Personalised medicine

Photo

Psycho-oncology in practice

Having cancer is an extremely complex experience for those people concerned. Alongside the purely physiological aspects, those suffering from cancer find themselves in a highly threatening and an entirely different situation in life. In the past, classical medicine has concentrated on the treatment of the carcinogenous changes. But what role does the patient’s psyche play in treating the…

Photo

The IFCC WorldLab and EuromedLab Congress

‘Three years is a long time in the world of research. The amount of information on offer quickly grows quite enormously,’ says Professor Rudolf Tauber, joint head of this year’s WorldLab congress with Professor Harald Renz. Thus, one organisational challenge was to channel current trends and developments and present participants with an informative, comprehensive overview. How was this…

Photo

Article • Medical research

Pharmacogenetics - Researchers focus on customised medication for patient groups

In the first month of 2011, the Centre for Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics at the Paracelsus Private Medical University in Salzburg, Austria, officially opened its doors. Why have pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics so increasingly important in medical research? We asked the head of the new research centre, Professor Markus Paulmichl.

Photo

Breast imaging in 2025

A leading radiologist is forecasting a ‘paradigm shift’ in breast imaging. Dr Peter Brader, from Department of Radiology, Division for Molecular and Gender Imaging, Medical University Vienna, envisages that diagnosis and treatment will move from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to one of personalised molecular medicine by 2025. He also foresees greater use of theranostics with combinations…

Photo

Reading tissues

The trend towards personalised medicine implies the development of targeted cancer therapy. Tissue based examinations by pathologists play a key role in this trend. However, the relevance is still underestimated as pathologist Professor Manfred Dietel noted in his lecture at the European Forum on Oncology 2010 in Berlin, which explained what pathology already actually renders to targeted cancer…

Photo

The 3rd Annual General Meeting of the Austrian Society for Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Chemistry

Different tests bring different results, and results of the same types of test vary from laboratory to laboratory. "In the case of test procedures for autoimmune diseases there are incredible discrepancies," confirmed Professor Manfred Herold, head of the Laboratory for Rheumatism at the University Clinic for Internal Medicine One, Innsbruck. The reason: "There are no standards for…

Photo

RSNA 2010

A double-edged sword would be a good analogy for diagnostic imaging in 2010. New ways to utilise imaging technologies are being developed, imaging equipment is doing more, faster than ever, and image processing software is increasingly innovative. Today's radiology exams are ‘slicing’ through the body to reveal anatomy with increasing clarity for better diagnoses and therapeutic treatment…

Photo

Biomarkers - Keys to prevention and early detection

Biomarkers as the key to prevention and early detection were the subject this autumn at the 7th Annual Congress of the German Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (DGKL) in Mannheim. For the DGKL president Professor Karl J Lackner MD, Director of the Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, the topic is of increasing…

Photo

„OMICS“ – new buzzword for health policy

“The current shift of healthcare towards a systemic and holistic understanding of the causes of diseases is a true scientific revolution,“ Prof. Dr. Angela Brand said today at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG). Prof. Brand, Director of the European Centre for Public Health Genomics hosted at Maastricht University, added that the “next-generation sequencing technologies are opening…

Photo

Cervical cancer

Data from the ATHENA (Addressing THE Need for Advanced HPV Diagnostics) USA registration trial, involving more than 47,000 women, demonstrate that two human papilloma virus genotypes, HPV 16 and HPV 18, can identify those women with cervical pre-cancer missed by cytologic examination with a Papanicolau (Pap) test.

Photo

A bright future for biobanks

Ten years ago, molecular biologist Dr Peter H J Riegman set up a unique bio-bank for medical research at the pathology department of Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The Erasmus MC Tissue Bank now holds 30,000 samples from about 15,000 patients. However, when Dr Riegman discusses his bio-bank with international colleagues they do not immediately associate it with a clinic or…

46 show more articles
Subscribe to Newsletter