WASHINGTON, Sept. 1—Blood tests are important diagnostic tools. They accurately tease-out vanishingly small concentrations of proteins and other molecules that help give a picture of overall health or signal the presence of specific diseases. Current testing procedures, however, are expensive and time-consuming, while sophisticated test equipment is bulky and difficult to transport.
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Patients with ALK-rearranged non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) responded significantly better to pemetrexed (brand name: Alimta) than patients whose cancer did not show ALK translocation, according to research published in the September issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).
Children who go through puberty at a faster rate are more likely to act out and to suffer from anxiety and depression, according to a study by researchers at Penn State, Duke University and the University of California, Davis. The results suggest that primary care providers, teachers and parents should look not only at the timing of puberty in relation to kids' behavior problems, but also at the tempo of puberty -- how fast or slow kids go through puberty.
DARIEN, IL – A natural yellowing of the eye lens that absorbs blue light has been linked to sleep disorders in a group of test volunteers, according to astudy in the September 1 issue of the journal Sleep. As this type of lens discoloration worsened with age, so did the risk of insomnia.
"The strong link between lens yellowing and age could help explain why sleep disorders become more frequent with increasing age," said Line Kessel, M.D., Ph.D., the study's lead author.
American pikas, the chirpy, potato-sized denizens of rocky debris in mountain ranges and high plateaus in western North America, are holding their own in the Southern Rocky Mountains, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.
Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2011 – The first report of the presence of alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) in cancers arising from the bladder, cervix, endometrium, esophagus, gallbladder, liver, and lung was published today in The American Journal of Pathology. The presence of ALT in carcinomas can be used as a diagnostic marker and has implications for the development of anti-cancer drug therapies.
An article in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology summarizes methods for radiation dose optimization in chest computed tomography (CT) scans. Chest CT is the third most commonly performed CT examination, frequently used to diagnose the cause of clinical signs or symptoms of the chest, such as cough, shortness of breath, chest pain or fever.
Regardless of the body region being scanned, dose reduction must always start with making sure that there is a justifiable clinical indication for CT scanning.
DALLAS – Sept. 1, 2011 – UT Southwestern Medical Center has developed a new lifesaving genetic screening program for families at high risk of contracting colorectal cancer, a deadly yet highly preventable form of cancer.
DENVER, Aug. 31, 2011 — With almost 100 million people in developing countries exposed to dangerously high levels of arsenic in their drinking water, and unable to afford complex purification technology, scientists today described a simple, inexpensive method for removing arsenic based on chopped up pieces of ordinary plastic beverage bottles coated with a nutrient found in many foods and dietary supplements.
Breast cancer patients over the age of 60 with early-stage, hormone-responsive small tumors who forego adjuvant endocrine, also called hormonal therapy, are not at an increased risk of mortality compared to women of the same age without breast cancer, according to a study published Aug. 31 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
LA JOLLA, CA – August 31, 2011 - Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have shown that a particular white blood cell plays a direct role in the development and spread of cancerous tumors. Their work sheds new light on the development of the disease and points toward novel strategies for treating early-stage cancers.
When it comes to defibrillators, simpler may be safer, even though more complex machines are used on a majority of patients.
That's according to a new study from a team that included University of Colorado School of Medicine researcher Paul Varosy, MD. The group reviewed more than 100,000 records of cardiac patients. They found that there was more chance of surgical problems and death with devices that require electrical leads to be attached to two chambers of the heart compared to those that work on one chamber.
A specific genetic alteration has been discovered as a defining feature of epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE), a rare but devastating vascular cancer. These findings have also been used to develop a new diagnostic test for this blood vessel disease.
Some scientists were surprised at how fast bacteria developed resistance to miracle antibiotic drugs developed less than a century ago but it turns out resistance has been around for at least 30,000 years.
Research findings published in Nature show antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern clinical antibiotic use. Principal investigators for the study are Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and Hendrik Poinar, McMaster evolutionary geneticist.
Researchers have undertaken the most comprehensive investigation of genetic variance in human metabolism and discovered new insights into a range of common diseases. Their work has revealed 37 new variants that are associated with concentrations of metabolites in the blood. Many of these match variants associated with diseases such as chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes and blood clotting.