The number of hospitalizations for heart failure is about the same as for acute myocardial infarction.

Our knowledge over acute heart failure patients treated at hospitals for heart failure is based on surveys. In Europe the information is still scarce but emerging especially through the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Euroheart survey program.

In the Euroheart Heart Failure I survey performed in 2000, which collected information from 10701 patients treated by heart f

During the last decade, cardiac resynchronization, as adjunctive therapy for patients with severe chronic heart failure has been the subject of many clinical trials. From its inception, although the idea of resynchronization had numerous supporters, chiefly those involved in pacing, while there were also a hardly insignificant number of skeptics.

The first encouraging results of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) application were supported in studies that evaluated the hemodynamic benef

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is common, deadly, disabling, costly but fortunately – treatable. During the last ten to 15 years, treatment of CHF has been dramatically improved by pharmacological therapy and devices. Treatment also has become more complicated. The Guidelines are intended as a support for practising physicians and other health care professionals as most patients with CHF are treated by non-cardiologists. Heart failure clinics are common in Scandinavia with specialized nurses managing pa

Scientists at the University of Liverpool are leading a major European clinical engineering project that should see human tissue grown from stem cells available for transplant in the next four years.

Scientists will develop the technology to target heart failure, diabetes, chronic ulcers and neurodegenerative diseases in particular.

The £17million project, funded by the European Commission and led by the University of Liverpool and Italian pharmaceutical company Fidia,

A US Army lab found dehydration has a minimal effect in the cold, but cuts performance by 8% in temperate weather. It’s the difference between a 2 hour-30 minute and a 2:42 marathon. Plus, five “common sense” tips on hydration, exercise and weather

Dehydration has minimal effect in cold, but cuts performance by 8% as temperature rises; the difference between a 2:30 and a 2:42 marathon

Common sense” tips on hydration

For over 20 years, the U.S. Army Research I

Percutaneous aortic valve replacement is becoming a reality and brings new hope for a number of patients who cannot currently be treated with traditional surgical techniques.

Whereas surgical valve replacement concerns about 200,000 patients worldwide every year, it is estimated that between 1/3 (Iung et al, Euro Heart Survey, 2003) and 2/3 (Rambas Pai, USC AHA 2004) of patients do not receive surgery due to either excessive risk factors and comorbidities or patient refusal due to

The ”four-legged fish” Ichthyostega is not the ”missing link” between marine and land animals, but rather one of several short-lived ”experiments”. This is what scientists from Uppsala and Cambridge universities maintain in an article in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature.

The ”four-legged fish” Ichthyostega lived in Greenland during the Devon Period, some 355 million years ago, and is one of the very oldest land vertebrates. Since it was discovered back in the 1

The FANTOM Consortium for Genome Exploration Research Group and Karolinska Institutet announce the publication of “Antisense Transcription in the Mammalian Genome” in Science, September 2nd 2005.

It has been known for over half a century that our genetic material occurs as a double strand of DNA molecules. Only one of these strands – the so-called sense strand – encodes for proteins, the building blocks of our cells that in turn make up our bodies. Then what about the other DN

Editor’s Pick

Bacterial meningitis is the most common nervous system infection and a major cause of childhood death. In a new study appearing in the September 1 print issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Kelly Doran and colleagues from UCSD investigate the mechanisms responsible for the penetration of the human blood-brain barrier (BBB) by Group B Streptococcus (GBS), the bacteria that causes meningitis in newborn infants.

The authors find a novel GBS gene, called iagA

Could be target to block CNS infection

A single molecular anchor that allows bacteria to invade the nervous system may hold the key to treating many types of bacterial meningitis, a University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine study has found.

By blocking the molecule’s anchoring ability, researchers may be able to find a way to stave off the most common serious infection of the central nervous system and a major cause of childhood death and disa

Scientists at Scripps Research and GNF demonstrate power of new generalized screen to find function of noncoding RNAs

A team of investigators at The Scripps Research Institute and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) have discovered a way to screen hundreds and potentially thousands of “noncoding” RNA molecules to discover their functions within cells.

Unlike traditional RNA, which is copied from DNA to code for a protein, these noncodi

Scripps Florida professor Claes Wahlestedt describes startling results of massive project

The FANTOM Consortium for Genome Exploration Research Group, a large international collection of scientists that includes researchers at The Scripps Research Institute’s Florida campus, is reporting the results of a massive multi-year project to map the mammalian “transcriptome” in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

The transcriptome, or transcriptional landscape as it is s

Prostate cancer is a cruel disease. Left untreated, prostate cancer cells often metastasize, or spread, to bone where they form fracture-prone tumors that are extremely painful.

More than 80 percent of men who die from prostate cancer die with metastatic disease in their bones. But scientists know very little about how migrating prostate cancer cells set up housekeeping in bone tissue and produce the dense bony lesions characteristic of prostate cancer.

Now, new research

Holds promise for treating eye disease and cancer and for healing injuries

Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute have discovered that a particular immune cell contributes to the growth of new lymph vessels, which aid in healing. This cell, known as a macrophage, is called in by the body during the wound healing process. The discovery of this new role for the macrophage, published in the September 2005 Journal of Clinical Investigation, may ultimately inspire innovative t

Thanks to the doggedness of a Cornell University marine biologist, researchers have discovered that one of Maine’s most important fishing areas has been invaded by an alien tunicate, or sea squirt, that could threaten the commercial fishing industry there.

A rapid assessment survey for marine invasive species in Cobscook Bay in August found a type of sea squirt — Didemnum sp. — that can damage ocean floor habitats and commercial species that live there. The survey was conceived

Scientists from the University of Delaware have made a significant advance in the study of small ribonucleic acids (RNAs), discovering 10 times more small RNAs in the plant Arabidopsis (a weed of the mustard family) than previously had been identified. The advance is reported in the Sept. 2 issue of Science magazine.

The research was conducted over the course of the last year and a half by teams from the laboratories headed by Pamela J. Green, Crawford H. Greenewalt Endowed Chair