More children are treated in the U.S. with antibiotics for inflammation of the middle ear, or otitis media, than any other child health problem. More than five million cases are diagnosed every year. But now, a scholarly review of over one hundred studies by a U.Va. pediatrician concludes that antibiotics help only one in eight children with ear infections.
Dr. J. Owen Hendley, professor of pediatrics and a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases, writes in the Oct. 10 edition of the Ne
NASA researchers are conducting Earth Science research that may one day allow public health officials to better track and predict the spread of West Nile Virus. NASA’s goal is to provide people on the front lines of public health with innovative technologies, data and a unique vantage point from space through satellites, all tailored into useful tools and databases for streamlining efforts to combat the disease.
NASA’s Public Health Applications Program focuses the results of research occu
Findings published in this month’s issue of Clinical Cancer Research and featured on the journal’s cover, may bring researchers one-step closer to the development of tumor markers to detect colon cancer early, before it has had a chance to spread and when it is easier to cure, say researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI). These tumor markers – elevated levels of proteins or other substances in the blood, urine or tissue that indicate the presence of cancer – als
Research to Aid Astronauts Also Could Help Bed-Ridden Patients on Earth
These boots weren’t made for walkin’, but “space boots” under development at the University of Houston may help astronauts stay healthy and readjust more quickly to walking again on terra firma.
University of Houston researchers have developed technology that could help combat the loss of muscle mass, strength and coordination experienced by astronauts during long-duration stints in microgravity. The sys
DBC2 gene missing or inactive in 60% of breast cancers examined
Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the University of Washington have discovered a new tumor suppressor gene that is missing or inactive in as many as 60% of breast cancers, and is also altered in lung cancer.
The discovery of the gene, called DBC2 (for deleted in breast cancer) is highly significant because DBC2 is among the first tumor suppressor genes to be clearly associated with sporadic breast
Cancer specialists will soon be able to compare mammograms with computerised images of breast-cancer from across Europe, in a bid to improve diagnosis and treatment. Researchers – including computer experts from the Complex Cooperative Systems Research Centre at the University of the West of England – have just received a grant of 1.9 million Euros (£1.2 million) from the European Union for the three-year project.
“Improving access to data on cancer could be highly relevant to the early det
Researchers have conducted the most definitive study of its kind to show that sleeping on the stomach increases the risk of U.S. infants for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Previously, researchers had relied largely on overseas studies for making the recommendation that infants be placed on the back to sleep in order to reduce their risk for SIDS.
The study focused primarily on SIDS cases among African Americans, a group at roughly twice the risk for SIDS than are Caucasians. The findin
Scientists are beginning to change their thinking about why the immune systems of most people infected with HIV cannot control the spread of the virus while the immune systems of a rare group of individuals, called long-term nonprogressors, can. For some time, scientists thought that people who could not control HIV had too few HIV-fighting white blood cells called CD8+ T cells. However, a new study suggests the difference is not the number but the quality of these cells: both nonprogressors and othe
Researchers receive grant to use robots to improve walking
Irvine, Calif. — Paralysis from spinal cord injury was significantly reversed by adding tiny nerves from the rib cage and mixing them with a powerful growth inducer found in most nerve cells, a UC Irvine and Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center study has found.
The study, conducted in rats, suggests that nerve cells can be inserted and stimulated to grow through damaged areas of the spinal cord, perhaps
Eye specialists at the University of Leicester are using a new technique of ‘lighting up the brain’ to investigate and understand eye diseases.
The Ulverscroft Foundation has funded a new five-year research post at the University to probe into the link between the eyes and the brain with a view to increasing knowledge about common eye problems and improving treatment for patients. The Foundation is a charity that the funds production of large print books for visually impaired people.
A new use of old technology could lead to handheld scanning diagnostic devices (as seen in Star Trek!) one day becoming a reality.
Writing in the October issue of Biologist, Steve Mitchell and colleagues (Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London) envisage a future where, ‘an entire individual could be quickly scanned using a handheld device. Extrapolating further, such a scan could provide a virtually instant readout of an individual’s biochemistry, revealing potential ill
Repeat bypass operations might soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new research by a team at St George`s Hospital Medical School in Tooting, London. The origins of diseased cells in vein grafts that form following heart bypass operations have been found for the first time using a new model. The discovery by Professor Xu and colleagues is published today in the journal, Circulation Research.
Every week around 15 people have heart bypass operations in St George`s Hospital alone. In each c
People with insulin-treated diabetes may soon be freed from the restrictive diet and regimented lifestyle usually associated with the condition
A study, funded by Diabetes UK and published in the British Medical Journal on Saturday 5 October 2002 [BMJ Volume 325] shows that a new flexible method of treating diabetes in the UK provides substantial benefits for quality of life without increasing health risk.
“DAFNE really does give the freedom to eat what you like, when you lik
Training patients with diabetes to adjust their insulin doses to match their food choices, improves diabetes control and quality of life, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
This approach has been developed in Germany, but has not been widely adopted elsewhere. Patients in the UK often have impaired quality of life and a high risk of diabetic complications. Researchers in Sheffield, London and North Tyneside set out to test this approach in the UK with the dose adjustment for normal eating (DA
In the Kenyan capital of Nairobi African and European researchers have launched an ambitious international `information mobilisation`-project to disclose the existing knowledge of useful plants of Tropical Africa. The PROTA Project (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) has been prepared by Wageningen University (the Netherlands), Agropolis in Montpellier (France), Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (United Kingdom) and six African institutes: Makerere University (Uganda), FORIG (Ghana), NHBGM (Malawi), PBZT (M
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Harvard University and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation have found a way to use a relatively new but readily available technology to quickly detect markers in the DNA of the most deadly type of malaria pathogen.
The technology could enable scientists and public health workers to identify the particular strain of malaria during an outbreak and determine if it is drug resistant or not.
“One of the reason
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