Two studies in this week’s issue of THE LANCET highlight how a new class of synthetic antithrombotic drug could be more effective than conventional therapy in reducing the risk of potentially fatal blood clots associated with hip-replacement surgery.
Between 16 and 30% of patients who undergo Hip-replacement surgery have a risk of developing deep-vein thrombosis (DVT)-even when anti-clotting agents such as heparin and warfarin are used. DVT from hip surgery can occasionally result in deat
People with liver cancer that cannot be treated with surgical resection or transplantation could have an increased two-year survival if they are given chemoembolisation-a procedure in which blood supply to the tumour combined with the effect of chemotherapy inhibits cancer growth.
There is no standard treatment for liver cancer when surgery, transplantation, or percutaneous treatment is not possible, which applies to around three-quarters of all liver cancer cases. Arterial embolisation-the
Scientists at UCL have developed a drug to treat a serious medical condition linked to Alzheimer`s disease and type 2 diabetes. The research, supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and reported in NATURE, is the culmination of 25 years of basic and clinical research and the UCL scientists hope that it may be the key to the treatment of other serious diseases.
Crucially, Professor Mark Pepys and his team have managed for the first time to remove from the human body a naturally occurr
A dose of heavy housework will meet new recommended targets for daily physical activity levels, but there is no evidence that it is good for health, finds research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Brisk walking is a much healthier option, shows the study.
Over the past 10 years, there has been shift in policy from recommending three bouts of vigorous exercise a week to more moderate activity that fits into a daily routine. This includes housework, gardening, and DIY, on t
New research published in BMC Molecular Biology explains how a new technique for introducing genes into mammalian cells using the virus responsible for warts could be a major step forward in developing gene therapy treatments for people with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a genetic disease that affects around 12 million people worldwide.
People with FH have a genetic defect that prevents their liver cells from absorbing chlolesterol in the form of low density lipoprotein (LDL). This lea
Researchers in the University of Warwick’s Molecular Medicine Research Centre have found the “Bin Laden” of cancer causing faulty proteins. They have undermined the old complex model of how many cancers start and identified a single protein known as c-Myc as a “mission-critical target for effective cancer therapies.”
Fighting cancer is similar to the war against terrorism. Current cancer models suggest that a network of several cell mutations is needed to begin a cancer. Both terrorism and c
Wound healing appears generally a banal event, but in a certain proportion of cases it evolves inappropriately in hypertrophic scars resulting in skin and organ deformations. This is due to an excess of wound contraction, a phenomenon that generally helps to close the wound. Hypertrophic scarring is observed frequently in burned patients.
For the past 30 years, Professor Giulio Gabbiani and his team are interested in the role of myofibroblasts in wound contraction. Myofibroblasts, specializ
A US study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET concludes that the antibiotic azithromycin is ineffective for treating bronchitis, even though it is often prescribed by physicians for this condition.
Azithromycin is an expensive, broad-spectrum antibiotic; there is limited evidence about its effectiveness in treating bronchitis. Arthur Evans and colleagues from Cook County Hospital, Chicago, USA, investigated whether people with bronchitis given azithromycin returned to work earlier, and had
The barrier that ‘good parents’ can provide for their children against the drugs culture is beginning to break down in cities where drugs are most freely available, researchers have found.
But the international study, led by Newcastle University in England, concluded that having a caring mother was the single most important factor in preventing youngsters from taking drugs.
The study, funded by the European Commission, found that 14 and 15 year-olds were far less likely to have drug
A team of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has cured mice with diabetes type 1 for the first time. In the experiment, the diabetic mice completely recovered from the disease after having suffered excesses of glucose in their blood. Although the mice used were transgenic, the researchers are sure that there will soon be a genic therapy based on this discovery that will cure non-transgenic mice with diabetes type 1, and which, within a few years, will also be able to cure pe
Work on developing a prototype wearable ’artificial pancreas’ to improve care and lifestyle for diabetic people is showing “very encouraging results” at City University, London.
The European Commission-funded project mimics the way that insulin is naturally delivered in the body and could mean that people with Type 1 diabetes – often babies and young children – could have their blood glucose levels much closer to normal than is currently possible.
“We have been developing
Researchers of the Hospital of San Sebastian and the Biomedicine Institute of Valencia have discovered the genetic basis of hereditary epilepsy. The work leaded by the researchers Adolfo Lopez de Munain and Jordi Perez Tur has analysed the effect of the gene called LGI1/Epitempina.
Temporal lateral epilepsy is the type of epilepsy that affects the side of the brain. The main characteristic of this type of epilepsy is that patients hear some noises before they lose consciousness. Many researc
Teaching mothers how to implement controlled crying techniques can reduce infant sleep problems and symptoms of postnatal depression, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Researchers at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia identified 156 mothers of infants aged 6-12 months with severe sleep problems.
Mothers in the intervention group received advice on the use of controlled crying methods. They also received a sleep management plan, information about normal sleep patte
The promising link between certain properties in human hair which could have potentially helped in diagnosis of breast cancer is “dubious” according to research published today in the Institute of Physics journal, Physics in Medicine and Biology. Dr Mark Sutton of the McGill University in Canada and colleagues have found no clear association between peaks seen in what is known as small angle x-ray scattering and the risk of breast cancer, as had been reported previously in the journal Nature (James e
The key role of computer technology in the fine-tuning of drug development and design will be considered by Professor Stephen Muggleton of Imperial College, London in his inaugural lecture, Models of Mind and Models of Body, today.
The new Professor of Bioinformatics in the Department of Computing will focus on how machine learning and logic programming can reduce the high costs of drug development in the pharmaceutical industry.
The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly overwhelm
Common viral infections in early childhood do not protect against allergy, concludes research in Thorax. If anything, the evidence points to an increased risk.
The findings contradict the increasingly popular if general theory that the rise in prevalence of allergies and asthma is partly attributable to the fact that children are less frequently exposed to viral infections early in life – the so-called ‘hygiene hypothesis.’
The research focused on 889 pregnant Danish women, who wer
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