Image-guided radiofrequency ablation — using heat to destroy cancers — can preserve kidney function and avoid kidney dialysis for patients with solid renal tumors who are not surgical candidates, a new study indicates.

“We have been able to successfully destroy 50 out of 51 renal tumors in 32 patients,” says Michael Farrell, MD, consultant radiologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and the lead author of the study.

The easiest tumors to treat with radiofrequency ablation are th

For nine months before birth, infants soak in a watery, urine-filled environment. Just hours after birth, however, they have near-perfect skin. How is it that nature enables infants to develop ideal skin in such seemingly unsuitable surroundings?

A new study by researchers at the Skin Sciences Institute of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center shows that the answer may be vernix — the white, cheesy substance that coats infants for weeks before they are born, then is wiped off and d

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have cast doubt on the validity of the controversial theory of biological cold fusion, the principle sometimes used to lend credence to the practice of selling silicon tablets to strengthen bones, on the assumption that the body will turn the silicon into calcium.

Biological cold fusion, also known as the ‘Kervran effect’, is the principle that living organisms can act as alchemists and turn one element into another. The French Scientist, Louis C. Ke

The Genetic and Microbiological research group at the Navarre Public University is working with the Agruset company from Rioja in the production of new commercial varieties of the fungus oreille de chardon mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii). The same group has developed 150 new varieties of the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), which enhances the productivity and quality of the varieties of this fungus which are currently being commercialised.

Mushroom agreeable to the palate

Genetics may play a role in the success of anti-cancer therapy, according to researchers at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Sir Mortimer B. Davis – Jewish General Hospital. Their study, published in today’s issue of Clinical Cancer Research, shows that some colorectal cancer patients with a particular gene mutation respond much better to therapy than those without this genetic change.

“Our fin

Exactly how a person’s eyes respond to low levels of light is even more crucial than doctors have thought in deciding who is and who isn’t a good candidate to have laser vision correction surgery, according to results announced today at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in Ft. Lauderdale. The findings should help doctors choose patients who are likely to fare well with the surgery, and to forego recommending treatment for others.

In the earliest d

A research team led by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has tested a novel “viral smart bomb” therapy that can completely eradicate brain tumors in mice, while leaving normal brain tissue alone.

The therapy, known as Delta-24-RGD, is thought to be the first treatment for malignant glioma, the deadliest form of brain cancer. It is a new-generation “replication-competent oncolytic” adenovirus therapy –– defined as a therapeutic virus that can spread, wavelike, throughout a

A EUREKA funded project is making real progress in the fight against cancer of the large intestine. One of the three most common cancer types in western countries, cancer of the large intestine is also one of the hardest to diagnose. In 50 per cent of cases it is detected too late to be successfully treated with surgery. But EUREKA project GENEFEC has developed a new test which could save thousands of lives by detecting early signs of the disease.

The new DNA-based test, developed by Norweg

In photographs, it looks like a big red spaceship cruising the ocean depths. But it’s actually a new species of jelly that was discovered and described by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. MBARI scientists published their research on this unusual animal in a recent online version of the journal Marine Biology.

With a bell diameter of up to a meter wide, the new jelly, named Tiburonia granrojo or “big red,” would seem tough to miss, except that it lives deep below t

In studies that could be vital to an expanding field of industrial biotechnology, scientists at the Center for Biosystems Research are learning to censor what E.coli bacteria are ’talking’ about.

Cell-to-cell cross talking by laboratory E. coli strains engineered to produce antibiotics, industrial polymers or other products in fermentation vessels can lead to stress in the culture and severely limit product output. But scientists with CBR and partners have begun to decipher and over

(Landmark study on lowering the risk of CABG in high-risk patients reported at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery meeting)

NYU Medical Center’s cardiac surgeons Eugene Grossi, MD, and Aubrey Galloway, MD, announced new study findings demonstrating significantly lowered mortality, stroke, and overall risk of complications using off-pump coronary artery by-pass grafting (OPCAB) in high-risk patients. The findings were presented today during the Adult Cardiac Surgery Scienti

Maurizio Fava, an Italian physician migrated to the US, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and his collaborators at Massachusetts General Hospital present in the May-June 2003 issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics a revolutionary new design for clinical trials, the sequential parallel comparison model.

The placebo response is a major issue in clinical trials for psychiatric disorders. Possible contributing factors to this problem include diagnostic misclassification, iss

A new capsule that contains a microscopic camera and transmitter can create better pictures of the small bowel than standard x-ray procedures can, a new study shows. The capsule is easily swallowed by the patient, and there is no need for the patient to drink barium before the procedure.

The study, conducted by Sandor Joffe, MD, section head of abdominal imaging, and his colleagues at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, found that wireless capsule endoscopy was better able than a small

Interventional radiology procedures are effective in treating uterine fibroids in patients who have symptoms of the disease without causing infertility or premature menopause, a new study shows.

Uterine fibroids are nourished by blood, says Hyun S. “Kevin” Kim, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore and the lead author of the study. “We found that if we block the uterine and ovarian arteries feeding the fibroid, the patients symptoms are relieved,” he says. The arteries are

Enhances Potential for Future Development of B-Cell Based Therapy for Lupus

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego—supported by the Alliance for Lupus Research and the National Institutes of Health—have for the first time described a method that Staphylococcus aureus (staph) infection uses to inactivate the body’s immune system. A protein produced by the staph bacteria causes previously healthy B cells—a specialized cell of the immune system—to commit suicide, a proce

Protein plays role in inherited cancer syndrome, may be key to other tumors

A research team based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified a key cellular function of a protein known to be involved in the rare genetic disorder neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). The protein, called merlin, plays a key role in cell-to-cell communication and may be involved in other types of cancer. The discovery also may support the theory that some tumors are destined to spread or metastasize