Specialists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne have been chosen to co-ordinate a multi-million pound nationwide network of healthcare professionals to increase the amount of research being carried out into stroke – the third most common cause of death in the UK after heart disease and cancer.
Newcastle University has been chosen by the Department of Health to co-ordinate the UK Stroke Research Network, in collaboration with the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Nottingham
Researchers at Johns Hopkins and The Brady Urological Institute have identified three risk factors and developed a simple reference tool that doctors can use to determine who is at high risk of death after prostate cancer recurrence following surgery. The new tool – a set of tables that assess a combination of blood tests, the surgical pathology results and time following surgery – can be used to tell which men with recurring cancer after surgery are most likely to die from their renewed disease and
The rate of new illnesses associated with pesticide exposure at schools increased significantly in children from 1998 to 2002, according to an article in the July 27 issue of JAMA.
“Exposure to pesticides in the school environment is a health risk facing children and school employees,” background information in the article states. Pesticides continue to be used both on and around school property, with some schools at risk of pesticide exposure from neighboring farms. Currently, n
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers are developing a tiny, highly efficient heat spreader to be used in a new device to be implanted in the brain of patients who suffer from severe epileptic seizures. The implant device is designed to detect and arrest epileptic seizures as they begin by cooling a small region of the brain, thereby effectively blocking the erratic electrical activity.
G. P. “Bud” Peterson, provost and professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineeri
Rates of breast biopsy (removal of tissue for diagnostic evaluation) remained stable over a 12 year period even as mammogram use increased and new and less invasive biopsy techniques were introduced, according to a study in the July 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Changes in the guidelines for breast cancer screening have resulted in increased use of mammography. However, some women screened by mammography may have a false positive res
A systematic review of the evidence for the many drug treatments used in post herpetic neuralgia (the pain that persists after shingles) concludes that long-established treatments such as tricyclic antidepressants and some opioids are as effective as newer drugs such as gabapentin, tramadol, and pregabalin, and supports the use of tricyclic antidepressants as first line treatment. The review, from researchers led by Andrew Rice at Imperial College London, and published in PLoS Medicine in July also
A paper published in this month’s PLoS Medicine suggests that combination therapy based on artemisinins (one of the newer antimalarial classes of drug) might not be the ideal treatment for uncomplicated malaria in Africa. If used alone, artemisinins will cure the most severe type of malaria -falciparum malaria -in seven days. However, when used on their own, they have a high risk of the malaria coming back and hence must be combined with other antimalarials to work best. Artemisinins may als
A dramatic new approach to tissue engineering
An international team of biomedical engineers has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to grow healthy new bone reliably in one part of the body and use it to repair damaged bone at a different location.
The research, which is based on a dramatic departure from the current practice in tissue engineering, is described in a paper titled “In vivo engineering of organs: The bone bioreactor” published online next wee
Computed tomographic colonography (CTC) depicts cancers and other clinically important conditions that would be missed with standard colonoscopy and at very little additional cost, according to a study in the August issue of Radiology.
“The chance of finding cancer outside the colon may be as significant as the chance of finding cancer inside the colon,” said Judy Yee, M.D., Chief of Radiology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and associate professor and Vice Chair of ra
Research into a new treatment for nerve damage caused by diabetes could bring relief to millions of diabetic patients, say experts.
The treatment might also reduce the number of amputations of toes and feet if early effects on nerve protection and regeneration are borne out long-term. Nerve disease in diabetes is the major cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputations in Europe and North America.
Scientists at the University of Manchester, working with colleagues at Am
Gender May Play Role in Disease
Researchers from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center found that plaques and tangles in the brain, the changes seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), are more likely to be expressed as dementia in women than in men.
In the June 2005 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, “Sex Differences in the Clinical Manifestations of Alzheimer Disease Pathology,” principal investigator Lisa L. Barnes, PhD, sought to determine whether
Patients hospitalised because of pneumonia are at less risk of dying from the disease if they have been taking the widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs ’statins’ before hospital admission. These results, published today in the Open Access journal Respiratory Research, suggest another beneficial use of statins, which are prescribed to an increasing number of patients to prevent and treat high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and vascular disease.
Pneumonia is the seventh
Half of New York City residents over 50, the age at which the American Cancer Society recommends beginning screening tests, have not received a colon cancer-screening test within the recommended time intervals, according to a new study. The report, published in the September 1, 2005 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, says those New Yorkers least likely to have received screening include those with low-income, the uninsured, Asians and current smokers.
Researchers at the University of Dundee have developed new technology which could revolutionise the treatment of middle ear problems.
A team led by Professor Eric Abel have created the SMARTFIT system, a radically new approach to the design of ossicular replacement prostheses (the tiny bones in the ear), which aims to be the first commercial product to give a genuine replication of the physiological function of the middle ear.
“Hearing loss affects a large number of p
Letter: Nuclear weapons are another post-communist health hazard BMJ Volume 331, p 237
Nuclear weapons in various European countries, particularly Russia, pose a serious threat to health, argues a letter in this week’s BMJ.
Recent estimates are that Russia alone has 7,800 operational nuclear warheads – some of which are on high alert status says Nick Wilson, a public health lecturer and member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Their cont
New knowledge can improve current therapies and shape new ones Researchers have determined how metabolic pathways differ between healthy and failing hearts. Normally, a heart derives its energy from a balance of fatty acids and carbohydrates, specifically glucose.
But Dr. Gary Lopaschuk, a pharmacologist and professor in the University of Alberta Department of Pediatrics, and his colleagues in the U.S. and Italy have found that during the early stages of heart failure, the heart use
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