Screening mammograms in women under age 40 result in high rates of callbacks and additional imaging tests but low rates of cancer detection, according to a study published online May 3 in theJournal of the National Cancer Institute.
Many studies have assessed mammography in women over age 40 years, but little is known about its usefulness in younger women. Although screening mammograms are not generally recommended under age 40, about 29% of women between 30 and 40 report having had one.
(WASHINGTON, May 3, 2010) – Gaucher disease, a rare enzyme deficiency disorder, is one of many conditions with few approved treatment options for patients. In a study published online today in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology, researchers present positive results of a Phase II clinical trial of eliglustat tartrate, an oral therapy in development to treat Gaucher disease.
CHICAGO – The American Dietetic Association has published an updated position paper on nutrition assistance programs for children that reviews existing programs and their value, discusses barriers to participation and encourages more research to evaluate the programs' long-term effectiveness in helping children get and stay healthy.
ADA's updated position paper, published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, represents the Association's official stance on child and adolescent nutrition assistance programs:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 3, 2010) – Whitehead Institute researchers have converted established human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and human embryonic stem (ES) cells to a base state of greater pluripotency.
"This is a previously unknown pluripotent state in human cells," says Jacob Hanna, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch. "It's the first time these cell types have approached the flexibility found in mouse ES cells."
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Our DNA is under constant siege from a variety of damaging agents. Damage to DNA and the ability of cells to repair that damage has broad health implications, from aging and heritable diseases to cancer. Unfortunately, the tools used to study DNA damage are quite limited, but MIT researchers have developed a new tool for rapid DNA damage analysis that promises to make an impact on human health.
DURHAM, N.C. -- A class of drugs commonly used for asthma, inflammation and skin injury also may hold promise for tissue-repairing regenerative medicine, according to Duke University Medical Center researchers.
In studies on cells from mice, the drugs, a kind of steroid hormone called glucocorticoids, appear to be promoting and protecting stem cell populations that perform tissue repair.
New York, NY (May 3, 2010) -- A new study from researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found that the imprint of European colonialism and imperialism is evident in the genetic makeup of today's Hispanic/Latino American populations. Scientists discovered that Europeans, Native Americans, as well as West Africans brought to the U.S. and Latin America by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, have influenced the genes of the current Hispanic/Latino populations. However, a large variation in genes among individuals within each population were still found to exist.
A widely and safely used plant extract acts as a novel anti-inflammatory agent that may one day be used for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, as well as other inflammatory conditions. There is an urgent need for new therapies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases, such as COPD, otitis media (ear infection), and atherosclerosis (chronic inflammation in the walls of arteries), because the most effective and commonly used agents – steroids – often cause serious side effects, such as liver damage, which prevent long-term use.
COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. (Mon., May 3, 2010) -- The generation of transgenic plants can be a lengthy and difficult process. Transient expression assays have been developed as faster and more convenient alternatives for investigating gene function. These assays often take advantage of the ability of Agrobacterium to transfer foreign DNA into plant cells with intact cell walls. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is, however, inefficient and shows great variability.
Lung researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a possible protein trigger responsible for sarcoidosis, a potentially fatal inflammatory disease marked by tiny clumps of inflammatory cells that each year leave deep, grainy scars on the lungs, lymph nodes, skin and almost all major organs in hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The disorder, whose cause has been a persistent mystery for nearly a century, strikes mostly young adults and disproportionately affects African Americans.
A new blood test could increase the success of a popular lung cancer drug called erlotinib by allowing doctors select which patients will react positively to the drug.
Currently, patients with non-small cell lung cancer receive erlotinib after chemotherapy and other drugs have failed. But erlotinib will only shrink the tumour about 10 per cent of the time.
Adaptive image filters can lower the patient radiation associated with chest and abdominal computed tomography (CT) scans while significantly improving image quality, according to a study to be presented at the ARRS 2010 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
UCSF researchers have created the first transgenic mouse to display the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease using the genetic mutation that is known to accompany human forms of the disease.
The mouse model, which expresses the same mutant proteins as human Parkinson's patients, also displays early signs of constipation and other gastrointestinal problems that are a common harbinger of the disease in humans.
A North Carolina State University researcher has discovered that bacteria transmitted by fleas–and potentially ticks–can be passed to human babies by the mother, causing chronic infections and raising the possibility of bacterially induced birth defects.
