Millions of patients suffering from liver damage (cirrhosis) and failure may benefit from research by the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh that could lead to new life-saving treatments. There is currently no cure for liver cirrhosis and a patient’s only hope of survival is to receive a liver transplant.
The Southampton scientists from the University’s Infection, Inflammation and Repair Division of the School of Medicine, in collaboration with colleagues from the Univers
A portable imaging device currently in development by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) will produce clear, highly detailed pictures of bone and tissue, helping physicians manage bone health in space and on Earth. The Scanning Confocal Acoustic Diagnostic system, or SCAD, will enable doctors to determine the rate of loss and plan treatment options with the aid of high-quality images, taken noninvasively.
Studies of cosmonauts and astronauts who spent months o
Exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke increases the risk of developing cervical tumors, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine. The researchers’ results also corroborated past studies that found an association between active cigarette smoking and cervical neoplasia—the growth of a tumor. The concept of the Hopkins study was the result of collaboration between several researchers supported by the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund. T
A new computer-aided detection (CAD) system can help radiologists detect polyps in colons that contain contrast-enhanced fluid, says a new study that appears in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
“As far as I know, we are the first to publish a CAD algorithm to find polyps submerged in contrast-enhanced colonic fluid; other CAD algorithms do not yet deal with this problem,” said Ronald M. Summers, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health and lead autho
A look of fear on another person’s face is instantly recognizable. The split-second ability of the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure deep in the brain, distinguishes fear in facial expressions. In particular, the amygdala relies heavily on visual information contained in the eye region to detect fear.
A new study by scientists at the University of Iowa, the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues sheds more light on how the amygdala works. The study,
Aggressive therapy with statins — drugs that inhibit cholesterol synthesis — works better than moderate statin therapy in reducing fats and proteins in the blood that have been linked to atherosclerosis, a new multi-center study concludes. Statins’ effects on both complex compounds appear beneficial in cutting patients’ cardiovascular risks.
Atherosclerosis is the progressive disease process, often called hardening of the arteries, in which blood vessels slowly narrow with brain
A study led by Dr. Herbert Kaufman, Boyd Professor of Ophthalmology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, published in the January issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, found that 98% of the participants who are healthy individuals with no evidence of any symptoms did in fact shed herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) DNA in their tears and saliva at least once during the course of the 30-day study. The study was undertaken to assess the frequency of
Beware not the ides but the start of March – and April and May and every month. In the first few days of each month, fatalities due to medication errors rise by as much as 25 percent above normal, according to new research by University of California, San Diego sociologist David Phillips.
Published in the January issue of Pharmacotherapy, the journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the study is the first to document a beginning-of-the-month spike in deaths attribut
For some years ago now biochemotherapy has replaced chemotherapy for the treatment of melanomas. In biochemotherapy, together with chemotherapuetic agents, substances that activate the patient’s immune system are used with the objective of obtaining a reinforced immune system in order to help the patient overcome the illness.
Now, however, the activity of a number of these activating substances has been questioned, given that they have not been found to extend the life of the patient compar
A substance found in the urine of pregnant women can be measured to predict the later development of preeclampsia, according to research from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.
“We may have reached a turning point in the extensive federal research investigation of this frequent, life-threatening complication of pregnancy,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. “This finding sets the stage for the dev
A woman’s risk of ovarian cancer rises significantly if she carries either of two previously unexamined variations in the gene that codes for the progesterone receptor, according to a team of researchers led by scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
The study, which is being published in the January 5th issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, was initially supposed to be a more in-depth look at one particular versi
Shielding the male gonads using a type of lead capsule previously only used in X-ray imaging also reduces indirect radiation to the testes during MDCT of the abdomen and pelvis, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Technology of Aachen in Germany. Protecting the testes from radiation is important because the testes are sensitive to radiation damage, which could result in cancer, infertility, or sperm mutation.
For the study, the researchers analyzed 66 m
Over the past five years, so-called molecularly targeted therapies for cancer have held out great promise. These therapies are based on blocking a cancer-causing genetic pathway that has been turned on in a tumor, thereby allowing it to proliferate and grow in an uncontrolled manner. For a small number of cancers, chronic treatment with molecularly targeted therapies has been shown to be effective in the clinic – at least in the short-term. Recently, based on animal models, several investigators ha
A team headed by scientists at Northwestern University, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), has shown how to visualize the human brain as a massive, interacting, complex network governed by a few underlying dynamic principles.
The research opens fascinating possibilities for future basic and applied studies to investigate the dynamics of brain states, particularly in cases of dysfunction — such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and chronic pain — withou
In a paper published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, engineers report creating a small swatch of heart tissue that displays many of the hallmarks of mature cardiac tissue, including regular contractions.
“We have been trying to engineer a patch of tissue that has the same properties as native heart tissue, or myocardium, that could be attached over injured myocardium,” said Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a principal research sci
New technique could lead to more effective therapies for AIDS
When researchers came up with the powerful cocktail of anti-HIV drugs known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), they hoped they had found a way to finally rid the body of the virus. But they were wrong. The virus instead goes into hiding, dormant and practically undetectable in the body – and impervious to attack. While HAART manages to keep the virus at bay, it’s still quite capable – given the rig
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