Newly diagnosed breast cancer patients who test positive for a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation are twice as likely to opt for bilateral or double mastectomy, taking the most aggressive surgical stance to treat their current cancer and reduce their risk for future breast cancer.

The study, led by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCCC) and published online today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, is the largest to date that evalua

Researchers in the University of Warwick’s Department of Biological Sciences have found that a hormone associated with obesity is actually also very active in the male genitals where it plays a key role in male fertility and may even influence the erection response in male sexual arousal.

The research, published today (Tuesday 6th April 2004) in the “Journal of Clinical and Endocrinology and Metabolism” focuses on a protein called orexin. Orexin is named after the Greek word for appetite as

It has long been the accepted view of cancer researchers that there is a difference between the mechanism behind the development of leukemias, on the one hand, and solid tumors like breast cancer, prostate cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, etc, on the other. A research team at the Section for Clinical Genetics at Lund University in Sweden is now claiming just the opposite: the same mechanism gives rise to all non-hereditary forms of cancer. These findings are being published in Nature Genetics.

Researchers from Finland have found that the antidepressant drug fluvoxamine (brand names Fevarin, Faverin, Luvox etc.) drastically increases the concentrations of tizanidine (Sirdalud, Zanaflex) in blood.

Concomitant use of fluvoxamine and tizanidine results in severe and prolonged decrease in blood pressure and greatly enhanced central nervous system effects. This previously unrecognised interaction can be dangerous, particularly in elderly patients, and the concomitant use of the two age

Just when you thought it was safe to go to bed, the bed-bug is returning to UK cities

Many urban infesting organisms are in decline. Worryingly, the bed-bug is bucking this trend. One London borough has seen infestations increase nearly ten-fold in the last ten years.

Bed-bugs are not known to spread any diseases, but their bites are a severe nuisance. Would you like to share your home with this ancient bedfellow? And the current trend is especially worrying to hoteliers (n

A team of researchers from the University Hospital of Grenoble (CHU – Inserm U647) and the ESRF1 has found a new treatment that improves the survival of rats with high-grade gliomas.

This research was carried out at the ESRF Medical Beamline. It showed that after a year of this treatment, three rats out of 10 were considered cured, whereas without treatment, all would be dead. The results have just been published in the scientific journal Cancer Research. A glioma is one of the most frequen

A gene-switching mechanism dating back 400 million years to the very first plants that made it onto land has been found by plant biologists at UC Davis. A family of genes required for stem and leaf development in flowering plants is controlled in the same way in everything from mosses to a Douglas fir, according to postdoctoral researcher Sandra Floyd and John Bowman, professor of plant biology at UC Davis.

The mechanism depends on microRNAs, short pieces of RNA that switch genes off by int

The work of two scientists over the last decade has almost doubled the number of described Australian semi-aquatic bug species.

With an estimated two thirds of Australia’s insects yet to be scientifically described, documenting and recording new species is no easy task.

Identifying the new species of semi-aquatic bugs saw Tom Weir, CSIRO Entomology, and Nils Andersen, Copenhagen University, examine more than 45,000 specimens from around Australia.

“Despite living on

Being exposed to high levels of ’second-hand’ smoke can reduce the speed at which wounds heal, leading to a lack of healing or greater levels of scarring. A study published in the journal BMC Cell Biology this week may begin to explain why: when cells are exposed to smoke, their ability to migrate towards the site of damage is compromised. The study, carried out by researchers from University of California, Riverside, examined the effects of ’second-hand’ smoke on fibroblasts, cells that pl

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center report that 20 percent of children with asthma do not get enough exercise, even though physical activities such as running and swimming have been shown to decrease the severity of asthma symptoms.

The report, published in the April issue of Pediatrics, shows that this physical inactivity is partly due to parents’ misconceptions that exercise poses a risk to asthmatic children.

The findings are based on the results of a t

The deadly virus HIV can mutate to prevent display of its components to immune cells, thus concealing itself from the body’s surveillance system and resulting in faster progression to AIDS, report Philip Goulder and colleagues in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. This has important implications for design of the long-sought-after vaccine for HIV.

When someone is infected with HIV, certain regions of viral proteins are chopped up and displayed by infected cells to their immune syste

Scientists have discovered why dendritic cell vaccines do not attack cancer as forcefully as expected, and they have demonstrated how to overcome this constraint by bolstering the vaccines’ tumor-seeking machinery.

The findings, published in the April 4, 2004, issue of Nature Immunology, present a novel method of equipping dendritic cells so they can activate the immune system to fight against cancers, said the researchers from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and the departments o

Duke University Medical Center researchers have created for the first time moving images of blood traveling through vessels, non-invasively and without the use of contrast agents or radiation. They used a novel application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.

Just as importantly, the researchers said, this technology can easily be applied to existing MRI machines, since the advances reported by the Duke team do not involve new hardware, but are rather the result of new conceptual

A major cause of patient pain and suffering and additional healthcare costs in hospitals and aged care facilities – pressure ulcers (bed sores)- can be more than halved by using a simple but effective bedding overlay product developed by CSIRO.

A recent ’randomised controlled trial’ (RCT) involving CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology, Deakin and Melbourne universities and Royal Melbourne, Fremantle and St Vincent’s hospitals, has confirmed that the Australian Medical Sheepskin

Scientists have discovered that the heart of a carp keeps beating when it is starved of oxygen for five days. “This is the first time that a vertebrate heart has been shown to survive such prolonged periods without oxygen and actually keep beating at the same rate as when oxygen is available” says Jonathan Stecyk (Simon Fraser University), presenting his latest results at the annual SEB meeting in Edinburgh this week.

“If I were to take oxygen away from your heart it would die in two minutes

Protein molecules that help maintain a healthy body temperature, electrolyte balance, respiration, heart rate, and other critical functions, also appear to regulate weight and fertility, according to Yale researchers.

STAT3 proteins are regulatory molecules that signal cell functions for activating genes. When the STAT3 molecules are disrupted in mice, the animals either die before they are born, or overeat and become obese, diabetic and infertile, according to the study published in the Pro