Computed tomographic colonography (CTC) depicts cancers and other clinically important conditions that would be missed with standard colonoscopy and at very little additional cost, according to a study in the August issue of Radiology.

“The chance of finding cancer outside the colon may be as significant as the chance of finding cancer inside the colon,” said Judy Yee, M.D., Chief of Radiology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and associate professor and Vice Chair of ra

Research into a new treatment for nerve damage caused by diabetes could bring relief to millions of diabetic patients, say experts.

The treatment might also reduce the number of amputations of toes and feet if early effects on nerve protection and regeneration are borne out long-term. Nerve disease in diabetes is the major cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputations in Europe and North America.

Scientists at the University of Manchester, working with colleagues at Am

A team of scientists has discovered three molecules –– from a search of 58,000 compounds –– that appear to inhibit a key perpetrator of Alzheimer’s disease.

Each of the three molecules protects the protein called “tau,” which becomes hopelessly tangled in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s. The finding is promising news for the development of drugs for the disease.

Ken Kosik, co-director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at the University of California, Sa

Variations in transforming growth factor beta receptor Type II can damage main artery

Scientists have identified the first genetic mutations that cause the aorta – the body’s main artery – to widen, tear and rupture.

Published online by Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the findings of a team led by University of Texas Medical School at Houston researchers shed new light on the molecular causes of thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections. T

High expression of TRAIL-R2, a cell surface receptor that triggers cell death, has been shown to be associated with a decrease the survival rates of breast cancer patients according to a study published by Yale Cancer Center researchers in Clinical Cancer Research.

Analyzing 20-year follow-up data from breast cancer patients, using an automated quantitative analysis system (AQUATM) to review tissue microarray specimens, the researchers identified increased intensity of TRAIL recep

New gene plays central role in plant architecture and crop domestication

In 1909, while harvesting a typical corn crop (Zea mays) in Illinois, a field worker noticed a plant so unusual that it was initially believed to be a new species. Its “peculiarly shaped ear” was “laid aside as a curiosity” and the specimen was designated Zea ramosa (from the Latin ramosus, “having many branches”). Due to the alteration of a single gene, later named ramosa1, both the ear and the tassel of th

Although domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) possess an otherwise functional sense of taste, they, unlike most mammals, do not prefer and may be unable to detect the sweetness of sugars. One possible explanation for this behavior is that cats lack the sensory system to taste sugars and therefore are indifferent to them. Drawing on work in mice, demonstrating that alleles of sweet-receptor genes predict low sugar intake, we examined the possibility that genes involved in the initial transduction of

From thousands of genes to a single compelling new target

It started several years ago with the observation that a large group of seemingly unconnected genes were behaving differently in patients with stomach cancer. Now a multi-national research team led by the Melbourne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) has joined the proverbial dots and identified a potential new target for stomach cancer therapy, according to a paper published today in the prestigious

University of Colorado at Boulder scientists have used a fluorescent marker to predict the individual life spans of identical worms that were genetically engineered to illuminate stress levels, implying living organisms have “hidden physiological states” that dictate their ability to deal with the rigors of life.

According to CU-Boulder Research Associate Shane Rea, the genetically identical nematodes were engineered with a green fluorescent “reporter” protein coupled to a st

A mechanism that lets herpes simplex virus infect most cells — and 45 million Americans — is discovered

It’s one of the most common viruses in America, and one that causes the most guilt and shame. It can get inside almost any kind of human cell, reproduce in vast numbers, and linger for years in the body, causing everything from recurrent genital blisters to sores around the mouth. Its complications can kill, and it may increase susceptibility to many nerve and brain disor

Gender May Play Role in Disease

Researchers from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center found that plaques and tangles in the brain, the changes seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), are more likely to be expressed as dementia in women than in men.

In the June 2005 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, “Sex Differences in the Clinical Manifestations of Alzheimer Disease Pathology,” principal investigator Lisa L. Barnes, PhD, sought to determine whether

Patients hospitalised because of pneumonia are at less risk of dying from the disease if they have been taking the widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs ’statins’ before hospital admission. These results, published today in the Open Access journal Respiratory Research, suggest another beneficial use of statins, which are prescribed to an increasing number of patients to prevent and treat high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and vascular disease.

Pneumonia is the seventh

Half of New York City residents over 50, the age at which the American Cancer Society recommends beginning screening tests, have not received a colon cancer-screening test within the recommended time intervals, according to a new study. The report, published in the September 1, 2005 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, says those New Yorkers least likely to have received screening include those with low-income, the uninsured, Asians and current smokers.

Researchers at the University of Dundee have developed new technology which could revolutionise the treatment of middle ear problems.

A team led by Professor Eric Abel have created the SMARTFIT system, a radically new approach to the design of ossicular replacement prostheses (the tiny bones in the ear), which aims to be the first commercial product to give a genuine replication of the physiological function of the middle ear.

“Hearing loss affects a large number of p

Cholesterol-lowering statin therapy may improve survival in patients with diastolic heart failure (DHF) according to a paper published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association by cardiologists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Currently, there are no treatments shown to improve survival in these patients, who make up about 40 percent of all heart failure cases. Systolic heart failure patients have hearts that don’t pump out enough blood. I

There is a lot of indirect evidence that microbial infections can initiate and/or worsen autoimmune disease. Autoantibody production during infection results from activation of low-affinity autoreactive B cells. But how this could lead to autoimmune disease is not clear.

In a study appearing online on July 21 in advance of print publication of the August 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Thierry Martin and colleagues from INSERM show in vivo that an experimental infectious