Two studies published in the March 24/31 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) look at the effect of medical treatment compared with hysterectomy on health-related quality of life for women with abnormal uterine bleeding.
According to background information in one of the articles, the Medicine or Surgery (Ms) randomized trial: “Hysterectomy [removal of the uterus] is the most common major surgical procedure performed in the United States for nonobstetric reasons. I
Findings could lead to effective new treatments for the disease
Researchers at the University at Buffalo and the Mayo Clinic have shown that chronic sinusitis is an immune disorder caused by fungus, opening up a promising new avenue for treating this ubiquitous and debilitating condition, for which there is no FDA-approved therapy.
Results of their research suggest that common airborne fungi lodge in the mucus lining of the sinuses in most people, but initiate an immune respo
Patients who are taking statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs, before they suffer a stroke leave hospital in a better state, according to research published in BMC Medicine this week. As statin use is on the increase, perhaps suffering a stroke may no longer have such serious consequences for many people. Taking statins protects people against heart disease and stroke. This has prompted physicians to prescribe statins to people at high risk of these conditions. The researchers found that “
Researchers suggest today that we should increase our vitamin D intake, as they reveal the results of a breast cancer study.
Results from a new study show for the first time how improved vitamin D levels in women could prevent breast cancer. Previously it was thought that the active form of the vitamin, calcitriol, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, was only made in the kidney. These researchers have discovered that breast tissue also contains the enzyme that activates vitamin D, and leve
Air travel, increasing urbanization and modern farming practices are all helping to spread deadly virus diseases carried by blood-sucking mosquitoes and ticks, according to scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Oxford, speaking on Thursday, 01 April 2004, at the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting in Bath.
The Oxford scientists describe how West Nile virus probably arrived in New York in 1999, and how it rapidly spread across North America killing people and tho
While condom use remains the most effective protection against sexual transmission of HIV, it is clear that in many parts of the world women are not empowered to insist on it.
The urgent need for novel strategies to block HIV-1 transmission is being recognised by an Europe-wide consortium, the European Microbicides Project (EMPRO) led by King’s College London and funded by the European Commission.
The project aims to develop new products, called microbicides, containing molecules
Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids), the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the University of Toronto (U of T) have identified an alternate form of the disease gene and protein for the neurodevelopmental condition Rett syndrome. This discovery is being incorporated into a new molecular test that will aid not only in the diagnosis of Rett syndrome, but also for other developmental disabilities. This research is reported in the April issue of the scientific journal N
Penn State College of Medicine researchers have developed a tiny package that searches for and destroys up to 80 percent of hepatitis B virus in the livers of mice.
“This marks one of the few successful in vivo, or in-animal, models of an effective therapy to reduce the production of hepatitis B virus,” said Gary Clawson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology, biochemistry and molecular biology, Penn State College of Medicine. “Although this work focused on hepatitis B virus, our method of tar
Giving older patients antibiotics within four hours of their arrival at a hospital for treatment of pneumonia reduces the length of hospital stay, and may reduce the chances of dying, according to an article in the March 22 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to the article, pneumonia is the second leading reason for hospitalization among Medicare beneficiaries, accounting for more than 600,000 Medicare hospitalizations yearly, and is the
A new research study sheds light on how cancer cells manage to evade the immune system despite the presence of tumor-specific immune cells. The researchers found that mouse and human melanoma cells secrete galectin-1, which has a negative impact on the survival of T cells, and that inhibition of Gal-1 dramatically reduces tumor formation in mice. The research has exciting implications for future anticancer therapies that may stimulate an effective immune response against tumor cells.
Tumor
Use of tamoxifen by high risk women is low due to both failure of doctors to offer it and patients’ refusal to accept it, according to the results of a new study led by researchers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. While tamoxifen chemoprevention has been shown to reduce the occurrence of breast cancer by nearly 50 percent in women with elevated risk, this study shows that the drug’s risks and benefits aren’t always appropriately evaluated when determining who should take it.
Cincinnati children’s study could lead to new therapeutics
Scientists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have identified a missing piece of the puzzle of how lung damage occurs in cystic fibrosis (CF).
CF is a life-threatening, genetic disease that causes chronic lung infections and impairs digestion. The discovery, published in the current issue of Nature Immunology, provides impetus for the development of novel therapeutics that decrease inflammation in child
Genes can indicate which adult leukemia patients will respond to therapy and what the duration of their remission will be, according to a new study published in the April 1, 2004, issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology.
Researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass., and the University “La Sapienza” in Rome studied 33 patients that had all been recently diagnosed with adult T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia (T-ALL), a type of cancer in
Epidemiological research from central Africa in this week’s issue of THE LANCET highlights how a new form of retrovirus – simian foamy virus (SFV) – can be transferred from primates to humans as a result of hunting for bush meat. Although the effect of simian foamy viruses on human health is not yet known, authors of the research state that a reduction in hunting and consumption of bushmeat will be necessary to prevent the spread of this retrovirus in humans.
The hunting and butchering of wi
Surgical intervention to remove narrowing in the carotid artery (carotid endarterectomy) could substantially reduce the risk of major strokes in certain groups of patients if it is done sufficiently soon after a “warning stroke” or transient ischaemic attack (TIA), suggest authors of a UK study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.
Peter Rothwell from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues analysed pooled data from two trials (the European Carotid Surgery Trial and North American Symptom
With the advent of antiretroviral medication, HIV patients are living longer and facing yet another health challenge.
Carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) – a potent predictor of heart attack and stroke – is significantly higher in HIV-infected patients compared to uninfected controls, according to study results from UCSF researchers. In addition after one year of follow-up, carotid artery IMT progressed significantly faster in HIV-infected individuals.
“Our findings
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