Health News

One of the first MRI-safe devices for pain, implanted by Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center

Date: Aug-08-2013
Neurosurgeons at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are among the first in the United States to successfully implant an MRI-safe spinal cord stimulator to help patients suffering from chronic back or limb pain. Neurosurgeons Dr. Ali Rezai and Dr. Milind Deogaonkar performed the surgery Aug. 5 to help relieve intense foot pain due to a peripheral neuropathy that 78-year-old John Garvin of Worthington, Ohio, has suffered for more than 20 years...

"Fork reversal" repair enables tumors to elude anti-cancer drugs

Date: Aug-08-2013
In research recently published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Alessandro Vindigni, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Saint Louis University, discovered how cancer cells respond to the damage caused by an important class of anti-cancer drugs, topoisomerase I inhibitors. The discovery points to opportunities to improve chemotherapeutic regimens based on topoisomerase I inhibitor treatment and limit their toxic side effects. "Most cancer chemotherapeutics act by inhibiting DNA replication," Vindigni said...

Support for universal HIV screening in emergency departments suggested by trial

Date: Aug-08-2013
Screening everyone for HIV in the emergency department may be superior to testing only those with apparent risk, when trying to identify patients with undiagnosed HIV infection, according to a new results by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and national research organizations have recommended universal HIV screening, lead author Michael Lyons, MD, says there is still disagreement among physicians on how to implement screening in the nation's already busy emergency departments...

Surgical outcomes in children may be improved by new initiative

Date: Aug-08-2013
A group of pediatric surgeons at hospitals around the country have designed a system to collect and analyze data on surgical outcomes in children - the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) is the first national database able to reliably compare outcomes among different hospitals where children's surgery is performed. The effort could dramatically improve surgical outcomes in children, say the initiative's leaders, who published their findings online August 5, 2013 in the journal, Pediatrics...

A reliable marker for venous thromboembolism after craniotomy - D-dimer plasma level

Date: Aug-08-2013
The D-dimer test is often used to rule out the presence of venous thromboembolism; however, the test has been considered unreliable in postoperative patients because D-dimer levels may rise after surgery. Researchers from the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Halle in Germany hypothesized that this rise might be systematic and predictable, in which case a feasible postoperative threshold of D-dimer indicating venous thromboembolism could be determined. The results of this study show that the researchers were able to determine such a threshold...

Electronic communication unlikely to be widely adopted by physician practices without compensation

Date: Aug-08-2013
Patients like it and so do health organizations, but electronic communications in clinical care will likely not be widely adopted by primary care physicians unless patient workloads are reduced or they are paid for the time they spend phoning and emailing patients, both during and after office hours. Those are some key conclusions of an in-depth examination by investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College of six diverse medical practices that routinely use electronic communication for clinical purposes...

Fewer 'good gut' bacteria in C-section infants

Date: Aug-08-2013
Researchers have discovered that infants who are delivered by caesarean section have a lower range of good gut bacteria in their first 2 years of life, compared with infants delivered through the mother's birth canal. The study, published in the BMJ journal Gut, reveals that lower levels of beneficial gut bacteria has implications for the development of the immune system, particularly as infants delivered by C-section also showed lower levels of chemicals responsible for the prevention of allergies. Researchers from Sweden analyzed the guts of 24 infants...

Anti-oxidants offer great potential as a treatment for neuropathic pain

Date: Aug-08-2013
Neuropathic pain - pain that results from a malfunction in the nervous system - is a daily reality for millions of Americans. Unlike normal pain, it doesn't go away after the stimulus that provoked it ends, and it also behaves in a variety of other unusual and disturbing ways. Someone suffering from neuropathic pain might experience intense discomfort from a light touch, for example, or feel as though he or she were freezing in response to a slight change in temperature...

Antidepressant normalises the behaviour of zebrafish with a defective stress hormone receptor

Date: Aug-08-2013
Chronic stress can lead to depression and anxiety in humans. Scientists working with Herwig Baier, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, recently discovered a very similar link in fish. Normally, the stress hormone cortisol helps fish, as in humans, to regulate stress. Fish that lack the receptor for cortisol as a result of a genetic mutation exhibited a consistently high level of stress. They were unable to adapt to a new and unfamiliar situation. The fishes' behaviour returned to normal when an antidepressant was added to the water...

Scientists devise new way to dramatically raise RNA treatment potency

Date: Aug-08-2013
Scientists from the Jupiter campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown a novel way to dramatically raise the potency of drug candidates targeting RNA, resulting in a 2,500-fold improvement in potency and significantly increasing their potential as therapeutic agents...