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Francis Inquiry "Has Let The Government Off The Hook" Says Former NHS Chief Executive, UK
Date: Apr-18-2013Report "has enabled politicians to indulge in characteristic evasion" The Francis inquiry into what happened at Mid-Staffordshire "has allowed the government to blame frontline clinicians rather than those in charge," claims the former NHS chief executive David Hands, in this week's BMJ. Professor Hands says he finds it "astonishing" that Francis "focuses blame on the local trust and professional behaviour" and "provides little more than embellishment of the facts established in his first report." This myopia "has enabled politicians to indulge in characteristic evasion...
What Really Makes Us Fat?
Date: Apr-18-2013Article questions our understanding of the cause of obesity If we are to make any progress in tackling the obesity crisis, we have to look again at what really makes us fat, claims an article published in this week's BMJ. Gary Taubes, co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative, argues that our understanding of the cause of obesity may be incorrect, and that rectifying this misconception is "absolutely critical" to future progress. "What we want to know," he says, "is what causes us to gain weight, not whether weight loss can be induced under different conditions of semi-starvation...
Nearly Half Of All Deaths From Prostate Cancer Can Be Predicted Before Age 50
Date: Apr-18-2013A new design of screening could improve ratio between benefit and harms of screening Focusing prostate cancer testing on men at highest risk of developing the disease is likely to improve the ratio between benefits and the harms of screening, suggests a paper published this week on bmj.com. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening is widely used for the early detection of prostate cancer, but remains highly controversial, as it became widespread long before evidence to prove its value...
New Subtypes Of Kidney Cancer Identified By Researchers
Date: Apr-18-2013A Finding that Will Help Physicians Tailor Treatment to Patients Based on their Tumor's Molecular Signature Researchers with the Institute of Urologic Oncology and the Department of Urology at UCLA have classified kidney cancer into several unique subtypes, a finding that will help physicians tailor treatment to individual patients and that moves cancer care one step closer to personalized medicine...
Antibody Treatment For HIV
Date: Apr-18-2013Data on SEEK's Novel Immunotherapy for HIV Published in Virology Journal SEEK, a privately-owned UK drug discovery group, announces that pre-clinical results on its HIV immunotherapy have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Virology Journal. SEEK's HIV immunotherapy triggers the immune system's cellular and antibody responses to selectively identify and kill HIV infected cells. The most exciting aspect of this therapy is that it directs the immune system towards short highly conserved regions of proteins produced by most circulating HIV strains...
FDA Approves FibroScan(R) For Non-Invasive Liver Diagnosis
Date: Apr-18-2013Echosens(TM) is pleased to announce that FibroScan(R) device received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 5th, 2013 and is now ready to market its pioneering technology in the United States. Today, 1800 FibroScan(R) devices are used worldwide both in research and routine clinical practice. The United States of America is the last major market to approve FibroScan(R). FibroScan(R) is used in the clinical management of patients with liver disease such as chronic viral hepatitis C and B and fatty liver diseases...
Methods To Repair Kidney Cells, Assess Kidney Function On The Horizon
Date: Apr-18-2013Researchers may have found a way to block kidney-destroying inflammation and help damaged kidney cells recover. In a related study, they report progress on a non-invasive method to assess how much kidney function has survived a serious bout of inflammation or a chronic problem like high blood pressure. The diagnostic tool could help physicians make hard choices about whether a patient has enough kidney function left to benefit from treatment or whether dialysis or a transplant is in their future, said Dr. Michael P...
Patient Asks Why Drug Companies Are "Trying To Prevent Disclosure Of Trial Data"
Date: Apr-18-2013A personal view from a patient with a potentially life-limiting illness published this week on bmj.com asks why pharmaceutical giants are trying to prevent the disclosure of trial data. Since he started taking adalimumab for his Crohn's disease three years ago, he says he has rarely felt better: he is no longer taking steroids, has started to recover from 15 years of side effects and spends less time in care and off work on sick leave...
Light Drinking In Pregnancy Unlikely To Cause Development Problems In Childhood
Date: Apr-18-2013Light drinking during pregnancy is not linked to adverse behavioural or cognitive outcomes in childhood, suggests a new study published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. This study collated data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a national study of infants born in the UK between 2000-2002, to assess whether light drinking (up to two units of alcohol per week) in pregnancy was linked to unfavourable developmental outcomes in 7-year-old children...
Large Numbers Of ER Visits Go Unreported In Calculating Hospital Readmissions
Date: Apr-18-2013A study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University School of Medicine has found that nearly one quarter of patients may return to the emergency department within 30 days of being discharged from a hospitalization. None of these emergency room visits that do not lead to subsequent admission are included in calculating hospital readmission rates, which are a key focus of health care cost containment and quality improvement efforts. The findings are published in Annals of Emergency Medicine...
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