Doctors protest over Australia’s “repressive legislation” on asylum seekers
In The BMJ this week, two doctors criticise Australia for passing legislation that may be used to silence doctors working with asylum seekers.
Therapy
Power of the media's impact on medicine use revealed
More than 60,000 Australians are estimated to have reduced or discontinued their use of prescribed cholesterol-lowering statin medications following the airing of a two-part series critical of statins by ABC TV's science program, Catalyst, a University of Sydney study reveals in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.
Study finds gene mutations sensitize tumors to specific cancer drugs
Mutations in ARID1a, which are common in many cancer types, disrupt DNA damage repair in cancer cells, allowing the cancer to progress. This gene may also be an Achilles' heel when treating certain tumors, according to a team of researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
News • Chemotherapy
Intravenous nutrition source could reduce side effects
A single dose of an FDA-approved intravenous nutrition source may be able to significantly reduce the toxicity and increase the bioavailability of platinum-based cancer drugs, according to a study by Carnegie Mellon University biologists published in Scientific Reports.
Sponsored • Powerful partnership
Driving proton and carbon therapy worldwide
A global collaboration to expand access to advanced particle therapy worldwide was agreed this April between Belgian firm IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.) and the Toshiba Corporation.
Article • Orthopedics
Bioactive gel to treat knee injuries
Knee injuries are the bane of athletes everywhere, from professionals and college stars to weekend warriors. Current surgical options for repairing damaged cartilage caused by knee injuries are costly, can have complications, and often are not very effective in the long run. Even after surgery, cartilage degeneration can progress leading to painful arthritis. But a University of Iowa orthopedics…
Article • Radiotherapy
Prostate: Free of cancer after five years
Results from a randomised controlled trial to compare the use of permanent radioactive implants (brachytherapy) with dose-escalated external beam radiotherapy in patients with prostate cancer show that the men who received brachytherapy were twice as likely to be cancer-free five years later. These results presented Professor James Morris, from the Department of Radiation Oncology, Vancouver…
Article • Cardiology I
Chest pain units in Germany
The German care system for patients with acute and unspecific chest pain is unique in Europe. The closely knit and countrywide network of accredited Chest Pain Units (CPUs) ensures fast and targeted diagnosis of acute cardiac events. The German CPUs may soon serve as a blueprint for other European countries. The German Cardiac Society (DGK) has already accredited the first institutions – others…
Article • Cardiology II
Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinics
Many NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom have established Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinics (RACPC) to work in tandem with them in offering primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) – the gold standard treatment for heart attacks – 24 hours a day. Report: Mark Nicholls
Article • Management II
Coming of age with a chronic disease
During the transition from child to adult many teens with chronic diseases somehow slip through the healthcare cracks between paediatric and adult medicine. Compliance deteriorates, regular check-ups are missed – an international problem, as many studies indicate. A promising programme, launched in Berlin, helps teens to manage this difficult change. Report: Bettina Döbereiner
Article • Personalised medicine
Computerised tailor-made retinopathy therapy
Nowadays the concept of personalised medicine is usually applied to oncology. However, there are other clinical disciplines in which therapies tailored to the individual patient are within reach, viz. ophthalmology. In the researchers’ limelight is intravitreal drug delivery since the outcomes of injections into the vitreous differ from patient to patient. Ophthalmologists in Vienna, Austria,…
News • Stroke
Effectiveness of treatment confirmed
A research paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) today confirms earlier findings that a procedure called endovascular therapy (ET) for ischemic stroke is the best treatment option for many patients by reducing the incidents of disability. This is the fourth research paper published this year that confirms the efficacy of the treatment.
News • Clostridium difficile
Evidence supports success of fecal transplants in treatment
Research published in the open access journal Microbiome offers new evidence for the success of fecal microbial transplantation (FMT) in treating severe Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), a growing problem worldwide that leads to thousands of fatalities every year.
Article • Non-invasive Ventilation
Two in one
The recently launched Respironics V680 ventilator, from Philips Healthcare EMEA, was guided onto the market by Arne Cohrs, its Sales and Marketing Director of Therapeutic Care in Patient Care and Monitoring. We asked him about his department and the merits of non-invasive and invasive ventilators. Report: Chrissanthi Nikolakudi
Interview • Nuclear Medicine in Practice
Defining a role and routine differences
Before 2013, when Professor Dietmar Dinter became partner of Radiologie Schwetzingen, a multi-discipline group practice specialised in radiology and nuclear medicine, he was senior resident at the Institute of Clinical Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at University Hospital Mannheim (2003-2012) and head of its Nuclear Medicine Department (2009-2012). Was his work in nuclear medicine altered by the…
Article • Education in surgery
Suffering permanent stress
‘There are still only 24 hours in a day – even for surgeons,’ said Professor Vogt MD during our interview. The Director of the clinic for plastic, hand and reconstructive surgery at Hanover Medical School and President of the DGCH (German Society of Surgery) is calling for solutions to the dilemma trainee surgeons face: undergoing high-quality specialist medical training while completing…
Interview • Sequencing
Precision medicine in oncology
Professor Hedvig Hricak MD PhD, Chair of the Department of Radiology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, New York, and Professor of Radiology at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, is a notable expert on crosssectional anatomic and molecular imaging, particularly of gynaecologic and prostate cancers. EH interviewed her about the potential and impact of more precise viewing of inter-…
How to tame most aggressive breast cancers
Australian researchers have found that so-called 'triple-negative breast cancers' are two distinct diseases that likely originate from different cell types. This helps explain why survival prospects for women with the diagnosis tend to be either very good or very bad.
Article • Frostbite
Chilled to the bone!
For people living in Chamonix-Mont Blanc medical services at the nearby community hospital have been reduced to little more than a stopover visit before being referred down the mountain to larger facilities in the network of the Hospitals of Mont Blanc Country. Report: John Brosky
Article • testing Ebola
New mobile lab case sees action in Guinea
Dr Ahmed Abd El Wahed, research associate in the Department of Infection Models at the German Primate Centre (DPZ) in Göttingen, has developed a portable laboratory for fast diagnosis of Ebola. The new procedure is six to ten times faster than the one currently used, and equally sensitive. Report: Anja Behringer
Article • Cold plasma
Treatment out of a power socket
Electricity is not the only thing that should come out of an electrical socket; ideally so should cold atmospheric plasma, according to Dr Georg Daeschlein, at the Dermatology Department, University of Greifswald, who has investigated its medical properties for years. Report: Ralf Mateblowski
Study uncovers mechanisms of cancer-causing mutations
Researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, have described for the first time the molecular mechanism of cancer development caused by well-known "resistance" mutations in the gene called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).
Article • Intensive Care
The 35th ISICEM
Held every year in March, for the past 35 years, the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine has been organised by the Departments of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine at Erasme University Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles, in association with the Belgian Society of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (SIZ). For three and a half decades, the event’s main…
Article • Diagnostics
Part II: 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 the Central Laboratory in the Frankfurt/Main University Hospital, is seeking more information about new laboratory parameters for diagnosis and monitoring of iron deficiency and iron substitution therapy. The…
News • Immunology
New antibody therapy improves psoriasis symptoms
Only a single treatment produced what researchers describe as 'rapid, substantial, and durable clinical improvement'.
