Treatment prevents later-stage tissue loss contributing to long-term injury
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB) have found that a commonly prescribed antibiotic could be used to help prevent paralysis and other long-term functional deficits associated with a partial spinal cord injury (SCI). Researchers in the field have known that a significant proportion of paralysis and long-term functional disorders associated with SCI a
Development of lymphoma in mice missing CBP gene occurs in cooperation with reduction of p27Kip1 protein level—despite the presence of the anti-cancer gene p53
Inactivation of the gene CBP in certain immature white blood cells of mice causes lymphoma, a type of cancer also found in humans. The cancer is accompanied by changes in the expression of specific genes associated with development of the disease. These findings, from researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital an
The University of California, Santa Barbara announced today that it has donated all rights to a patent that covers the novel use of an established class of cardiovascular medicines as a potential new drug against a global parasitic disease. The Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, will use the UCSB discovery and the wealth of data associated with the medicines to accelerate drug development for treatment of schistosomiasis.
Two UCSB resear
A small pilot study funded by the National Institutes of Health suggests that women who undergo hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) may run the risk of diminished hearing. Depending on the measure, HRT recipients on average did anywhere from 10 to 30 percent worse on hearing tests than women who had not received HRT, says Robert D. Frisina, Ph.D., professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Frisina and colleagues from the International Center for Hearing and Spe
Mayo Clinic researchers discover that key cancer gene cbp doesn’t work alone; Important clue to targeting new treatments for lymphoma, breast and colon cancers
Mayo Clinic cancer researchers have discovered a key partnership between two genes in mice that prevents the development of cancer of the lymph nodes, known as T-cell leukemia or lymphoma.
This first-time finding provides researchers with a promising target for designing new anti-cancer drugs that fight lymphomas,
Physicians may not need to prescribe antibiotics when treating a common skin infection in children, according to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
The findings, which appear in the February issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, show draining a skin or soft-tissue abscess – a pus-filled boil – and packing the wound with gauze is adequate therapy for simple skin abscesses. Patients still need to seek medical attention for these boils even though they may no
A new study by researchers at San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) moves in on the physiological basis for the bone density loss experienced by people subjected to prolonged periods of bed rest and by astronauts who fly lengthy missions under the weightless conditions of space.
The work, conducted in rats, is an important step toward developing therapies to prevent such bone loss, says senior author Daniel Bikle, MD, co-director of the Special Diagnostic and Treatment Unit at SFVAMC and
Patients who develop diabetes shortly after kidney transplantation have poorer short-term outcomes than those who had the disease before transplant, according to a Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center study.
“Because patients with diabetes often pose many medical challenges due to the complications of the disease, it was surprising to see that these patients who’d been dealing with diabetes for years, ended up better off than the patients who only developed diabetes after their t
Short-Term Hormone Replacement Therapy Safe Following Removal of Ovaries
Two studies from the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania appearing online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) have important implications for women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. The first study shows that bilateral prophylactic mastectomy can reduce breast cancer risk by more than 90% in women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, and may be even more effective when performed concurrently w
A recent finding may lead to new treatments for multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of immune cells called plasma cells that are present in the blood and bone marrow. The research, published in the February issue of Cancer Cell, reveals a frequent and common abnormal cellular event that occurs in about half of all myeloma cases and identifies an attractive target for therapeutic intervention.
A research team led by Dr. Louis M. Staudt from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryla
Scientists report that a protein made in excess in the majority of human tumors plays a significant role in the ability of cancer cells to resist traditional treatments. The research study, published in the February issue of Cancer Cell, provides new insight into the biology of cancer cells and may have a significant impact in the design of future, more effective cancer treatments.
Tumor formation results when cells divide in an unregulated fashion and many chemotherapeutic agents are thoug
Researchers in obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive endocrinology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggest that specialists should consider the routine use of laparoscopic evaluation when women are unable to become pregnant after four cycles of the “fertility pill” clomiphene citrate. They made their recommendation after reviewing 92 patient cases over an eight-year period. Some physicians have in the past few years forgone laparoscopy
Initial testing indicates promise for the procedure
An initial Mayo Clinic study has confirmed the effectiveness and durability over time of a patient-friendly, robot-assisted procedure that corrects a complication that can follow hysterectomy. The study, published in the February issue of Urology, is the first in the United States to examine the feasibility of using this method to repair vaginal vault prolapse, or collapsed vaginal walls.
“The benefit to the patient is dram
Making some self-described “stupid moves” shifting stones for a sculpture landed Professor Ze’ev Seltzer with nine months of back pain and a more personal appreciation for the importance of his own field of research — finding the genetic links to chronic pain.
“One of the things that really surprised me when I had chronic pain was the anger I felt towards my body that has failed me,” Seltzer says. “You really feel this betrayal of the body and disappointment and you think, Why did it h
Single Infusion of islet cells surpasses previous success
esearchers at the University of Minnesota’s Diabetes Institute for Immunology and Transplantation (DIIT) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Diabetes Center have achieved insulin independence in four of six patients with long-term Type 1 diabetes using one infusion of insulin-producing “islet” cells from a single donor pancreas.
Individuals in whom Type 1 diabetes was complicated by hypoglycemic
Results of a phase III study from Germany in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggest that a tumour-based vaccine could reduce disease recurrence and increase survival of patients who have had surgery for kidney cancer.
3% of cancer occurs in the kidney, with around 12,000 renal-cancer deaths a year in the USA. Removal of part or all of the kidney (nephrectomy) is the standard treatment for renal cancer, although other treatments after surgery (eg, radiotherapy, chemotherapy) are not effectiv
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