Health News

Steroid Injection Therapy For Back Pain May Increase Risk Of Spinal Fracture

Date: Jun-11-2013
Most aging adults will experience back pain or a spinal disorder at some time in their life. In fact, about 25.8 million visits were made to physicians' offices due to primary back problems. Treatment focuses on pain relief and is available in both non-surgical (medication or physical therapy) and surgical forms. A retrospective study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) looked at one type of back treatment - a lumbar epidural steroid injection (LESI) - and whether or not that treatment had an impact on bone fragility and vertebral fractures (spinal fractures)...

Complex Pediatric Conditions Complicated By Medical Devices

Date: Jun-11-2013
As modern medical advances help more children with complex conditions live longer, a new study shows a significant number suffer from complications caused by medical devices that are also necessary for their survival. Researchers report their findings online in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Study authors say their research underscores the continued need to improve care for this growing population of children by enhancing medical device safety practices and ensuring device design is suitable or adaptable for pediatric patients...

Normal Version Of Molecular Pathway Affected In Poor-Prognosis Childhood Leukemia

Date: Jun-11-2013
Through genetic engineering of laboratory models, researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center have uncovered a vulnerability in the way cancer cells diverge from normal regenerating cells that may help treat children with leukemia as reported in the journal PNAS. Dartmouth researchers are trying to understand the key pathways that distinguish how a normal blood cell grows and divides compared to the altered growth that occurs in leukemia...

Mathematical Method Of Simplifying And Interpreting Genome Data De-Clutters Cancer-Cell Data, Revealing Tumor Evolution, Treatment Leads

Date: Jun-11-2013
In our daily lives, clutter is something that gets in our way, something that makes it harder for us to accomplish things. For doctors and scientists trying to parse mountains of raw biological data, clutter is more than a nuisance; it can stand in the way of figuring out how best to treat someone who is very sick. Using increasingly cheap and rapid methods to read the billions of "letters" that comprise human genomes - including the genomes of individual cells sampled from cancerous tumors - scientists are generating far more data than they can easily interpret...

Researchers Find Novel Gene Correction Model For Painful Skin Condition Epidermolysis Bullosa

Date: Jun-11-2013
A research team led by pediatric blood and marrow transplantation experts Mark Osborn, Ph.D. and Jakub Tolar, M.D., Ph.D. from the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, have discovered a remarkable new way to repair genetic defects in the skin cells of patients with the skin disease epidermolysis bullosa...

High-Risk Heart Attack Patients May Need Faster And More Potent Antithrombotic Drugs

Date: Jun-11-2013
The Cardiovascular Research Laboratory of the IDIBELL led by the cardiologist of the Bellvitge University Hospital José Luis Ferreiro has conducted a study on the effect of antiplatelet drugs given to high risk patients suffering from acute myocardial infaction (heart attack) in the context of the Infarction Code. The study concludes that when patients arrive to hospital, in most cases the administered antiplatelet drugs have not worked yet. Therefore, in high-risk patients, the study recommends the use of faster and more potent antithrombotic drugs...

Immune Response Exploited By Herpes Virus To Bolster Infection

Date: Jun-11-2013
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues report that the herpes simplex virus type-1 (HSV-1), which affects an estimated 50 to 80 percent of all American adults, exploits an immune system receptor to boost its infectivity and ability to cause disease. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. HSV-1 is a persistent and problematic pathogen. Typically, it infects victims through oral secretions (kissing, sharing a contaminated toothbrush) or through openings in the skin...

Mature Brain Cells Reprogrammed From Skin Cells Enable Study Of Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia, And Autism

Date: Jun-11-2013
Difficult-to-study diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and autism now can be probed more safely and effectively thanks to an innovative new method for obtaining mature brain cells called neurons from reprogrammed skin cells. According to Gong Chen, the Verne M...

Researchers Show Brain Operates Differently By The Way We Dehumanize Others In Combat Situations

Date: Jun-11-2013
Combat troops must minimize the humanness of their enemies in order to kill them. They can't be effective fighters if they're distracted by feelings of empathy for opponents. But indifference to the enemy, rather than loathing, may help prevent war crimes and provide troops with a better path back to healthy civilian lives, researchers at Case Western Reserve University propose. Their hypothesis is based on new work showing how the brain operates when people objectify - that is, think of others as mere objects - or dehumanize, which entails seeing others as disgusting animals...

Infant Mortality Reduced By Access To Health Care Among Thailand's Poor

Date: Jun-11-2013
When health care reform in Thailand increased payments to public hospitals for indigent care, more poor people sought medical treatment and infant mortality was reduced, even though the cost of medical care remained free for the poor, a new study shows. The study, "The Great Equalizer: Health Care Access and Infant Mortality in Thailand," funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, found that reducing out-of-pocket costs of medical care had less of an impact than providing more money to hospitals...