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Index May Help Predict 10-Year Mortality Among Older Adults
Date: Mar-07-2013"Recent guidelines recommend considering patients' life expectancy when deciding whether to pursue preventive interventions with long lag times to benefit (� 7 years) such as colorectal cancer screening and intensive glycemic control for diabetes. However, most mortality indices have focused on short-term risk (� 5 years)," writes Marisa Cruz, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues. The researchers examined whether their previously developed 4-year mortality index accurately predicted 10-year mortality...
Salt May Play Role In Autoimmune Disease
Date: Mar-07-2013A healthy immune system is a finely balanced system: too little activity and we fall prey to disease, too much, and it attacks our own tissue, triggering autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis. Now three studies published online this week in Nature suggest the amount of salt we eat may influence this balance by indirectly encouraging the overproduction of immune cells. In the three studies the researchers focused on a group of immune cells known as T cells because they play an important role in clearing disease-causing pathogens and also in autoimmune disease...
Scarring Of Heart Muscle Associated With Increased Risk Of Death In Patients With Type Of Cardiomyopathy
Date: Mar-07-2013Detection of midwall fibrosis (the presence of scar tissue in the middle of the heart muscle wall) via magnetic resonance imaging among patients with nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (a condition affecting the heart muscle) was associated with an increased likelihood of death, according to a study appearing in the March 6 issue of JAMA. Nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy is associated with significant illness and death due to progressive heart failure (HF) and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Despite therapeutic advances, 5-year mortality remains as high as 20 percent...
Breakthrough For Tinnitus Sufferers
Date: Mar-07-2013Temporary tinnitus - also known as 'Ringing in the Ears' caused by exposure to loud music or noisy machinery now solved by academics. A company set up by physics students at the University of Edinburgh and University College Dublin has come up with a solution to the problem of temporary tinnitus - or 'ringing in the ears', so often a result of exposure to loud music or working in a noisy environment. Sufferers of tinnitus include Pete Townshend from The Who, Chris Martin from Coldplay and former US President, Bill Clinton...
Tumours Deliberately Create Conditions That Inhibit Body's Best Immune Response So Cancer Can Progress
Date: Mar-07-2013New research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation reveals that tumours in melanoma patients deliberately create conditions that knock out the body's 'premier' immune defence and instead attract a weaker immune response unable to kill off the tumour's cancerous cells. The study also highlights a potential antibody biomarker that could help predict prognosis and identify which patients are most likely to respond to specific treatments...
To Improve Patient Care, Better Estrogen Testing Methods Needed
Date: Mar-07-2013In a Position Statement, The Endocrine Society advocates that all methods for measuring estrogens, which play a crucial role in human biology, be made traceable to a common standard. In addition to the well-known role of estrogens in sexual development, these hormones, particularly estradiol, have a significant impact on the health of the skin, blood vessels, bones, muscle, kidney, liver, digestive system, brain, lung and pancreas. Studies have linked changes in estradiol levels to coronary artery disease, stroke and breast cancer...
Key To Heart Failure Discovered, New Therapies On Horizon
Date: Mar-07-2013Some 5.8 million Americans suffer from heart failure, a currently incurable disease. But scientists at Temple University School of Medicine's (TUSM) Center for Translational Medicine have discovered a key biochemical step underlying the condition that could aid the development of new drugs to treat and possibly prevent it. "Drugs we currently use for heart failure are not very effective," explained lead investigator Walter J. Koch, PhD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at TUSM, and Director of the Center for Translational Medicine at TUSM...
Current Readmission Policies Will Produce "Uncertain Success"
Date: Mar-07-2013Reducing preventable hospital readmissions is a cornerstone of emerging healthcare policy. The U.S. government has developed payment policies that will decrease payments to hospitals with excess patient readmission levels, for example. Early lessons learned from these current policy initiatives hint at their likelihood for success and are examined in an insightful article in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Population Health Management website...
The Joint Facial And Invasive Neck Trauma (J-FAINT) Project, Iraq And Afghanistan 2003-2011
Date: Mar-07-2013With over 37,000 face and neck injuries in more than 7,000 military personnel during Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF), a new study in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery concludes additional training in the management of these injuries and improvements in body armor could be beneficial. The authors note that OIF and OEF have changed the way military surgeons approach facial and penetrating neck trauma...
Study Examines Thinning Of Heart Muscle Wall Among Patients With Coronary Artery Disease
Date: Mar-07-2013Among patients with coronary artery disease referred for cardiovascular magnetic resonance and found to have regional myocardial wall thinning (of the heart muscle), limited scar burden was associated with improved contraction of the heart and reversal of wall thinning after revascularization, suggesting that myocardial thinning is potentially reversible, according to a study appearing in the March 6 issue of JAMA. Regional myocardial wall thinning is thought to represent chronic myocardial infarction...
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