Strategy effective against drug resistant tuberculosis
Directly observed therapy (DOTS) - the main strategy for tuberculosis control- can rapidly reduce the transmission and incidence of the drug resistant form of the disease, concludes a study published in this week's issue of THE LANCET....... The DOTS strategy for tuberculosis includes a short-course chemotherapy with combinations of first-line drugs. There is growing concern about current and fut...New study in 'Nature' demonstrates protection against cell death during heart attack
CINCINNATI -- A new study, conducted at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and published in the journal , has uncovered a fundamental mechanism by which cells die a finding that could quickly lead to improved emergency treatments for heart attack and stroke....... The Cincinnati Children's researchers discovered that blocking a particular protein in mice protects the heart from injur...Geodon effective in psychiatric emergencies; Sharply reduces time in restraints
STONY BROOK, NY, March 30, 2005 ---- A study conducted under real-world, Emergency Department conditions by researchers at Stony Brook University Hospital has found that the injectable form of the second generation antipsychotic Geodon (ziprasidone) effectively calms the most severely agitated patients. The results, published in the current issue of General Hospital Psychiatry, also suggest that...Primary care office strategies may increase colon cancer screening
CHICAGO Patients are more likely to receive colorectal cancer screening when primary care practices use an office systems approach, according to an article in the March 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ... ...Screenings for colorectal cancer (CRC) reduce its incidence and mortality from the disease, according to background information in the article....Organizational traits associated with quality patient care are essential to home care nursing
NEWARK, N.J. Organizational traits that support hospital-based nurses' efforts to provide high quality patient care and enhance their job satisfaction are also essential to home care nursing, according to a study conducted by a Rutgers College of Nursing faculty member. ...This is the first step towards researching the impact of the nurse work environment on patient care outside of hospital set...RIT takes eye-tracking research to next level
How do we use our eyes to perceive the world? Could eye movements be windows into human cognition? ... Scientist Jeff Pelz thinks so. The director of the Visual Perception Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology studies the link between eye movements and cognition. His latest research, in collaboration with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), focuses on how deaf student...New studies suggest airborne SARS transmission is possible
Two new studies present evidence that the virus causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) may spread through the air, not just through direct contact with contaminated water droplets as previous research had shown....... SARS coronavirus was detected in the air in a patient's room during the 2003 outbreak in Toronto, according to a new study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases....Yale technology translates to sonic golf training tool
New Haven, Conn. -- , has combined his passion for golf and his professional expertise to produce a unique and effective realtime audio biofeedback device for teaching and training golf....... Grober developed a golf club that has motiondetecting sensors, similar to those used for safety airbag deployment in cars, embedded in the shaft. Sonic Golf's unique feature is the use of realtime audio fe...Success of liver transplantation may be most influenced by three risk factors
CHICAGO Three risk factors: donor age; the length of time an organ is cooled between procurement and transplantation; and how urgently the recipient needs the transplant; have the greatest impact on patient and graft survival rates for liver transplantation, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ...... Almost 2,000 people with end-s...Tracking trends in cochlear implant complications using a federal database
CHICAGO Changes in the format of a federal database for mandatory reporting of major and minor complications for medical devices, including cochlear implants, could make it a valuable resource, according to an article in the March issue of , one of the JAMA/Archives journals.... ...Although cochlear implants (medical devices that bypass damaged structures in the inner ear and directly stimulate...New technique shows promise for improved straightening of crooked nose
CHICAGO A surgical technique offers improved outcomes for straightening the middle third of the nose, a difficult to manage deformity, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals....... Straightening the crooked middle third of the nose, a deformity that compromises both appearance and the airway, can be a significant recons...Traffic fumes damage DNA, finds a small study in Occupational and Environmental Medicine....... To gauge the levels of exposure to traffic fumes, the research team assessed the amount of a chemical called 1-OHPG in the urine of 47 female motorway toll-booth operators and 27 female office workers....... The 20 toll booths were located on a motorway 10 km south of Taipei, Taiwan, and have the highe...Alcohol relapse adversely affects 10-year liver transplant survival
A new study on how alcohol relapse affects survival rates after liver transplants found that it adversely affected survival rates only after 10 years. The decrease in survival rates may, however, be due to other alcohol-related diseases.... ...The results of this study appear in the April 2005 issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver...Donor age has no affect on long-term liver transplant survival
