Health News

New study reveals cost savings for those who need surgery for ACL injury

Date: Oct-04-2013
In late summer and early fall when youth and college sports begin, it's a similar refrain: a star on the varsity basketball team tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and is out for the season after surgery. A college football game stopped as a defensive safety hobbles off the field with an ACL injury. Annually in the U.S., more than 200,000 ACL injuries are reported, often by active young adult and adolescent athletes, though they can occur at any age...

Surgery may be an effective treatment option for older epilepsy patients

Date: Oct-04-2013
A recently published study by researchers from Spectrum Health and Henry Ford Hospital suggests that surgery may be an effective treatment for epilepsy in older patients, a finding that runs counter to conventional treatment methods. "Traditionally, there has been a tendency to exclude older patients from surgery for fear of increased risk of medical or surgical complications," said Spectrum Health Medical Group neurosurgeon Sanjay Patra, MD, lead author of the study. "This study provides evidence that surgery may instead be a viable and effective treatment option...

New imaging system helps engineers diagnose disease, monitor hazardous substances

Date: Oct-04-2013
For hundreds of years, optical devices like telescopes and microscopes have relied on solid lenses that slide up and down to magnify and to focus. To tune how much light is received, conventional devices use mechanical contraptions like the blades that form the adjustable aperture in cameras. To meet demands for ever smaller imaging systems, researchers are working to create entirely unconventional ways of focusing light...

Scientists regenerate fully functional tear and saliva glands

Date: Oct-04-2013
Scientists from Japan have regenerated fully functioning bioengineered salivary and tear glands, according to two reviews published in the journal Nature Communications. Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science, led by professor Takashi Tsuji, say their findings demonstrate proof-of-concept and indicate a big step toward next-generation organ replacement regenerative therapies, helping people whose organs have been damaged by disease, injury or aging...

Validated novel risk score developed to predict new onset end-stage renal disease

Date: Oct-04-2013
End-stage renal disease is one of the major public health problems among solid organ transplant recipients that is associated with death after transplant and high cost of care. Using the national data of 43,514 liver transplant recipients, researchers at University of Michigan researchers in collaboration with Arbor Research Collaborative for Health created and validated a risk score called renal risk index based upon the liver transplant recipient's characteristics at the time of transplant to predict the post- transplant end stage renal disease...

Researchers study the dangers of the fake marijuana called 'Spice' or 'K2'

Date: Oct-04-2013
The harmful effects of increasingly popular designer cannabis products called "Spice" or "K2" have puzzled scientists for years, but now a group of researchers is reporting progress toward understanding what makes them so toxic. The study, published in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry, describes development of a method that could someday help physicians diagnose and treat the thousands of young adults and teens who end up in emergency rooms after taking the drugs...

Reprogrammed E. coli helps combat hard-to-treat bacterial infections

Date: Oct-04-2013
The notorious bacteria E. coli is best known for making people sick, but scientists have reprogrammed the microbe - which also comes in harmless varieties - to make it seek out and fight other disease-causing pathogens. The researchers' report appears in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology and describes development of this new type of E. coli that can even kill off slimy groups of bacteria called biofilms that are responsible for many hard-to-treat infections, such as those that take hold in the lungs, the bladder and on implanted medical devices...

Biomarkers help predict outcome in deadly lung disease

Date: Oct-04-2013
A Yale-led study has identified a gene expression profile that can predict outcomes and lead to better treatment for one of the most lethal lung diseases, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The study appears in Science Translational Medicine. IPF causes progressive scarring of the lungs, leading to cough, shortness of breath, and potentially death. In most cases, the cause cannot be identified, and there is no cure other than a lung transplant. While some patients experience a progressive course that leads to death within one to two years, others experience a relative stable disease...

Discovery of insect DEET receptors has large implications for controlling insect-borne diseases worldwide

Date: Oct-04-2013
Insects are repelled by N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide, also known as DEET. But exactly which olfactory receptors insects use to sense DEET has eluded scientists for long. Now researchers at the University of California, Riverside have identified these DEET-detecting olfactory receptors that cause the repellency - a major breakthrough in the field of olfaction. Further, the team of researchers has identified three safe compounds that mimic DEET and could one day be used to prevent the transmission of deadly vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, and yellow fever...

Many patients suffer long-term cognitive impairment after critical illness

Date: Oct-04-2013
Patients treated in intensive care units across the globe are entering their medical care with no evidence of cognitive impairment but oftentimes leaving with deficits similar to those seen in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) or mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) that persists for at least a year, according to a Vanderbilt study published in the New England Journal of Medicine...