News • Brain bleeds
America's aging population will require more neurosurgeons
Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center project a national influx of patients who will need immediate treatment.
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 • Blood transfusion
Standing on the weighting scales
Blood transfusions are avital part of medical care and yet the subject raises questions. ‘Blood transfusion should be restricted’, according to Professor Anders Perner, from the Institute for Clinical Medicine, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen. ‘Blood transfusion could be more liberal’, says Dr Yasser Sakr, Senior Physician at University Hospital Jena. Debating their opposing views at the ISCEM…
Regeneration in a hostile environment
Damage to the spinal cord rarely heals because the injured nerve cells fail to regenerate. The regrowth of their long nerve fibers is hindered by scar tissue and molecular processes inside the nerves. An international team of researchers led by DZNE scientists in Bonn now reports in Science that help might be on the way from an unexpected quarter: in animal studies, the cancer drug epothilone…
News • Immunology
New antibody therapy improves psoriasis symptoms
Only a single treatment produced what researchers describe as 'rapid, substantial, and durable clinical improvement'.
Article • Treating Ebola
An isolation unit flying on 60-metre wings
The ‘Robert Koch’ plane for medical evacuations (MedEvac) is the winged equivalent of a German hospital isolation ward. Within it, medics with viral haemorrhagic fever while working on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, receive intensive medical care during any stages of the disease, while being evacuated. Report: Anja Behringer
Article • Breast Cancer
Decision-making based on personalized data
No alcohol, but exercise and a healthy diet – that’s what women can do to help prevent breast cancer recommends Prof. Thomas Helbich (Director of Molecular and Gender Imaging at the Medical University of Vienna) who hosted the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR) session ‘The complexity of personalized breast care’ at ECR 2015. Report: Chrissanthi Nikolakudi
News • Surgery
Sedatives for patients receiving general anesthesia questioned
Although sedatives are often administered before surgery, a randomized trial finds that among patients undergoing elective surgery under general anesthesia, receiving the sedative lorazepam before surgery, compared with placebo or no premedication, did not improve the self-reported patient experience the day after surgery, but was associated with longer time till removal off a breathing tube…
News • ICU
New care model enhances recovery of ICU survivors
The Critical Care Recovery Center care model - the first collaborative care concept focusing on the extensive cognitive, physical and psychological recovery needs of intensive care unit survivors - decreases the likelihood of serious illness after discharge from an ICU, according to a new study from the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University schools of medicine and nursing.
News • Ovarian cancer
Anderson Algorithm increases surgical success
A surgical algorithm developed and implemented by ovarian cancer specialists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center dramatically increases the frequency of complete removal of all visible tumor - a milestone strongly tied to improved survival.
Mechanical thrombectomy improves outcomes in acute ischemic stroke
Stroke resulting from rupture or interruption of blood flow in brain vessels can lead to devastating consequences for patients, their families and society. Steady progress has been achieved in the last 20 years in stroke treatment through better prevention, establishment of stroke care units and the use of clot-busting drugs (intravenous thrombolysis).
News • Healthy Smile
FDI call for a preventive focus in the pursuit of a 'Smile for life'
In the weeks leading up to World Oral Health Day on 20 March, the FDI is calling for a focus on prevention to help achieve a healthy ‘Smile for life’.
News • Study examines
Link between quality improvement program and complications
David A. Etzioni, M.D., M.S.H.S., of Mayo Clinic Arizona, Phoenix, and colleagues compared rates of any complications, serious complications, and death during a hospitalization for elective general/vascular surgery at hospitals that did vs did not participate in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP).
News • Communication
Negative patient-doctor communication could worsen symptoms
Doctors who unintentionally communicate to patients that they do not believe or understand them could actually make their symptoms worse, a new study suggests.
News • ICU
Patients on ventilators often able to communicate
A new study reveals that more than half of patients in intensive care units (ICU) using ventilators to help them breathe could benefit from assistive communication tools.
News • Probiotics
New Guidelines for Allergic Disease Prevention
Allergic diseases represent a spectrum of health conditions and a worldwide burden in different populations. In the field of allergy and immunology the focus on prevention has become as important as effective disease management. Now for the first time there are guidelines that recommend proactive strategies for the prevention of allergic diseases. The World Allergy Organization (WAO) has…
News • Organ Transplantation
First successful organ donation from newborn carried out in UK
The very first successful organ donation from a newborn to be carried out in the UK is reported in the Fetal & Neonatal Edition of Archives of Disease in Childhood. The donor was a girl born at term after an emergency caesarean section in the neonatal unit of Hammersmith Hospital, London. The donation involved the kidneys, which were transplanted into a patient with renal failure, and liver…
Article • Tackling mobile tumours
Precision radiotherapy with 4D imaging
Radiotherapy always encounters particular challenges when a tumour is ‘mobile’. This is when radiotherapy must be carried out over several weeks. Within that period the tumour position, shape and expansion typically will keep changing. Thus radiotherapy needs continuous adaptation to maintain continuously precise radiation. Report: Chrissanthi Nikolakudi
Article • Immune system
Outwitting cancermechanisms
The human immune system is usually very efficient in protecting the body against diseases by eliminating pathogens as well as infected, damaged or otherwise suspicious cells. However, it often fails because tumours have developed efficient strategies that hamper the system’s ability to detect and destroy the cancer cells. Report. Ludger Weß
Article • Surgery
Recycling blood lost during major surgery
Sucking up blood spilt during a major surgical procedure, or drained from a heart-lung machine after surgery, the Hemosep cell concentration system has a blood bag that uses a chemical sponge technology and mechanical agitator to filter red and white blood cells and platelets through a plastic membrane so that they can then be returned to the patient by intravenous transfusion. Report: Mark…
News • Monitoring
Ampronix's new HD Medvix series monitors available
Ampronix, a world class manufacturer of innovative medical imaging technology, reintroduces it’s Medvix line of near-patient surgical displays. The high quality HD surgical displays are now available for a lower cost.
The issue is not over-diagnosis but over-treatment
'We desperately need a ‘no treatment’ trial for DCIS', says Clive Wells, Chairman of the European Working Group on Breast Cancer Pathology, and London Regional Co-ordinator for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) National Breast Cancer Screening Programme. Interview: Frank Swain
Innovative reusable operating theatre clothing
Optimising protective operating theatre clothing in terms of comfort and durability enables significant amounts of waste to be avoided and valuable resources saved.
Article • Patient Safety
Raising small patients’ safety yet reducing staff mileages
The safety of little children at the University Children’s Hospital Basel (UKBB) has been assured since February by the installation of Patient SafetyNet, an advanced remote monitoring and clinician notification system manufactured by the California-based company Masimo.
Light up your exams and minor ops
LED Soled15 lighting supplements the Starled Series of lamps manufactured by Acem Medical Company from Bologna, Italy.