Agricultural intervention improves HIV outcomes
A multifaceted farming intervention can reduce food insecurity while improving HIV outcomes in patients in Kenya, according to a randomized, controlled trial led by researchers at UC San Francisco.
Real-time data for cancer therapy
In the battle against cancer, which kills nearly 8 million people worldwide each year, doctors have in their arsenal many powerful weapons, including various forms of chemotherapy and radiation. What they lack, however, is good reconnaissance — a reliable way to obtain real-time data about how well a particular therapy is working for any given patient.
Nanospheres deliver high chemotherapy doses
Scientists have designed nanoparticles that release drugs in the presence of a class of proteins that enable cancers to metastasize. That is, they have engineered a drug delivery system so that the very enzymes that make cancers dangerous could instead guide their destruction.
News • Five ways to improve
Health information exchange in ERs
An emergency physician-led workgroup has published five primary and seven secondary recommendations about how to maximize the value of health information exchange (HIE) in emergency departments. The recommendations were published online Tuesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Article • Clinical practice guidelines
Temperature management during heart surgery
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, and the American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology have released a set of clinical practice guidelines to address management of a patient's temperature during open heart surgery. The guidelines appear in the August issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery and were published simultaneously in two other journals.
News • Therapy
Approach to reverse kidney damage
Adults who are worried or terrified sometimes curl up into a fetal position. Likewise, adult cells that are injured, including genetic injury leading to cancer, initiate a process that was present during embryonic development.
Orthobiologics are the future for bone healing
Autografts, the gold standard of bone grafts, have several limitations. As a result, new orthobiologics products are being developed for the benefit of patients as well as surgeons. Innovations in biomaterials and graft design have enabled these advanced products that mimic the natural human bone and speed up bone repair and regeneration.
Antibiotic exposure could increase risk of juvenile arthritis
Taking antibiotics may increase the risk that a child will develop juvenile arthritis, according to a study from Rutgers University, University of Pennsylvania and Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children published today in Pediatrics.
News • Diabetics and elderly
Ultrasound accelerates skin healing
Researchers from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Biomedical Science discovered the ultrasound transmits a vibration through the skin and wakes up cells in wounds helping to stimulate and accelerate the healing process.
News • Immunotherapy
apceth and University of Cologne to Join Forces
apceth announced a broad partnership with the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC), University of Cologne, to combine technologies and expertise, on the development of immunotherapies for solid tumors and haematological malignancies. The collaboration will start immediately and is based on combinations of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells, developed at the laboratory of Prof Hinrich…
"Pulse" technology may replenish skin's collagen
A team of Tel Aviv University and Harvard Medical School researchers has devised a non-invasive technique that harnesses pulsed electric fields to generate new skin tissue growth. According to their research, the novel non-invasive tissue stimulation technique, utilizing microsecond-pulsed, high-voltage, non-thermal electric fields, produces scarless skin rejuvenation and may revolutionize the…
News • Arterial thrombosis
Cloaking of collagen frees up the flow
Blood clots often form when lipid-rich plaques on the inner surface of arteries rupture and platelets aggregate at the site of injury. LMU cardiologists have now compared the effects of two new platelet aggregation inhibitors.
Sponsored • Product of the month
New perspectives for colorectal cancer screening
Innovative endoscopy system improves adenoma detection. Endoscopes are thin flexible tubes with imaging capabilities that doctors use to view the upper and lower GI tracts of their patients. The Fuse system uses three small cameras at the tip of a flexible GI endoscope, as compared with one at the tip of a standard, forward-viewing endoscope. With a wider 330° view, physicians see nearly twice…
To Stop Cancer: Block its Messages
Weizmann Institute scientists identify a potential drug molecule that stops cancer cells, but not healthy ones, from getting their “mail”.
Article • Stroke treatment
Six international studies endorse thrombectomy
Results from six international randomised controlled studies conclusively and uniformly confirm, for the very first time, the effectiveness of thrombectomy in patients with acute, severe ischaemic strokes caused by a blood clot in one of the proximal cerebral arteries. The endovascular procedure is an add-on to conventional thrombolysis. EH reports from a German Stroke Society (DSG) press…
Article • Thoracic surgery
Stringent medical risk management
The precise number of adverse clinical events is difficult to ascertain. Several international studies estimate that medical errors happen in 3-5% of all hospital treatments and that around 30-50% of these could have been avoided. A hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is also considered a medical error. Report: Anja Behringer
Anti-nausea medications could increase patients' arrhythmia risk
Certain commonly prescribed anti-nausea medications given to patients during or after an operation could increase their risk of developing an irregular heartbeat, new research has found.
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.
Article • Oophorectomy
Leading expert takes stand against prophylactic oophorectomy
“I am very concerned about the impact that Angelina Jolie has on the media,” Walter Rocca, professor of epidemiology and neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, stated. He wasn’t hinting to Jolie’s acting choices or waifish silhouette, but to the confusion surrounding her decision to remove her ovaries to prevent ovarian cancer. By Mélisande Rouger
News • PlasmaDerm
Plasma makes wounds heal quicker
Many people suffer from skin disorders. Open wounds are a particularly acute problem, especially among the elderly. PlasmaDerm, a new medical technology solution, uses plasma to facilitate faster healing of wounds.
Article • Infections following joint-replacement surgeries
How to optimize prevention and therapy strategies
For all the advances being made in this discipline, postoperative infections remain a great challenge for orthopaedists and trauma surgeons. More than 7,000 experts from around the globe are gathering in Prague for the 16th EFORT Congress to consult on ways to optimise prevention and therapy for these dreaded complications.
Faster skin biopsies without anesthesia
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Institute for Health Research of the Hospital "Ramón y Cajal" (IRYCIS have patented a new device for performing skin biopsies. With this new tool a skin biopsy can be performed with fewer instruments and the length of the procedure is shortened from thirty minutes to less than five.
Who benefits from a catheter - and who does not?
A new detailed guide gives doctors and nurses information to help decide which hospital patients may benefit from a urinary catheter - and which ones do not. That should help spare patients the pain, embarrassment, and potentially serious side effects that can come with having a catheter placed - which may bring more risk than benefit to the patient.
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…
Cardiorespiratory fitness contributes to successful brain aging
Cardiorespiratory fitness may positively impact the structure of white matter in the brains of older adults. These results suggest that exercise could be prescribed to lessen age-related declines in brain structure. The researchers together with Scott Hayes compared younger adults (age 18-31) to older adults (age 55-82).