ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award
The Dutch Cancer Institute (NKI) has won the ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by The European Society for Medical Oncology, for its `excellent translational research into breast cancer´.
Dynamic Contrast Enhanced Ultrasonography (DCE-US)
Early functional evaluation of new treatments in oncology is of major importance. Overall survival rate is the best criterion for assessing treatment, but unfortunately it calls for lengthy follow-up whereas treatment efficacy must be ascertained as soon as possible. The morphological criteria normally used (WHO or RECIST) do not lend themselves easily to new therapies which often induce lesion…
Röntgen's X-Rays as mirrored in public interest
On Friday night, 8th November 1895, the physician Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen from Würzburg discovered a new type of radiation while doing tests with cathode ray tubes. Within just six weeks of intensive research, he succeeded in exploring the essential characteristics of the X-rays- or "Röntgen rays" as they were named after him later on.
Pioneers in Ultrasound
Visions: Mr. Soldner, you are considered the father of real-time ultrasonic technique. How did that happen? Richard Soldner: The answer isn't simple because the development of ultrasonic diagnostics and its modern state are the result of a multitude of developmental steps over many decades and come from the most diverse sources. For example, J. P. Joule already described the magnetorestrictive…
Pioneers in Ultrasound
Visions: Mr. Soldner, you are considered the father of real-time ultrasonic technique. How did that happen? Richard Soldner: The answer isn't simple because the development of ultrasonic diagnostics and its modern state are the result of a multitude of developmental steps over many decades and come from the most diverse sources. For example, J. P. Joule already described the magnetorestrictive…
EL PODER EN LAS ORGANIZACIONES SANITARIAS
1.INTRODUCCIÓN Los diccionarios definen el concepto de poder de diversas formas. A continuación se exponen algunas de ellas: “Habilidad para hacer o para actuar; capacidad de hacer o conseguir algo”.....
Innovative Treatment Approaches in Radiotherapy
An interview with Dr. Ulrich Thalacker on the work carried out by Baden-Wuerttemberg's only practice administering radiotherapy, based on computerassisted 3D therapy planning and 'unconventional' use of a CT scanner as a module of the radiation planning system.
Increasing incidence of adenocarcinoma of the esophagus
A new study from researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center shows the relation between chronic acid reflux and malignant mutation - and why an accurate therapy of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) is of major importance.
Cardiac Imaging in a Small Animal Model
In the last 10 years, small animal models have played an important role in cardiological research. These research models are especially important since today various cardiac illness entities can be investigated in transgene animal models. Because of the animals ease of handling and fast generation time, research projects with rats and mice are particularly interesting. Until the 1980s,…
High-Frequency Eyeball Sonography in the Differential Diagnosis of Papillae Changes
Since the beginning of the 90s, sonography has been a solid diagnostic pillar in ophthalmology centers, but it is also used by related medical disciplines, such as pediatrics, whose patients require ophthalmological treatment. For all age groups, the fundus of the eye, and especially the optic disk, is well-suited for high-frequency sonography with linear transducers. This type of examination…
Study shows relation between LKB1 gene and lung cancer
Lung cancer has a high mortality: Despite prevention programms each year 1.3 million people die due to malignant mutation of lung cells. It's the most common cause of cancer-related death in men, second most common in women.
Everything Echocardiography Offers - at 4 559 Meters Above Sea Level
It has long been known that hypoxia at high altitudes leads to an increase of pulmonaryarterial pressure. For sensitive persons, one crucial factor for the development of HAPE is the overwhelming rise in pressure in the pulmonary circulation. Using right heart catheterization average pulmonary-arterial pressures of 60 mmHg were encountered in earlier studies of HAPE patients. A pressure increase…
CT Fluoroscopy-Guided Spine Interventions
Pain management due to spinal disorders and perispinal conditions represents an important health issue for the 21st century. Over the past decades, growing disability resulting from back pain has enabled development of alternative techniques and treatments to surgery. CT fluoroscopic needle guidance has allowed decreasing risk and maximizing patien comfort in spinal minimal invasive treatments.
Innovative Konzepte der Schmerztherapie - der EFIC Grünenthal Grant prämiert junge Forscher
29 junge Forscher bewarben sich um den diesjährigen, mit 100,000 Euro dotierten europäischen Schmerzpreis EFIC Grünenthal Grant (EGG). Der Pharmakonzern Grünenthal und die europäische Gesellschaft für Schmerzwissenschaft (EFIC) unterstützen aktiv die Suche nach neuen Erkenntnissen in der Schmerztherapie.
Big focus on a tiny organism
The first of its kind in Europe, the €12 million BaSysBio (Bacillus Systems Biology) project, initiated in December, is headquartered in France, but involves 15 top European research organisations, as well as an Australian university.
Virtual TB bacillus should help finding new drugs
Today little is known about the metabolism of the tuberculosis bacillus and, because of its slow growth, experiments for new drugs take a long time. Now a team of researchers form the University of Surrey built an in silico model of the agent that causes TB - a virtual TB bacillus - that promises to speed up the drug discovery process.
Screening: Patients respond well to web-based reminders
USA - Web-based mail and phone reminder software significantly increased the percentage of patients who received preventive health services, according to a study led by Rajeev Chaudhry MBBS, at the Mayo Clinic, published in May in The Archives of Internal Medicine.
Cardiac MSCT with SURE Plaque - Initial experience and future perspectives
Ongoing refinement of modern spiral multi-slice CT scanners offers the opportunity for very high temporal and spatial resolution thin-slice data set acquisition. The econstruction techniques offered (multisegment reconstruction) result in improved temporal resolution while simultaneously reducing the effective exposure time to 40-200 ms and thus also reducing motion artefacts. The SURECardio…
Lab on the tip of the world
Smiths Medical, part of the Smiths Group, has organised and is maintaining one of four main laboratories for Caudwell Xtreme Everest - the biggest human biology study ever performed at high altitude.
Clinical Research: Eastern Europe will soon catch up with Germany
Asklepios proresearch, a clinical research organization located in Hamburg, Germany recently presented its annual report about clinical research activities in Europe. Their result: The number of participations of clinical studies in Germany, one of the leading countries in research projects, slightly increased in 2006, with a positive trend for 2007. But countries like Poland and Russia are…
Test combination predicts high risk of relapse and death in bladder cancer patients
A new testing approach has effectively identified patients at the highest risk of cancer relapse after bladder cancer surgery, according to a study published in the February issue of The Lancet Oncology http://oncology.thelancet.com. Vol 8 Feb 2007 91.
Variations in urological residencies
Urology is a surgical speciality with a limited number of consultants in Europe (around 134,000). The field is very well organised and active.
Booming babies
France is one of the few European countries whose population growth comes from births rather than immigration.
Vitamin pills increase mortality
Denmark - Vitamins A, E and beta carotene, taken singly or with other supplements, 'significantly increase mortality' according to a review study released by the Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group* at Copenhagen University Hospital. Their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), did not find evidence that vitamin C could increase longevity, but did find that selenium…
Current aggressive IVF treatments put patients at risk
The Netherlands — In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) is an overly aggressive treatment and needlessly exposes childless women to substantial risks of complications and serious discomfort, according to researchers at the University Medical Centre, in Utrecht.