Health News

NEJM publishes Takeda EXAMINE cardiovascular safety outcomes trial in type 2 diabetes patients

Date: Sep-04-2013
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Takeda) has announced results of the EXAMINE (EXamination of CArdiovascular OutcoMes: AlogliptIN vs. Standard of CarE in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Acute Coronary Syndrome) cardiovascular (CV) safety outcomes trial, showing the primary endpoint of non-inferiority compared to placebo in addition to standard of care was met with no increase in CV risk in a Type 2 diabetes patient population at high-risk for CV events...

Reducing pancreatic cancer diagnoses via emergency admission could significantly improve survival, UK

Date: Sep-04-2013
National charity Pancreatic Cancer UK has released research[i] that shows if pancreatic cancer diagnoses as a result of emergency presentation were reduced to 25 per cent, and these patients were diagnosed via the Two Week Wait route, as many as 150 additional patients would survive for a year or longer. Even a modest reduction of 10 per cent would mean an increase of 50 additional pancreatic cancer patients surviving one year or more.  The research has been published in the charity's new report, Every Life Matters: the real cost of pancreatic cancer diagnoses via emergency admission...

Phone app helps doctors make right call in treating heart patients

Date: Sep-04-2013
A smart phone app could help doctors more easily identify patients who are at risk of dying within three years a heart attack. The app will help doctors, nurses or paramedics quickly calculate the severity of a patient's condition and help them offer the most appropriate immediate and long-term treatments. The speed and versatility of the device, which was developed by the Universities of Edinburgh and Massachusetts, will help doctors decide if a patient needs to be transferred to a specialist cardiac centre...

Airedale & Involve shares telemedicine success at global event

Date: Sep-04-2013
Positive findings of a study on how telemedicine could help keep people with long-term health conditions out of hospital were revealed to delegates at a think tank world-wide conference. Consultant Dr Richard Pope presented the results of delivering care using secure video links to manage chronic illness effectively at the Kings Fund Third Annual International Congress on Telehealth and Telecare 2013 on behalf of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust in London...

Scientists identify key predictors of death and transplantation in children with heart muscle disease

Date: Sep-04-2013
US scientists have identified key risk factors that predict which children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the most common cause of sudden death in young people, are at greatest risk of death or need for heart transplant - information that could help physicians figure out who will benefit most from transplant surgery...

TAVI is safe alternative to redo cardiac surgery

Date: Sep-04-2013
Use of bioprosthetic heart valves has dramatically increased (from 18% in 1991 to 59% in 2003), mainly in older patients with comorbidities. This is due to the increased risk of bleeding complications associated with lifelong use of anticoagulation for mechanical prostheses. But structural valve deterioration is one the main complications associated with bioprosthetic heart valves. In large registries including more than 300 000 patients undergoing aortic valve replacement the reoperation rate for patients receiving a bioprosthesis was 3.1% at 11-13 years of follow-up compared with 2...

Research identifies how mouth cells resist Candida infection

Date: Sep-04-2013
Candida albicans is a common fungus found living in, and on, many parts of the human body. Usually this species causes no harm to humans unless it can breach the body's immune defences, where can lead to serious illness or death. It is known as an opportunistic pathogen that can colonise and infect individuals with a compromised immune system. New research, presented at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference, gives us a greater understanding of how mucosal surfaces in the body respond to C. albicans to prevent damage being done during infection...

UI study shows fruit fly is ideal model to study hearing loss in people

Date: Sep-04-2013
If your attendance at too many rock concerts has impaired your hearing, listen up. University of Iowa researchers say that the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an ideal model to study hearing loss in humans caused by loud noise. The reason: The molecular underpinnings to its hearing are roughly the same as with people...

Primate calls, like human speech, can help infants form categories

Date: Sep-04-2013
Human infants' responses to the vocalizations of non-human primates shed light on the developmental origin of a crucial link between human language and core cognitive capacities, a new study reports. Previous studies have shown that even in infants too young to speak, listening to human speech supports core cognitive processes, including the formation of object categories...

Metabolically healthy women have same CVD risk regardless of BMI

Date: Sep-04-2013
Metabolically healthy women have the same cardiovascular disease risk regardless of their BMI, according to research presented at the ESC Congress today by Dr Søren Skøtt Andersen and Dr Michelle Schmiegelow from Denmark. The findings in more than 260,000 subjects suggest that obese women have a window of opportunity to lose weight and avoid developing a metabolic disorder, which would increase their CVD risk...