Body

A study of nearly 1,500 patients treated for kidney cancer at UCLA in the last 15 years shows that an aggressive, tailored treatment approach results in better survival rates and uncovered subsets of kidney cancer that behave differently and need to be treated accordingly.

A new high throughput microscopy technique enabled researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to analyze thousands of individual cells expressing androgen receptor, a finding that could herald new ways of evaluating the effect of drugs or other treatments on cells with normal or aberrant hormone receptors.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – October 31, 2008 – A study by researchers in Japan concludes that Double Balloon Endoscopy™ (DBE) was very useful in the diagnosis of obscure gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and had a therapeutic impact on the majority of patients. The study appears in the October issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Scientists have discovered a crucial step in hormone-triggered bone growth, a finding that could lead to new osteoporosis drugs and better bone-building therapies, according to a new study.

The research was performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). It showed that parathyroid hormone (PTH) given intermittently enhances the body's own bone-building action through a specific "co-receptor" on the surface of bone cells.

CINCINNATI – Two proteins interact in a previously unknown molecular mechanism that may have broad implications in future studies looking for the causes of defective organs in fetuses, metastatic cancers and other diseases, according to researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Reporting their work in the Oct. 15 Genes & Development, the researchers said the mechanism coordinates cell identity and behavior in the forming organs of embryos.

Pregnant women whose labor stalls while in the active phase of childbirth can reduce health risks to themselves and their infants by waiting out the delivery process for an extra two hours, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

By doing so, obstetricians could eliminate more than 130,000 cesarean deliveries – the more dangerous and expensive surgical approach – per year in the United States, the researchers conclude.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – October 31, 2008 – A study by researchers in Japan concludes that Double Balloon Endoscopy™ (DBE) was very useful in the diagnosis of obscure gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and had a therapeutic impact on the majority of patients. The study appears in the October issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).

ALEXANDRIA, VA, October 31, 2008---Patients with diabetes who participate in a program combining aerobic and high-force eccentric resistance exercise demonstrate improvements in glucose control, physical performance, and body fat composition, according to a study published in the November 2008 issue of Physical Therapy (PTJ), the scientific journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).

Medical researchers at the University of Alberta have unlocked part of the mystery underlying a childhood eye disease. New research shows how children with some types of glaucoma end up with missing or extra pieces of DNA.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Only six months after undergoing a unique and innovative surgery at Michigan State University, Jake – part dog and now part machine – spends his time working out on an underwater treadmill, traversing obstacle courses and prancing around pain free.

Blacksburg, Va. – From shells to bones, the skeletons of organisms contain small amounts of impurity elements such as magnesium. Because the levels of these elements provide important clues to past environments, a considerable effort has focused on understanding how to relate impurity contents to the ancient environments in which an organism lived.

The nonessential amino acid glycine has been shown to be anti-inflammatory in several animal injury models. Recent studies demonstrated that dietary glycine protected both the lung and liver against lethal doses of endotoxin in rat or other animals and improved graft survival after liver transplantation. The influence of dietary glycine on oxidant-induced or cholestatic liver injury was not known.

Significant increases in surgical capacity or diverting patients to other jurisdictions are the best ways to deal with excessive wait times for hip and knee replacement surgery – a leading symbol of underfunding in Canada's healthcare system.

TACE has been widely accepted as a choice of treatment for advanced HCC. CT perfusion is a non-invasive and reproducible technique for assessing perfusion changes due to TACE therapy for locally advanced HCC. However, there are few reports on the application of this technique in evaluating the efficacy of TACE based on quantitative analysis of perfusion parameters.

ETT assessment is used to diagnose diseases, such as gastroesophageal reflux, dysphagia, esophagitis, and achalasia. These studies are commonly performed in conjunction with scintigraphic and manometric techniques, despite the use of ionizing radiation and catheters, for each of these additional techniques, respectively. Recently, several types of assessments were performed using the biomagnetic technique, including the assessment of gastric emptying time. These studies are particularly useful because they have the advantage of being non-invasive and do not use ionizing radiation.