Health News

For Patients With Stage III Lung Cancer, Higher-Dose RT Results In Inferior Survival

Date: May-31-2013
In a randomized phase III clinical trial conducted by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG), high-dose (HD), compared with standard-dose (SD), radiotherapy (RT) with concurrent chemotherapy (CT) did not improve overall survival of patients with stage III non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Of all the patients in the US with lung cancer, the country's leading cause of cancer death, 75 to 80 percent of them have NSCLC, with 30 to 40 percent of those being considered locally advanced (stage IIIA or IIIB)...

Flu Shots, Preventive Treatment More Likely For Californians With 'Medical Home'

Date: May-31-2013
Too many cooks may spoil a recipe, and too many doctors may give you the flu.  That's the takeaway from a new study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research that found that Californians who jump from provider to provider rather than seeing a regular doctor who coordinates their care may be less likely to get the kind of preventive treatment that protects against the flu and flare ups in their chronic conditions. Specifically, the study used data from the 2009 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) to estimate whether the approximately 4...

Combining Bone Marrow Cells With New Drug Restores Insulin Production, May Cure Type 1 Diabetes

Date: May-31-2013
University of Missouri scientist Habib Zaghouani, PhD, is developing a potential cure for type 1 diabetes by combining adult stem cells with a promising new drug he developed at MU. His research is published in Diabetes, the American Diabetes Association's flagship research publication. Millions of people with type 1 diabetes depend on daily insulin injections to survive. They would die without the shots because their immune system attacks the very insulin-producing cells it was designed to protect...

New Study Enables Women To Calculate Their Chances Of A Live Birth After Egg Freezing

Date: May-31-2013
Researchers from New York Medical College and the University of California Davis have for the first time codified age-specific probabilities of live birth after in vitro fertilization (IVF) with frozen eggs. A team of researchers led by Kutluk Oktay, M.D., a New York Medical College physician/scientist who specializes in preserving the fertility of female cancer patients, conducted a meta-analysis of oocyte cryopreservation cycles using individualized patient data to report the probability of live-birth from IVF cycles...

Sensitizing Human Ovarian Cancer Cells To A Targeted Cytotoxic Drug

Date: May-31-2013
A novel, targeted approach to chemotherapy that makes ovarian cancer cells more susceptible to the cytotoxic effects of an antitumor drug may offer a safer, more effective treatment option for this often deadly form of cancer. The research and results are published in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Nucleic Acid Therapeutics website...

Complication Risk After Breast Reconstruction Affected By Weight Of Tissue Flaps

Date: May-31-2013
For women undergoing breast reconstruction after mastectomy, the weight of the tissue flap used affects the risk of an important complication called fat necrosis, reports a study in Plastic and Reconstruction Surgery-Global Open®, the official open-access medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS)...

New Phase Of Synaptic Development Discovered By Neuroscientists

Date: May-31-2013
Students preparing for final exams might want to wait before pulling an all-night cram session - at least as far as their neurons are concerned. Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientists have discovered a new intermediate phase in neuronal development during which repeated exposure to a stimulus shrinks synapses. The findings are published in the Journal of Neuroscience. It's well known that synapses in the brain, the connections between neurons and other cells that allow for the transmission of information, grow when they're exposed to a stimulus...

Researchers Tie Brain Injury To Tau

Date: May-31-2013
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have uncovered what may be a key molecular mechanism behind the lasting damage done by traumatic brain injury. The discovery centers on a particular form of a protein that neuroscientists call tau, which has also been associated with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. Under ordinary conditions, tau is essential to neuron health, but in Alzheimer's the protein aggregates into two abnormal forms: so-called "neurofibrillary tangles," and collections of two, three, or four or more tau units known as "oligomers...

Stem Cell Matrix -- A Summary Of Recent Studies From Harvard Stem Cell Institute

Date: May-31-2013
May brought a major advancement in the science of aging when two Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers announced their discovery of a protein circulating in the blood of mice and humans that shows potential to be a treatment for age-related heart failure. The protein, called GDF-11, reduced the size and thickness of the heart walls when injected into old mice. There are hundreds of investigators in the HSCI network solving different problems related to cell biology and illness...

Identification Of A Novel Way In Which 'Junk DNA' Can Interfere With The Normal Functioning Of A Cell, Leading To Cancer Progression

Date: May-31-2013
Scientists at The University of Nottingham have found that a genetic rogue element produced by sequences until recently considered 'junk DNA' could promote cancer progression. The researchers, led by Dr Cristina Tufarelli, in the School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health Sciences, discovered that the presence of this faulty genetic element - known as chimeric transcript LCT13 - is associated with the switching off of a known tumour suppressor gene (known as TFPI-2) whose expression is required to prevent cancer invasion and metastasis...