Health News

Avian Flu Study Finally And Fully Published

Date: May-03-2012
After endless toing and froing over whether two studies that demonstrated how bird flu, also known as avian H5N1 influenza, or avian flu, should be published, one of them has appeared in the latest issue of the journal Nature in its entirety. The studies show how the bird flu virus could become transmissible from mammal-to-mammal; as humans are mammals, the same would apply to humans. This is the end of a marathon debate, mainly between infectious disease experts versus influenza and public health researchers who stressed that not only was publication important, but also vital. To properly...

Tasers Can Stop The Heart And Kill

Date: May-03-2012
Tasers, also known as stun guns, can cause sudden cardiac arrest and death, researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine reported in the journal Circulation. The author explained that applying an electric shock with an electronic control device to the chest can be deadly. Sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly, unexpectedly stops beating; the patient stops breathing and loses consciousness. In a communiqué yesterday, Circulation wrote that this study is the first published and peer-reviewed one in a medical journal to link tasers with cardiac arrest and death. Author...

Prescribing Pitfalls, Doctors Told To Be Careful, UK

Date: May-03-2012
According to a study conducted by the General Medical Council (GMC), approximately 1 in 20 prescriptions GPs in the UK write contain an error.  The researchers found that although doctors take prescribing seriously, improvements need to be made in order to lower the rate of prescription errors. The study, which underlines several risk factors in prescribing, is welcomed by the UK-wide medical defense organization MDDUS. Dr. John Holden, MDDUS medical adviser explains: "This study underlines the fact that, while prescribing errors are rare, they can have serious consequences for patient care....

Vaginal Microbes Vary Over Time

Date: May-03-2012
Scientists say that new research might be the starting point for personalized medicine for women. Research undertaken by The University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences and the University of Idaho shows that the delicate balance of microbes in the vagina can vary dramatically, even over short periods of time. Just as there are good and bad bacteria in the intestinal tract, the female system is a home to a variety of symbiotic bacteria that help maintain good health. A woman's susceptibility to infection and other diseases can obviously be affected by this balance....

Imaging Agent Flutemetamol Presented At Neurology Meeting

Date: May-03-2012
Results from 4 pooled brain biopsy studies, as well as results from a brain autopsy study of the investigational PET amyloid imaging agent, [18F]flutemetamol, were presented as part of the Emerging Science Program at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans in April, 2012. Flutemetamol is a GE Healthcare PET imaging agent currently being developed for the detection of beta amyloid. The study demonstrated a high sensitivity and specificity of both biopsy and autopsy study images. There was also a strong concordance between Alzheimer's disease-associated beta...

Infant Size, Birth Weight Not Affected By Anti-HIV Drug Use During Pregnancy

Date: May-03-2012
Infants born to women who used the anti-HIV drug tenofovir as part of an anti-HIV drug regimen during pregnancy do not weigh less at birth and are not of shorter length than infants born to women who used anti-HIV drug regimens that do not include tenofovir during pregnancy, according to findings from a National Institutes of Health network study. However, at 1 year of age, children born to the tenofovir-treated mothers were slightly shorter and had slightly smaller head circumference - about 1 centimeter each, on average - than were infants whose mothers did not take tenofovir. The study...

Alzheimer's Disease And The Mechanism Behind Tau Spreading In The Brain

Date: May-03-2012
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have gained insight into the mechanism by which a pathological brain protein called tau contributes to the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. This finding, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, may provide the basis for future investigations on how to prevent tau from damaging brain circuits involved in cognitive function. Previous studies have shown that the abnormal folding, or misfolding, and buildup of tau are key neuropathological features of many...

For Patients With Multiple Myeloma, Low-Dose Whole-Body CT Finds Disease Missed On Standard Imaging

Date: May-03-2012
Low dose whole body CT is nearly four times better than radiographic skeletal survey, the standard of care in the U.S., for determining the extent of disease in patients with multiple myeloma, a new study shows. The study, conducted at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, included 51 patients who had both a radiographic skeletal survey as well as a low dose whole body CT examination. The total number of lesions detected in these patients with low dose whole body CT was 968 versus 248 detected by radiographic skeletal survey, said Kelechi Princewill, MD, the lead author of the study. "The...

Detecting Some Causes Of Hearing Loss, Dizziness, With Cone Beam CT

Date: May-03-2012
Cone beam CT is superior to mutidetector CT for detecting superior semicircular canal dehiscence or the so called third window (a small hole in the bony wall of the inner ear bone that can cause dizziness and hearing loss) and it uses half the radiation dose, a new study shows. The study, conducted in Bruges, Belgium, included 21 patients who had both a cone beam CT and a multidetector CT examination of their right and left temporal bones, said David Volders, MD, one of the authors of the study. Two radiologists reviewed the images from both exams and scored them based on image quality and the...

Hospital Infection Prevention Efforts Driven By Medicare Penalty

Date: May-03-2012
The 2008 decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to cease additional reimbursement to hospitals for certain healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) has led to enhanced focus on infection prevention and changes in practice by front-line staff, according to a national survey of infection preventionists published in the May issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). A team of researchers and public health policymakers led by Grace M. Lee, MD, MPH, from...