed Zika-related case of microcephaly on US territory, in Puerto Rico, and the ever-growing number of sexually-transmitted Zika infections in Europe, “it is increasingly obvious that the Zika epidemic has long assumed global proportions.” As the opening of the Olympics…

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News • Rio de Janiero

First description of 2015 Zika virus outbreak

Since the recent link to severe neurological defects in infants born to mothers infected during pregnancy, Zika virus (ZIKV) has become a public health and research priority. A study reports details from the 2015 Zika outbreak in Rio de Janeiro - the first with a high proportion of cases confirmed by molecular diagnosis - and proposes changes to the current diagnostic criteria for ZIKV disease.

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Article • Virus

The Zika mystery: scapegoat or villain?

From the beginning the accusation somehow beggared belief. A ‘mild’ virus was blamed for causing hideous malformations in babies’ heads. Brazil, a country suffering its worst recession since the 1930s, as well as political upheaval, became the focus of a worldwide healthcare scare.

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News • Infections

Zika virus 'a game changer' for mosquito-borne diseases

The Zika virus, unlike other mosquito-borne viruses such as dengue, is relatively unknown and unstudied. That is set to change since Zika, now spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean, has been associated with an alarming rise in babies born in Brazil with abnormally small heads and brain defects – a condition called microcephaly.

News • Zika virus

ESCMID experts gather data to prepare for potential outbreaks

Experts at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) – an organization promoting research, risk assessment, knowledge sharing and best practices in the fight against infectious diseases – are developing tools to monitor the spread of the Zika virus and are conducting research to gather more solid data to better assess the risks associated with the…

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Article • Refugees

The major healthcare challenge

The refugee wave rolls on with no ebb in sight. For many, Germany remains their travel destination. In August and September alone, tens of thousands refugees arrived in Munich, presenting the Bavarian capital with a major challenge: How could the city provide initial medical care for everyone? While the German Asylum Procedure Act governs the appropriate procedures, in this unprecedented…

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News • Research

Solving the mystery of defective embryos

It’s the dream of many infertile couples: to have a baby. Tens of thousands of children are born by in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a technique commonly used when nature doesn’t take its course. However, embryos obtained when a sperm fertilizes an egg in a test tube often have defects. In a study, researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) discovered an…

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News • EKF Diagnostics guide

Anemia and Hemoglobin testing

EKF Diagnostics, the global in vitro diagnostics company, announces the publication of its new guide, "Anemia and hemoglobin testing". Available to download for free, the in-depth hematology guide provides a review of the symptoms and causes of anemia, through to methods for testing hemoglobin and hematocrit, as well as factors that may influence these measurements.

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Sponsored • Obstetrics

New atlas will redefine OB/GYN imaging

Using the Arietta V70 from Hitachi, a French diagnostic imaging team is rewriting the book on obstetrics and gynaecology. Entitled the ‘Atlas d’échographie de fusion en gynécologie obstétrique’, the new edition by Jean-Marc Levaillant MD, and colleagues from the diagnostic imaging centres at the Bicêtre and Créteil hospitals in Paris, will be published before the end of 2015.

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News • Screening

Risk-free pre-natal examination

The newly founded Tübingen company CENATA GmbH has been offering the Harmony non-invasive pre-natal test since May 2015. CENATA has obtained a licence from the U.S. company Ariosa Diagnostics, and is now the only company in the world outside the United States that is permitted to conduct the analysis and evaluation. This examination enables pregnant mothers to test their unborn children for…

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News • Parenteral nutrition

Blocking light improves premature babies' survival rates

The survival rate of premature babies born between 26 to 31 weeks of gestation is improved by blocking light from reaching the intravenously-fed infused nutritious mixture they depend on for survival, researchers at CHU Sainte-Justine and the University of Montreal have revealed in a new study.

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News • Surgery

Conjoined twins successfully separated

Twin girls born joined at the pelvic and hip region are recovering after separation surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The girls are named Acen and Apio, but on Thursday they were carefully labeled “blue” and “red” to help surgeons know which monitoring equipment belonged to each sister as they carefully separated their spines, muscle and tissue.

