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Correctly Identifying Migraine Triggers - Formal Experiments Needed, So Work With Your Doctor
Date: Apr-10-2013Women often point to stress, hormones, alcohol, or even the weather as possible triggers for their migraines. But a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that it is nearly impossible for patients to determine the true cause of their migraine episodes without undergoing formal experiments. The majority of migraine sufferers try to figure out for themselves what causes their headaches based on real world conditions, said lead author Timothy T. Houle, Ph.D, associate professor of anesthesia and neurology at Wake Forest Baptist...
Verifying Software Safety In Surgical Robots
Date: Apr-10-2013Surgical robots could make some types of surgery safer and more effective, but proving that the software controlling these machines works as intended is problematic. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have demonstrated that methods for reliably detecting software bugs and ultimately verifying software safety can be applied successfully to this breed of robot. They used theorem-proving techniques to analyze a control algorithm for a research robot that would help a surgeon perform surgery at the base of the skull...
Expectations Found To Be Higher In Older Patients And They Experience Greater Satisfaction With Healthcare
Date: Apr-10-2013New research on patients' experiences of health services and how these relate to their expectations and satisfaction, published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, reveals that older people have higher expectations of their care and that they believe that their expectations are being met. The research questions prevailing stereotypes that characterise older patients as being satisfied with their care because their expectations are lower. Patients visiting their GP and hospital outpatient departments were surveyed before and after their consultations...
'Fast fMRI' Protocol Could Aid In Planning Surgery For Epilepsy And Brain Tumors
Date: Apr-10-2013A new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique may provide neurosurgeons with a non-invasive tool to help in mapping critical areas of the brain before surgery, reports a study in the April issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health...
Discovery That Small Genetic Changes Enable The H5N1 Bird Flu Virus To Replicate More Easily In The Noses Of Mammals Could Lead To Vaccine
Date: Apr-10-2013So far there have only been isolated cases of bird flu in humans, and no widespread transmission as the H5N1 virus can't replicate efficiently in the nose. The new study, using weakened viruses in the lab, supports the conclusions of controversial research published in 2012 which demonstrated that just a few genetic mutations could enable bird flu to spread between ferrets, which are used to model flu infection in humans. Researchers say the new findings could help to develop more effective vaccines against new strains of bird flu that can spread between humans...
Unique Mechanism Identified By Which Glioblastoma Cells Develop Resistance To Drugs That Target EGFR Signaling
Date: Apr-10-2013Proteins that control cell growth are often mutated in cancer, and their aberrant signaling drives the wild proliferation of cells that gives rise to tumors. One such protein, the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), fuels a wide variety of cancers - including a highly malignant brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Yet drugs devised to block its signaling tend to work only for a short while, until the cancer cells adapt to evade the therapy. So far, much of the research examining such drug resistance has focused on how mutations of other proteins in cancer cells allow them to resist drugs...
Important New Policy Statement On 'Noninvasive Prenatal Screening For Fetal Aneuploidy'
Date: Apr-10-2013The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) has just released an important new Policy Statement on "Noninvasive Prenatal Screening for Fetal Aneuploidy." The Statement can be found in the Publications section of the ACMG website* and will soon be published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, Genetics in Medicine. As background, in recent decades there have been many changes and improvements in prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis...
Drug Designed To Restore Cell Suicide In HPV-Related Head And Neck Cancer
Date: Apr-10-2013Researchers have discovered a new mechanism by which the human papilloma virus (HPV) causes head and neck cancer, and they have designed a drug to block that mechanism. Though further research is needed, the new agent might offer a safer treatment for these tumors when combined with a tapered dose of standard chemotherapy. HPV-positive head and neck cancer has become three times more common since the 1970s, and it could reach epidemic levels in the future, say researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J...
The Potential To Move Cells With Light Holds Medical Promise
Date: Apr-10-2013Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown they can coax cells to move toward a beam of light. The feat is a first step toward manipulating cells to control insulin secretion or heart rate using light. Their research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition. "We have succeeded in using light as a kind of on-off switch to control cells' behavior," says principal investigator N. Gautam, PhD, a professor of anesthesiology...
Researchers Exploring 'Nano-Sized Extracellular Vesicles' For Identification, Monitoring And Treatment Of Brain Tumors
Date: Apr-10-2013The recent discovery of circulating "nano-sized extracellular vesicles" (EVs) carrying proteins and nucleic acids derived from brain tumors may lead to exciting new avenues for brain cancer diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment, according to a special article in the April issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The review article by Dr. David Gonda from the laboratory of the corresponding author Dr. Clark C. Chen, with contributions from the senior author, Dr...
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