(Landmark study on lowering the risk of CABG in high-risk patients reported at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery meeting)
NYU Medical Center’s cardiac surgeons Eugene Grossi, MD, and Aubrey Galloway, MD, announced new study findings demonstrating significantly lowered mortality, stroke, and overall risk of complications using off-pump coronary artery by-pass grafting (OPCAB) in high-risk patients. The findings were presented today during the Adult Cardiac Surgery Scienti
Maurizio Fava, an Italian physician migrated to the US, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and his collaborators at Massachusetts General Hospital present in the May-June 2003 issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics a revolutionary new design for clinical trials, the sequential parallel comparison model.
The placebo response is a major issue in clinical trials for psychiatric disorders. Possible contributing factors to this problem include diagnostic misclassification, iss
A new capsule that contains a microscopic camera and transmitter can create better pictures of the small bowel than standard x-ray procedures can, a new study shows. The capsule is easily swallowed by the patient, and there is no need for the patient to drink barium before the procedure.
The study, conducted by Sandor Joffe, MD, section head of abdominal imaging, and his colleagues at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, found that wireless capsule endoscopy was better able than a small
Interventional radiology procedures are effective in treating uterine fibroids in patients who have symptoms of the disease without causing infertility or premature menopause, a new study shows.
Uterine fibroids are nourished by blood, says Hyun S. “Kevin” Kim, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore and the lead author of the study. “We found that if we block the uterine and ovarian arteries feeding the fibroid, the patients symptoms are relieved,” he says. The arteries are
Enhances Potential for Future Development of B-Cell Based Therapy for Lupus
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego—supported by the Alliance for Lupus Research and the National Institutes of Health—have for the first time described a method that Staphylococcus aureus (staph) infection uses to inactivate the body’s immune system. A protein produced by the staph bacteria causes previously healthy B cells—a specialized cell of the immune system—to commit suicide, a proce
Although cells generally tend to “stay at home”, they may sometimes wish to take a look elsewhere, and this wandering has a whole range of consequences. During embryonic development, cells must migrate to give birth to new tissues. This roving spirit is essential to the modeling of the future living organism. In contrast, when tumor cells acquire the capacity to move around and invade other tissues, there is a risk that metastases will develop, thus rendering the treatment of cancer more difficult.
The death of sensory hair cells when they try to multiply suggests need for caution in attempts to restore many kinds of lost cells through gene therapy
Researchers may have found a link between progressive hearing loss and a gene called p19Ink4d (Ink4d), according to results of a study that measured loss of hearing in mice lacking that gene. Normally, the Ink4d gene keeps healthy cells “quiet” – from inappropriately dividing.
Mice lacking the Ink4d gene become progressively
Solving a longstanding scientific puzzle, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have not only discovered how the body’s first line of defense against dangerous microbes inadvertently helps HIV rapidly infect the human immune system.
They’ve filmed the process as well.
In a remarkable series of movies created with images from time-lapse microscopy, UIC microbiologists Thomas Hope and David McDonald have documented how HIV enters human T cells, where it multip
Scientists at Bristol University have found evidence for a new protein in the heart that could one day aid development of new drugs to regulate the heart.
The ability of the heart to function as a pump that drives blood around the body depends on the electrical behaviour of muscle cells from various regions of the heart. Different cardiac regions have distinct electrical events, specialised for their particular roles in the heart.
While studying the electrical activity of he
Lung injury due to infection, such as in sepsis, accounts for hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations a year. Sepsis occurs in 2 percent of hospital admissions and is associated with a death rate of about 50 percent. Many of these patients require ventilation to support their breathing, which may in itself produce additional injury to the lung. Yet, there are few available treatments for lung injury associated with sepsis or ventilation.
Now, scientists at Northwestern University have demo
Monoamniotic twins: An 8-year experience
With intensive and constant in-hospital fetal monitoring of monoamniotic (MA) twins, delivery can be delayed to beyond 34 weeks, and the live discharge rate can approach that of other twin pregnancies. This is significant because, historically, twins who shared a common amniotic sac had only about a 50 percent chance of both twins surviving. Those who did survive were typically delivered prematurely, resulting in a higher risk of severe health
By blocking a protein key to prostate cancer cell growth, researchers at the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University have discovered a way to trigger extensive prostate cancer cell death. This finding opens a new window for developing targeted treatments aimed at destroying prostate cancer cells before they have the opportunity to grow or spread. The study is published in the April 29 online issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
“By preventing the Stat5 protein from being a
Preliminary findings from Hong Kong investigators fast-tracked for publication on THE LANCET’s website-www.thelancet.com – outline how severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) may have a less serious effect on young children compared with teenagers and adults.
There have been no childhood deaths from SARS up to April 25, 2003. Tai Fai Fok from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and colleagues prospectively studied the first 10 children with SARS who received treatment during the early phase
A new magnetic resonance (MR) imaging technique using hyperpolarized helium lights up the lungs’ airways, providing, for the first time, clear resolution of even the smaller, seventh-generation airways. The technique, dynamic hyperpolarized 3He (helium) MR imaging, should help physicians better understand and treat asthma, as well as other chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital reported their findings in the May issue of the journal Radiology.
Cooking with sesame oil in place of other edible oils appears to help reduce high blood pressure and lower the amount of medication needed to control hypertension, researchers reported today at the XVth Scientific Meeting of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension. The meeting is co-sponsored by the American Heart Association’s Council for High Blood Pressure Research.
Using sesame oil as the sole cooking oil for 60 days along with drug treatment lowered patients’ blood pressur
A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered rare genetic mutations in a subset of people who come down with a particular kind of severe sepsis, an acute and often deadly disease.
These rare mutations in a human gene called TLR4 lend susceptibility to meningococcal sepsis, which strikes over 2,500 people a year in the United States. About half of those who contract meningococcal sepsis are younger than the age of two, and the disease has an overall case
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