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News • Pediatrics

Spines of boys and girls differ at birth

Looking at measurements of the vertebrae – the series of small bones that make up the spinal column – in newborn children, investigators at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles found that differences between the sexes are present at birth. Results of the study in the August issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, suggest that this difference is evolutionary, allowing the female spine to adapt to the…

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News • AACC News

New tests to diagnose and monitor diabetes

Researchers have successfully tested two new potential methods for diagnosing and monitoring diabetes in its standard and gestational forms. These findings, presented at the 2015 AACC Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Atlanta, may lead to easier, timelier, and more affordable ways of identifying and treating this chronic disease.

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News • AACC News

Rapid Ebola test could help end lingering outbreak

Research presented at the 2015 AACC Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo will expand on the studies that led to a fingerprick Ebola test becoming the first and only rapid diagnostic for this disease to receive approval from the World Health Organization (WHO). This test could prove vital to breaking Ebola’s grip on West Africa by identifying suspected Ebola cases within minutes, and enabling…

News • Organ Transplantation

First successful organ donation from newborn carried out in UK

The very first successful organ donation from a newborn to be carried out in the UK is reported in the Fetal & Neonatal Edition of Archives of Disease in Childhood. The donor was a girl born at term after an emergency caesarean section in the neonatal unit of Hammersmith Hospital, London. The donation involved the kidneys, which were transplanted into a patient with renal failure, and liver…

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Interview • Diagnostics

Iron deficiency and anaemia

Iron deficiency and resulting anaemia cause fatal comorbidities worldwide. Despite this, they are generally underestimated. Professor Lothar Thomas, specialist in laboratory medicine at Central Laboratory of the University Hospital of Frankfurt/Main, is calling for more information about the new laboratory parameters for diagnosis and monitoring of iron deficiency and iron substitution therapy.

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Seeking congenital cardiac defects

Congenital heart defects are the most common congenital disorders found in newborns – around one in a hundred babies are affected. This type of heart defect can be reliably diagnosed with ultrasound, usually during the detailed foetal scan carried out halfway through the pregnancy. Report: Brigitte Dinkloh

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Article • Clinical chemistry

THE AACC FORUM 2014

This April, in San Jose, California, the portable lab took central stage at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s (AACC) annual forum for emerging clinical diagnostic technologies – a most appropriate topic for the Silicon Valley venue where so many world-changing computer and communications innovations have been born.

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Article • 123

Earlier detection of Down’s syndrome

Down’s syndrome (also referred to as trisomy 21) is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra copy of chromosome 21 in a person’s DNA. Current screening for Down’s syndrome and other trisomy conditions includes a combined test done between the 11th and 13th weeks of pregnancy.

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Gender medicine

The insight that psychological, social and environmental conditions affect a person’s health is insufficiently considered in medical training and in the every-day diagnosis and treatment of patients.

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Chronic disease

There is a global shortage of doctors that is getting worse every year. With the demographic shift in many countries from a predominantly young to an increasing aging population, a steep increase in chronic disease is occurring.

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Giving the tiniest patients a chance

The number of premature births increases continuously in all European countries – with the exception of Sweden. Every year around 500,000 children – every 10th baby – in Europe are premature, i.e. born before the end of the 37th week of pregnancy and with a birth weight below 2,500g.

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A time to tackle controversies face-to-face

A hefty debate on controversial issues in cardiology is the definite intent of Congress President Professor Michel Komajda and the ESC 2011 congress organisers. To that end, he plans to open the event with a focus on disagreements among cardiologists over treatment methods. This is not the only promise of a lively meeting for congress participants, as Prof Komajda explained in conversation with…

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Siemens Fully Automated ADVIA Centaur Syphilis Assay Receives CE Marketing Approval

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics announced today that its ADVIA Centaur® Syphilis Assay1 for the detection of antibodies against Treponema pallidum, a bacterium known to cause the sexually-transmitted disease, syphilis, has been CE-marked. Now, laboratories outside the United States can equip themselves with a new testing tool for this serious condition and drive additional workflow and efficiency…

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Healthy gut flora could prevent obesity

Poor gut flora is believed to trigger obesity. In the same way, healthy gut flora could reduce the risk. This has shown to be the case in tests on rats. Daily intake of a lactic acid bacteria, which has been given the name Lactobacillus plantarum HEAL19, appears to be able to prevent obesity and reduce the body’s low-level inflammation.

