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,…
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…
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
Urology is a surgical speciality with a limited number of consultants in Europe (around 134,000). The field is very well organised and active.
France is one of the few European countries whose population growth comes from births rather than immigration.
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…
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.
Endovascular brachytherapy has been successfully modified by scientists at Isotopen Technologie München AG (ITM), solving problems of radiation exposure to Rhenium-188. The researchers are now producing Rhenium-188 with previously unknown high specific activity in a new type of generator, Isotopen Technologie reports.
A joint project of more than 30 European stroke units just started to examine a potential connection between Fabry disease and stroke in young patients. The results of the worldwide SIFAP (Stroke in Young Fabry Patients) study might give an explanation for some of the 25% of strokes with unknown origin in patients aged 18-55 years.
Preliminary findings from the largest-ever study of treatments for diabetes provide no evidence that intensive treatment to lower blood glucose (sugar) increases risk of death.
Canada, Italy, Norway, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today committed US$1.5 billion to launch a pilot Advance Market Commitment (AMC) to help speed the development and availability of a new vaccine which is expected to save the lives of 5.4 million children by 2030. The new initiative will target pneumococcal disease, a major cause of pneumonia and meningitis…
Regarding the results of the Eurobarometer survey on health and mental well-being, most Europeans feel healthy and happy. However, there seems to be a gap between the EU member states.
TREAT-NMD (Transnational Research in Europe - Assessment and Treatment of Neuromuscular Diseases) is a European Union funded Network of Excellence launched on January 1st 2007 with the aim of improving treatment and finding cures for patients with neuromuscular diseases.
If something doesn't fit we make it fit, and if it doesn't exist we invent it: Pragmatism combined with imagination and idealism are the foundation stones of groundbreaking inventions that improve daily life in medicine.
According to a study published in the December issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute the widespread concerns of cell phone users about an increased cancer risk are causeless. Cell phone antennas emit electromagnetic fields that can penetrate into the human brain, and scientists have wondered if this might cause tumors in the head or neck.
