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Analysis of a comprehensive database has revealed strong links between biological productivity in the surface oceans and patterns of biomass and abundance at the seafloor, helping to explain large regional differences. The research was conducted by an international, multi-institutional research team including scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), and incorporated data from the Census of Marine Life (CoML).

Philadelphia, PA, February 8, 2011 – For the one in 200 adults in Western societies born with congenital heart disease, adult survivors face a lifelong process of medical interactions. Treatments received during neonatal, childhood, and adolescent years affect future adult events. In the January/February issue of Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases ten articles explore our current understanding of adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) in survivors.

There will be nearly 1.3 million deaths from cancer in Europe in 2011 according to predictions from a study published in the cancer journal, Annals of Oncology today (Wednesday 9 February) [1].

The estimates, which have been reached after researchers used for the first time in Europe a new mathematical model for predicting cancer mortality, show a fall in overall cancer death rates for both men and women when compared to 2007. But they also highlight some areas of concern, particularly rising rates of lung cancer in women.

At a time when the effects of paediatric oncology research have meant that more and more children survive cancer, its funding is too low and dependent on short-term grants to be able to sustain this improvement in the long-term, says a report supported by the EU-funded 7th Framework Programme project Eurocancercoms and published on-line in ecancer today*.

The health impacts of human rights violations in Chin State, home to the Chin ethnic minority in Burma, are substantial and the indirect health outcomes of human rights violations probably dwarf the mortality from direct killings. These findings from a study by Richard Sollom from Physicians for Human Rights, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and colleagues will be published in this week's PLoS Medicine and should encourage the international community to intensify its efforts to reduce human rights violations in Burma.

In a systematic review of current evidence published in this week's PLoS Medicine, the authors—Jim McCambridge from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK, and colleagues—conclude that there is enough evidence to recommend that reducing drinking during late adolescence is likely to be important for preventing long-term adverse consequences of drinking, as well as protecting against more immediate harms.

The big drop in the numbers of people infected with HIV in Zimbabwe is because of mass social change, driven by fear of infection, according to an international study reported today in the journal PLoS Medicine. The scientists unravelling the reasons behind this unexpected downturn now reveal what they hope are the most important lessons in the fight against the disease for the rest of Africa.

Lung injury is a common cause of death among patients with pneumonia, sepsis or trauma and in those who have had lung transplants. The damage often occurs suddenly and can cause life-threatening breathing problems and rapid lung failure.

There are no effective treatments. Patients usually are put on ventilators to give their lungs a chance to heal, but there is little else doctors can do but wait and hope for the best.

CHICAGO – Among patients with early-stage breast cancer that had spread to a nearby lymph node and who received treatment that included lumpectomy and radiation therapy, women who just had the sentinel lymph node removed (the first lymph node to which cancer is likely to spread from the primary tumor) did not have worse survival than women who had more extensive axillary lymph node dissection (surgery to remove lymph nodes found in the armpit), according to a study in the February 9 issue of JAMA.

CHICAGO – Patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery and had elevated levels of the cardiac enzymes creatine kinase or troponin in the 24 hours following surgery had an associated intermediate and long-term increased risk of death, according to a study in the February 9 issue of JAMA.

CHICAGO – In a study that included infants from South Africa, those who were exposed to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at birth but did not become infected had lower levels of antibodies to diseases such as pertussis, tetanus and pneumococcus, compared to infants of non-HIV infected mothers, according to a study in the February 9 issue of JAMA.

The incidence of major congenital birth abnormalities was slightly higher in the offspring of male cancer survivors compared with children of fathers with no history of cancer, according to a study published online February 8th in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that even small amounts of damage to heart muscle during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is associated with an increased risk of death, even among patients who initially do well following surgery. The study is published in the February 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Babies whose mothers have HIV, but who are not HIV-infected themselves, are born with lower levels of specific proteins in their blood called antibodies, which fight infection, compared with babies not exposed to HIV, a new study has found. The finding, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, might explain in part why uninfected babies born to women with HIV have a higher risk of illness and death early in life.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Researchers at the University at Buffalo have devised two new ways of "stapling" peptide helices to prevent these medically important molecules from losing their shape and degrading in the presence of enzymes.

The discovery could help speed the development of peptide-based drugs against diseases including cancer. UB scientists say the methods they pioneered are simpler than existing techniques, one of which employs an expensive ruthenium catalyst to connect chemical side chains that protrude from the main body of helical peptides.