Teheran - Emerging as a regional centre for diagnostic and interventional expertise

It was difficult to sing along in Farsi with the Iranian musical group at the Austria Centre Vienna, a first-ever event for the European Congress of Radiology. European radiologists were far more familiar with the work of their colleagues from Teheran, who have increased their participation in the ECR yearly and who have published their works in English for seven years in the Iranian Journal of…

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And then there was light!

Pin-sharp outlines instead of a flurry of speckles, three-dimensional bodies instead of two-dimensional cross sections: Modern ultrasound scanners now deliver images of a quality that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. This new generation scanners have made ultrasound diagnostics more reliable, reproducible and much easier to use for doctors

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Aloka’s new ProSound F75

Launching its new ProSound F75 at the 20th ISUOG World Congress in Prague this October, Aloka Holding AG explained that it was designed to meet the firm’s new ‘FIT’ ethos (Facilitated workflow; Investment return; True diagnostics). Each machine can be tailored to any physician’s needs (over 45 user presets), simplifying the process, vastly reducing patient dependency and time to conduct…

Chequerboard of infertility treatment in Europe

European patients are in many countries, in fact, limited in their individual choice of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) treatment, experts from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) stressed today at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG). The EHFG is the most important conference on health care policy in the EU. This year it has attracted about 600…

Epigenomics

The UK’s Babraham Institute, which conducts biomedical research, has established a ‘high throughput’ epigenomics sequencing facility to improve understanding of healthier ageing.

As POC testing grows, so do risk of errors, quality

Today testing of patients at the point of care (POC) accounts for 25% of all testing, and these portable assays are increasing their penetration into medical practice at rapid rate of 12% each year. Yet along with the growth comes an increasing risk of errors that adversely affect quality of clinical decision-making and patient safety.

Foetal surgery

Almost 25 years ago Michael Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) operated on the bladder of an unborn child. Almost eight years later, surgery was carried out on the diaphragm of an unborn child. His approach was controversial: a paediatric surgeon opened the abdomen and uterus of the pregnant woman, lifted out the foetus, performed the surgery and returned the foetus to…

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Article • Varicose veins

Promising way of treating male infertility

Varicose veins in testicles are common and harmless in most of the cases. But they can be the reason for unwanted childlessness. Venous embolization, a minimally invasive treatment, offers the opportunity to improve male fertility, as a study from the University of Bonn, Germany, shows.

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Pregnant Jessica

Wales - Jessica Tate is pregnant. Hers is a normal pregnancy. There is, however, some concern because she wants her baby to be born at home, but is often alone there because her partner must travel for his work. Mid-term, she is tired and has mild anaemia. At one stage in her pregnancy she also falsely believes labour has started and is worried. However, all should go well. She benefits from…

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HIV

By Tamar Jehuda-Cohen PhD, Biomedical Engineering Department, Technion Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

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First Czech "test-tube" baby celebrated 25th birthday

The first Czech test-tube baby was born, woman in childbed delivered smoothly on 4th November 1982, and healthy baby-boy was 51 cm tall, and weighed 3.65 kg. A medical team from Moravian town of Brno led by embryologist Milan Dvorak and gynecologist Ladislav Pilka was behind all this happy-ended artificial fertilization quarter a century ago.

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AACC emphasises preventive diagnostics

San Diego, California - 20,000 international physicians, scientists and other visitors travelled to the Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) in July, and 750 exhibitors emphasised the increasing importance of this gathering

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Looking at a New Generation

Most babies are born healthy, but there is still a small risk for all women to give birth to a baby with some type of anomaly. Ultrasound has proven to be one of the most reliable procedures to prenatally diagnose some of these conditions. Ultrasound can be used during the entire pregnancy, but in the first trimester ultrasound examinations are, as a rule, used to exactly calculate the pregnancy,…

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Screening for Chromosomal Defects

Chromosomal abnormalities are major causes of perinatal death and childhood handicap. Consequently, the detection of chromosomal disorders constitutes the most frequent indication for invasive prenatal diagnosis. However, invasive testing, by amniocentesis, chorionicvillus sampling (CVS) or cordocentesis, is associated with a risk of miscarriage of about 1% and therefore these tests are carried…

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Acupuncture What others say…

During the last ten years or so, there has been a convergence of modern international science with traditional Chinese medicine, with research carried out in physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology.

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