A genetic variant that can explain the occurrence of a type of rheumatic disorder called SLE has been identified by a research team at Uppsala University, Sweden. The team, led by Associate Professor Marta Alarcón at the Rudbeck Laboratory, is presenting its finding in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Genetics.
Nearly 6,000 predominantly young women are victims of systemic lupus erythematosus, SLE. The disease is partly genetic and causes damage to the skin and various organ
The outcome for some cancer patients can now be predicted much earlier by making the right choice of treatment based on a mathematical model rather than the current life-table method, which has been in use for over 20 years, according to research published today in the Institute of Physics Journal Physics in Medicine & Biology.
The paper`s author, Dr Richard Mould, explains that clinical trials usually try to establish which cancer treatment is more effective, A or B. Dr Mould has now desig
Scans show amplified pain signals in patients with back pain of unknown origin
Patients with lower back pain that can’t be traced to a specific physical cause may have abnormal pain-processing pathways in their brains, according to a new study led by University of Michigan researchers.
The effect, which as yet has no explanation, is similar to an altered pain perception effect in fibromyalgia patients recently reported by the same research team.
In fact, the study
Pill count has the greatest impact on adherence, survey reports
The total number of pills that need to be taken every day in HAART therapy has the greatest impact on adherence of 10 characteristics studied, according to a survey of HIV positive individuals, nearly two-thirds of whom had experienced at least three treatment regimens. The findings of the Perspectives on Adherence and Simplicity for HIV+ Patients on Antiretroviral Therapy (PASPORT) survey were presented here today at the
Pediatricians have another weapon in their arsenal to fight infections that have shown resistance to common antibiotics, according to data presented today by a team of investigators led by Baylor College of Medicine.
Study results showed that linezolid, a new type of antibiotic, is well-tolerated and as effective as the most common antibiotic, vancomycin, in treating infants and children with known or suspected gram-positive infections, reported Dr. Sheldon Kaplan, Baylor professor of
Among postmenopausal women, glucocorticoid users six times more likely to fracture
Daily dosing with oral glucocorticoids (corticosteroids) for chronic diseases was found to be a strong predictor of spinal fracture at one year, according to new data presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). The risk of fracture was found to increase incrementally with every 1 mg increase above 7.5 mg in the daily dose of the glucocorticoid.
Phy
New weapon in the fight against cancer?
The use of live bacteria to treat cancer goes back a hundred years. But while the therapy can sometimes shrink tumors, the treatment usually leads to toxicity, limiting its value in medicine.
Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have isolated a protein secreted by bacteria that kills cancer cells but appears to have no harmful side effects. Tested in mice injected with human melanomas, the protein shrank the maligna
17th International Congress on Thrombosis, Bologna, 26 October 2002: Important results from the EXPRESS clinical trial for the oral direct thrombin inhibitor (Oral DTI), EXANTA™ (oral ximelagatran and its active form, melagatran) show its superior efficacy in reducing risk of major venous thromboembolism (VTE), compared with a routinely used prophylactic treatment, enoxaparin, in major orthopaedic surgery.
Results show a significant 63 per cent relative risk reduction (2.3% vs 6.3%) in major ve
Washington University chemist offers radical new strategy in fight against cancer
Today, even the best cancer treatments kill about as many healthy cells as they do cancer cells but John-Stephen A. Taylor, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, has a plan to improve that ratio. Over the last several years, Taylor has begun to lay the conceptual and experimental groundwork for a radical new strategy for chemotherapy — one that turns existing drugs into me
Elderly people who eat fish or seafood at least once a week are at lower risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Using data from a large ageing study, a team of French researchers set out to test whether there was a relation between consumption of fish (rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids) or meat (rich in saturated fatty acids) and risk of dementia.
The study involved 1,674 people aged 68 and over without dementia and liv
Raul Hernandez was no stranger to sports activity, and was active in Little League by the time he was 10 years old. But one day while running a short race at school, Raul experienced an intense burning sensation in his feet that turned his world upside down. From that day forward, he would experience severe pain in his feet any time he engaged in physical activity or, strangely, when the weather was hot or it rained. The situation worsened when the pain spread to his hands. His doctors, however, were
High blood pressure treatment with a calcium channel antagonist slowed progression of atherosclerosis, the disease process responsible for heart attacks and strokes, better than a beta blocker, according to a rapid track report posted online this week in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Rapid track articles are released online early because Circulation editors believe the work has major clinical impact or represents important basic science discoveries.
The development of drugs to combat some of the world’s most serious parasitic diseases is a step nearer with the discovery of a widely-shared gene that helps parasites to invade host cells.
The new understanding of the gene’s role in the single-celled parasite Toxoplasma gondii gives scientists a target to block that could stop the parasite literally in its tracks.
In experiments reported today in the journal Science, researchers at Imperial College London and the Univer
A project which aims to make laboratory-grown leukaemia cells change form and then be used to prime a patient’s own immune system to kill off malignant cells has begun in Edinburgh. If successful, the study could give clinicians a way of destroying residual leukaemic cells which are undetectable by microscope. The findings could be helpful in the treatment of acute myeloblastic leukaemia (AML), one of the most common forms of leukaemia in adults.
Although about 70% of patients with AML achie
Drugs to protect the brains of Alzeimer’s patients could result from new finding.
Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered that a seemingly mild “insult” to the brain could sensitize neurons to attack by immune system proteins that are otherwise protective.
The finding could explain why sufferers of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases significantly worsen following such insults. According to the scientists, such minimal “excitotoxic insult
Biomedical scientist Shuming Nie is testing the use of nanoparticles called quantum dots to dramatically improve clinical diagnostic tests for the early detection of cancer. The tiny particles glow and act as markers on cells and genes, giving scientists the ability to rapidly analyze biopsy tissue from cancer patients so that doctors can provide the most effective therapy available.
Nie, a chemist by training, is an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Eng
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