A symptomless blood disorder, monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, known as MGUS, is not linked to as many serious diseases as previously thought. This finding may save patients from undergoing unnecessary workup and treatment according to a study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
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A new study from NYU School of Medicine found that women may have a slightly higher risk of death than men in the 30 days following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS), but that these differences appear to be attributable to factors such as severity and type of ACS. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that overall there was no significant difference in mortality observed between the sexes after a heart attack.
A new UCLA study examines the link between high cholesterol and osteoporosis and identifies a new way that the body's immune cells play a role in bone loss.
Published in the journal Clinical Immunology, the research could lead to new immune-based approaches for treating osteoporosis. Affecting 10 million Americans, the disease causes fragile bones and increases the risk of fractures, resulting in lost independence and mobility.
PHILADELPHIA – Researchers from Turku, Finland, have identified a blood-flow glucose consumption mismatch that predicted pancreatic tumor aggressiveness, according to results of a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Based on these findings, they suggested that the relationship between several physiological tumor parameters might provide more important information about a tumor than just looking at any of these parameters alone.
PHILADELPHIA – Researchers continue to add to the diagnostic alphabet of saliva by identifying the presence of at least 50 microRNAs that could aid in the detection of oral cancer, according to a report in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
SEATTLE – While long-term tamoxifen use among breast cancer survivors decreases their risk of developing the most common, less aggressive type of second breast cancer, such use is associated with a more than four-fold increased risk of a more aggressive, difficult-to-treat type of cancer in the breast opposite, or contralateral, to the initial tumor. These findings by Christopher Li, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center were published online Aug. 25 in the journal Cancer Research.
Researchers in Heidelberg have now discovered that sequences of genetic material on the X and Y chromosome that regulates the gene responsible for short stature and is also crucial for growth in children. These gene regulators determine how frequently a gene is copied, thus how effective it is. In many cases, the mutation of one regulatory sequence of the SHOX gene is sufficient to give rise to the full-blown syndrome.
Love songs aren't only for soft rock FM stations – they're also used by romantic bats, and researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin are believed to be the first to decode the mysterious love sounds made by the winged creatures. Their work is published in the current issue of PloS One (Public Library of Science).
A chemical compound found in unpasteurized food has been detected in unusually high levels in the red blood cells of pregnant women with the condition pre-eclampsia.
These results are important because they suggest that the compound, 'ergothioneine', is an indicator of pre-eclampsia and may help scientists to understand the cause of the condition.
Scientists at the University of Leeds took blood samples from a group of thirty-seven pregnant women and compared the red blood cells from women with pre-eclampsia with the red blood cells from women with no symptoms.
Serrated colorectal polyps include the subgroups hyperplastic polyps, sessile serrated polyps (also called sessile serrated adenomas), and serrated adenomas. Recent studies have found that serrated polyps share molecular features with a subgroup of colon cancers, leading to the hypothesis that serrated polyps can be precursors of cancer through a hyperplastic polyp to serrated adenoma to cancer sequence. These cancers tend to arise in the proximal colon. Sessile serrated polyps may be an intermediate step between hyperplastic polyp and serrated adenomas.
Scientists have discovered a way of allowing healthy cells to take charge of cancerous cells and stop them developing into tumours in what could provide a new approach to treating early-stage cancers.
University of Manchester researchers found that a special type of the chemicals known as 'kinase inhibitors' opened up communication channels on the surface of cells that enabled healthy cells to 'talk' to the cancer cells.
Accumulating evidence suggests that connective tissue growth factor (CCN2) plays a central role in fibrotic conditions in many organ systems. Fibrosis is a scarring condition that is characterized by excessive collagen production that impedes normal cell function and can cause organ dysfunction and failure. A hallmark of fibrosing injury in the liver is the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) which become highly proliferative, synthesize increased levels of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β and CCN2, and produce excessive amounts of collagen.
Acute hepatocellular injury is a commonly encountered phenomenon in patients with cholelithiasis and concomitant common bile duct (CBD) stones. However, in clinical practice, it seemed to occur also in cholelithiasis patients without evidence of CBD stones. Its incidence and final outcome necessitated clarification.
In general, angiography and endoscopy are the most useful modalities for diagnosing and managing gastrointestinal bleeding. However, duodenal diverticular hemorrhage complicated by duodenal obstruction can happen after transcatheter arterial embolization by ischemic damage to the duodenum or fibrotic encasement of the duodenum. Complications of peridiverticular and retroperitoneal fibrosis around the resolving hematoma could happen after successful TAE; therefore, the resolving hematoma should be thoroughly observed.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a potential new drug delivery system. The finding is a biological mechanism for delivery of nanoparticles into tissue. The results are published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"This work is important because when giving a drug to a patient, it circulates in the blood stream, but often doesn't get into the tissue," said senior author Erkki Ruoslahti, of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research at UCSB. "This is especially true with tumors.