Doctors appear willing to use intensive treatment to lessen otherwise untreatable pain or other severe symptoms in dying patients even if the treatment, at least in theory, risks hastening the dying process, according to two University of Iowa and Yale University studies on end-of-life care.
Known as “terminal sedation,” the practice involves the use of sedating medications to control a patient’s symptoms even if it results in decreased or complete loss of consciousnes
USC study finds differences in survival according to lymphoma type in post-HAART era
When it comes to treating HIV-positive patients with blood cancers, not all lymphomas are created equal, according to hematologists from the University of Southern California. Although physicians have treated all types of lymphomas in HIV/AIDS patients with the same drug regimens, researchers from the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital say the drugs are significantly more effec
A noninvasive fingertip test can identify patients with the earliest stages of heart disease and may prove cost-effective as a screening test, according to the findings of a Mayo Clinic study published this week in the Journal of American College of Cardiology.
“Atherosclerosis tends to affect all of the blood vessels in the body, and is not just limited to the arteries of the heart,” explains Amir Lerman, M.D., the Mayo Clinic cardiologist who led the study. “We expected patie
ASH news tips from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center offers these news items presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).
Combining two biologic agents with chemotherapy forms a potent drug regimen that is showing promise in treating patients who have relapsed with the most common kind of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cance
In the first epidemiological study designed and executed specifically to determine the heart-attack risk associated with COX-2 inhibitors rofecoxib (Vioxx) and celecoxib (Celebrex), researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found a greater risk of heart attack associated with Vioxx than Celebrex, although neither of the two drugs showed a statistically significant elevated risk of heart attack relative to people who did not use the drugs. In addition, the researchers found
Chemical analyses of ancient organics absorbed, and preserved, in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Northern China, have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit was being produced as early as 9,000 years ago, approximately the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East.
In addition, liquids more than 3,000 years old, remarkably preserved inside tightly lidded bronze vessels,
Cuba, South Africa, India, China, Brazil among nations showing the way
Study co-authors are available for advance interviews Friday Dec. 3. Please call to schedule a time. The study will be published as a special supplement Mon. Dec 6 in Nature Biotechnology. The embargoed study can be previewed by media online at http://www.utoronto.ca/jcb/home/news_nature.htm
Cuba, South Korea, and India make and export their own biotech vaccines, Egypt manufactures recombinant insulin
The prevalence of overweight increased from 1989 to 2000 in children aged two to four years from low-income families, according to an article in the December issue of The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to background information in the article, children who are overweight are at risk for diabetes, gall stones, sleep apnea, and high blood pressure. As adults, they are also at an increased risk for coronary heart disease and
Understanding how muscle cells form is crucial to developing new treatments for diseases such as muscular dystrophy and to treating muscle injuries. However, while scientists have focused on muscle cells in culture, they know little about how muscle cells form in a developing embryo.
In this month’s issue of the journal Developmental Cell, Clarissa Henry, assistant professor in the University of Maine Dept. of Biological Sciences, reports findings from a study of muscle cell d
Results represent significant development toward therapeutic cloning of stem cells
Using newer cloning techniques, including the “gentle squeeze” method described by South Korean researchers who earlier this year reported creating the first cloned human embryonic stem cell line, University of Pittsburgh scientists have taken a significant step toward successful therapeutic cloning of nonhuman primate embryos.
It is the first time researchers have applied methods developed
Despite aggressive treatment, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) – the most common and deadly of brain cancers – usually claims the lives of its victims within six to 12 months of diagnosis. This statistic has changed little over the years, largely because the cancer grows so quickly that neither surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy can stop it.
Now, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have found that a small protein called hsFlt3L delivered via a genetically engineered virus incr
The Novosibirsk researchers have managed to establish connection between mice’s aggressive behavior, biochemical modifications in their brain and the genes that cause those modifications.
Aggressive behavior is to a large extent genetically determined. The evidence of that are experiments with laboratory animals, including their successful selection into high- and low-aggressive lines. However, the “aggression gene” as such will hardly be ever found. Nevertheless, the researcher
A new approach to aircraft scheduling that uses computer models could allow a safe increase in airport throughput and reduce pollution.
The system under development would, for the first time, provide runway controllers with advice, based on state-of-the-art computer models, on the most efficient, safe sequence in which aircraft can take-off. Currently, runway controllers carry out their demanding job using their own observations and mental calculations, with limited reliance on t
The recent rise in obesity may be partly due to the reduced amount of time we spend asleep, according to new research from the University of Bristol, UK.
Dr Shahrad Taheri from Bristol University, and colleagues in the United States, examined the role of two key hormones that are involved in regulating appetite – ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin increases feelings of hunger while leptin acts to suppress appetite.
People who habitually slept for 5 hours were found to have 15%
Populations of the black-legged kittiwake will not recover unless the commercial sandeel fishery off the east coast of Scotland and north-east England remains closed indefinitely, ecologists have said. The stark warning comes from a paper published today in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology. It is the first study to examine the combined effects of oceanography and fisheries on a North Sea seabird.
Kittiwake numbers in the North Sea have declined by more
The human parathyroid gland, which regulates the level of calcium in the blood, probably evolved from the gills of fish, according to researchers from King’s College London.
Writing in the latest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Anthony Graham and Dr Masataka Okabe suggest that the gills of ancestral marine creatures, which were used to regulate calcium levels, were internalised rather than lost when land-living, four-limbed animals – the tet
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