For wearers of prosthetic or false limbs, the comfort and effectiveness of the socket fit is crucial. New ways of measuring and solving socket pressure points – using load analysis techniques from the aircraft industry – have been developed by engineering and computing researchers at the University of the West of England.
A team from UWE’’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences has just been awarded a grant of £52,000 by the charity Remedi to further their res
A new finding of a link between an anxiety disorder and peptic ulcer disease lends support to the view that this gastrointestinal disease and anxiety disorder may share a common link. In recent years, attention has focused on a more biological element with the identification of bacteria as a cause of peptic ulcers.
“The identification of Helicobacter pylori as an infectious cause of peptic ulcer disease has been considered by many to disprove the possibility that there is an important relat
Harvard Medical School researchers have uncovered an ovary gene whose absence from mouse egg cells produced severe pregnancy complications. The gene, Fmn2, which produces the protein formin-2, is similar in mice and humans and offers promise for understanding embryo loss, birth defects, and infertility in women. The study appears in the December Nature Cell Biology.
“As humans we are incredibly bad at producing eggs with the normal number of chromosomes, which is the leading cause of pregnan
A new technique to aid early detection of skin cancer could also help fight serious eye diseases such as those caused by diabetes.
The technique has been developed at the University of Birmingham with funding from the Swindon-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It involves using an innovative form of image analysis to tell the difference between skin cancer and other types of skin damage. This allows the cancer to be identified earlier and treated more quickly,
A woman with an obstructed cervix has been successfully treated for infertility using a technique known as intraperitoneal insemination (IPI). The technique, described in a case report just published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, is less invasive and cheaper than alternative infertility treatments, which involve the harvesting of a woman’s eggs. Scott Sills from the Atlanta Medical Center and Gianpiero Palermo from the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine describe how they wer
New test will be cheap, less invasive, and could take only minutes
Scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge have developed a rapid new blood test which may help predict the likelihood of a heart attack.
The research published in Nature Medicine shows how a new science, developed in the Imperial College laboratories, called Metabonomics, can be used to test for coronary artery disease, using minimally invasive procedures.
The test, wh
Patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) rely on mechanical ventilation to breathe, however routine suctioning to remove debris that may be blocking their airways can cause lung tissue to collapse. New research published in Critical Care explains how a new technique involving the re-inflation of lungs after suctioning can lead to a marked improvement in the condition of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a devastating inf
Using a tiny wireless sensor developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, doctors will know in minutes instead of hours if an organ is getting adequate blood flow after transplant or reconstructive surgery.
Conventional methods for assessing circulation involve invasive procedures or extensive laboratory testing. In some cases, by the time doctors realize there isn’t adequate blood flow to an organ or tissue, irreversible damage already has occurred.
“Our goal is to offer a te
The ophthalmology team of the University Clinic of the University of Navarre has published a new technique to detect diabetic retinopathy. This research has been published in the magazine Investigative Ophthamology and Visual Science. The research is based on the Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). This test allows measuring the thickness of eye macula without touching the eye and without using contrast injection. The macula is the central part of the retina and is the responsible of the central vis
Subtle alterations of a hormonal stress response system called the HPA axis may play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a study in the November/December issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.
A smoothly functioning hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis helps the body remain stable under physiological and psychological stress through the actions of three hormones. First, the brain portion called the hypothalamus secretes a hormone that stimulates the pituitary gland to secrete
Reducing the sulphur content of pollutants can have a substantial impact in reducing death from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, conclude authors of a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET which describes the effect of a public-health initiative in Hong Kong.
A change in law to restrict sulphur emissions was introduced in Hong Kong in July 1990; all power plants and road vehicles had to use fuel oil with a sulphur content restricted to not more than 0·5% by weight. This intervent
Faced with a patient who is ‘tired all the time’ and reports ‘pain in my body every day’, many General Practitioners may struggle to identify fibromyalgia, a little-known but debilitating condition as the cause of their patient’s suffering.
Fibromyalgia is a widespread and yet little-recognised and little-understood pain and fatigue disorder that is thought to affect millions world-wide. Symptoms include persistent pain – the body interprets touch or movement as pain although there is no t
A new radiation approach being tested at Stanford University Medical Center could shorten the overall treatment time for women with breast cancer. Participants will receive a single dose of radiation at the time of surgery rather than the usual six-week course of radiation therapy. The clinical trial is now recruiting patients.
“The trial should tell us whether this accelerated form of radiotherapy is safe, feasible and effective in controlling cancer recurrence in the breast for certain wo
By taking continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) readings for 24 hours after treating heart attack patients, Duke University Medical Center researches have shown that giving a combination of a new drug that prevents platelets from clumping together, as well as a clot-busting drug, opens up clogged arteries faster and keeps them open longer.
The researchers found that giving the anti-clotting drug eptifibatide along with a half-dose tenecteplase (TNK) — a genetically altered version of the comm
New research carried out by scientists at partner institutions UWIC (University of Wales Institute, Cardiff), University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM) in Cardiff and the University of Waikato, New Zealand, has found sensitivity to honey of wound infecting bacteria.
In a report published in the November 2002 issue of Journal of Applied Microbiology, Dr Rose Cooper (UWIC), Professor Peter Molan MBE (University of Waikato) and Professor Keith Harding (UWCM) explain: “In laboratory tests,
Flavonoids that are found in fruit, vegetables, chocolate, tea, wine, and grape juice reduce cellular oxidative stress and are associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and cancer. Concord grape juice is a rich source of flavonoids, but it has not been compared to antioxidant supplements in terms of its efficacy in reducing oxidative stress. In an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, O’Byrne et al. compared the effects of Concord grape juice (CGJ) and antioxidant suppleme
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