A new study on the effect of donor age on survival and recurrence of hepatitis C after liver transplantation found that it influenced short-term survival, but had no long-term effect.... ...The results of this study appear in the April 2005 issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplan...Obtaining patient consent for clinical audit is unworkable without extra resources
Obtaining signed patient consent for audit purposes is difficult and is unlikely to be successful unless extra resources are made available, finds a study published online by the BMJ today....... The 1998 Data Protection Act strengthened controls on the use of personal data, but the Health and Social Care Act 2001 allows patient identifiable information to be made available in certain circumstanc...New ways to design safer & more effective topical (transdermal) drug delivery announced in the PNAS
Santa Barbara, Calif. March 14, 2005 In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( ), a group of researchers led by Samir Mitragotri, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, reports the identification of fundamental mechanisms that may facilitate the design of safer and more efficacious topical drug delivery systems. .....Brain imaging reveals secrets of love, fear and betrayal
An unusual lecture highlighting the fascinating insights which brain imaging gives to the workings of the human mind is being hosted by the University of Edinburgh tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 March). The lecture, given by University of Oxford neuroscientist Professor Paul Mathews, will illuminate the parallels between the works of Shakespeare and the current search by experts to uncover the secrets of...HIV-1 spread through six transmission lines in the UK
Contrary to the prevailing belief that the HIV epidemic in the UK can be traced back to one source, a new study suggests that HIV spread via at least six independent virus introductions and subsequent transmission chains. The findings, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also suggest that antiviral therapy has not had a significant impact on the g...Orchestra pit no danger to hearing
While the clang of cymbals and the blare of the trombone may startle, orchestra musicians at the Canadian Opera Company needn't worry about hearing loss, say University of Toronto researchers....... A study in the February online version of Applied Acoustics settles a long-standing debate as to whether playing in the pit causes hearing loss. While most studies have tested noise level in concert h...Teen tooth trauma prevalent in Ontario
Nearly one in five Ontario Grade 8 students shows evidence of damage to his or her front teeth, says a new University of Toronto study....... This is the first study of dental injury done in Ontario, says David Locker, a professor with the U of T Faculty of Dentistry. Similar studies have been done in other countries because tooth trauma is considered one of the most severe conditions children ca...Medical molecules designed to respond to visible light that can penetrate tissue
Blacksburg, Va. -- If you have ever covered a flashlight with your hand and seen the red light that still comes through, then you have seen light in the therapeutic window that magic wavelength that is not absorbed or reflected away by tissue. Scientists believe that they can use light at that wavelength to signal manmade molecules to release drugs at disease sites in the body.... ...Such possib...Age shouldn't be a factor in kidney transplantation
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Growing evidence suggests that age alone shouldn't prevent older adults from being organ donors or having a kidney transplant themselves according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The findings could help alleviate a serious shortage of organs for transplantation....... A study of 144 kidney transplants found that at least a year after surgery...Cornea transplants can be improved
CLEVELAND: Improving the training and standardizing the procedures used by the nation's eye banks to assess corneal cells may help to select corneas with optimal health for transplantation, according to new study led by Jonathan H. Lass, MD, principal investigator of the study and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University...Aircraft cabin ventilation influences the transmission of diseases in-flight
Increasing ventilation within aircraft cabins can reduce the spread of infectious diseases in-flight, suggests a review published in this week's issue of THE LANCET....... Mark Gendreau (Lahey Clinic Medical Centre, MA, USA) and colleagues reviewed data from studies looking at the transmission of diseases during commercial air travel. They found that while commercial airlines are a suitable envi...Violence exposure and traumatic stress reactions can lead to poor health in children
The link between health problems and children in low income, single-mother families is not surprising; these children are also more apt to be exposed to violence and maltreatment within the community and their families. A study in the March issue of examines whether traumatic stress reactions in children due to these adverse childhood experiences also play a role in predicting their health.......Potential treatment for Fragile X Syndrome demonstrated in fruit fly model
(Philadelphia) - Fragile X Syndrome is one of the most commonly inherited forms of mental retardation, with an incidence of 1 in 4,000 males and 1 in 8,000 females. Not many medications exist to help Fragile X patients. Now, in a fruit fly model of the disease, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and their colleagues have shown that it is possible to reverse some of...Both inherited traits and tumor mutations affect response to treatment of leukemia
The outcome of chemotherapy treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) depends not only on the acquired genetic make-up of the leukemic cells, but on genes that children inherit from their parents. This study, from investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is published in the online edition of Blood.... The study provides strong evidence that it might be possible to design ALL...New laparoscopic hysterectomy offers quicker recovery time than traditional surgery
DALLAS March 1, 2005 More than 600,000 hysterectomies are performed every year in the United States at a cost of $5 billion, which doesn't take into account the 144 million work hours lost to the average six-week recovery time. Billie Williams of Grapevine had been considering having one for years, but major surgery and a long convalescence didn't fit with her plans. ... ... She eventually opte...Training could remove racial bias from police reactions
Racial biases in a police officer's response to criminal suspects, although present among some officers, are not inevitable. A study publishing in the latest issue of Psychological Science finds that extensive training with a computer simulation where the race of a suspect is unrelated to the presence of a weapon can eliminate racial bias. Fifty police officers from Florida with two to thirty y...Promising new strategy for Swedish medical research
Research scientists at Karolinska Institutet are planning an international initiative to map out the relationships between health, genes and lifestyle. Discussion partners include world-leading researchers from the USA, Britain, Singapore and Norway....... The project has the working title "LifeGene". If realised, it could be classed as one of the largest and most comprehensive medical projects s...More training needed to care for growing geriatric population
CINCINNATI--The changing medical needs of the growing 65-and-over population in the United States are not being met by current medical education, University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers warn. ......What is required, they say, is more standardized geriatric training across all medical specialties. ......An article in the March 2005 issue of Academic Medicine says older adults are making more vis...Study documents initial differences in sexual transmission of HIV between males and females
A genetic analysis of viral RNA from 10 heterosexual couples, in which one partner has sexually transmitted HIV to the other, provides the first documentation of some differences in how the virus infects males and females. According to the Hopkins researchers who led the study, this initial research is essential to understanding why these differences occur and for future development of a vaccine...Investigational transplant drug effectively preserves kidneys while avoiding toxic side effects
ATLANTA Physician-researchers at Emory University in Atlanta have shown an investigational medication, known as LEA29Y (belatacept), is effective in preserving transplanted kidney function while at the same time avoiding the toxic side effects that are common in the currently used long-term, immunosuppressive transplant medications. The pre-clinical research conducted with nonhuman primates at t...High-intensity ultrasound creates hollow nanospheres and nanocrystals
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Using high-intensity ultrasound, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created hollow nanospheres and the first hollow nanocrystals. The nanospheres could be used in microelectronics, drug delivery and as catalysts for making environmentally friendly fuels.... "We use high-intensity ultrasound to generate nanoparticles of molybdenum disulfide or mol...Diagnosis of prions in patients should utilize novel strategy, team says
A technique for detecting prions in tissue, developed in recent years by UCSF scientists, is significantly more sensitive than the diagnostic procedures currently used to detect the lethal particles in samples of brain tissue from patients, according to a study performed by a UCSF team....... The finding indicates that the diagnostic technique, known as the conformation-dependent immunoassay (CDI...Hard choices: Pitt researcher presents findings on when to accept organ transplants
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 19 -- A transplant is the only option for someone with end-stage liver disease, but patients face difficult questions when choosing the best time to receive a transplant. Today, in a panel discussion at the 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., a University of Pittsburgh researcher will present findings on how his math...Biochemical marker aids prognosis in liver transplant patients
A new study on whether the model used to identify patients most in need of a liver transplant can be improved upon found that measuring serum sodium in potential transplant patients helps to better predict those with a poor prognosis....... The results of this study appear in the March 2005 issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Dis...Female sex hormones play a vital role in defense against sexually transmitted diseases
Hamilton, Ontario (February 16, 2005) Two McMaster University studies, to be published in the Journal of Virology, show that sex hormones have a profound effect on susceptibility of female mice to the herpes simplex virus, type 2 (HSV-2 ), one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. ...... Charu Kaushic, assistant professor and supervisor of the studies, says the implication of this w...'Marital strain' increases women's risk of death, heart disease
ORLANDO, Feb. 17 Married women who avoid conflict with their spouses have an increased risk of dying from any cause, researchers report today at the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease and Stroke.... Researchers also found that men whose wives' come home upset with work outside the home have an increased risk of developing heart disease.... Researchers examined information...AstraZeneca submits regulatory application in Europe for use of Atacand(R) in heart failure
Mlndal, Sweden, 7 April AstraZeneca today announced the submission of a regulatory application in the European Union (EU), as part of the Mutual Recognition Variation Procedure to obtain a new indication for Atacand (candesartan cilexetil), its angiotensin II type 1 (AT1) receptor blocker, for use in the treatment of heart failure. The UK acts as the RMS (Reference Member State). Further filings...