Preliminary findings from the first trial of a new drug for patients with mesothelioma show that it has some success in preventing the spread of the deadly disease in patients lacking an active tumour suppressor gene called NF2. The study is presented at the 24th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Dublin, Ireland, today (Friday) [2].
Culture
Highlights
- Most patients with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a leading cause of kidney failure, have high levels of a factor called suPAR circulating in their blood.
- suPAR levels could help doctors monitor the disease's progression as well as patients' response to different therapies.
- suPAR might be a therapeutic target of future treatments for this difficult-to-treat disease.
Yearly, about 5,000 individuals in the U.S. are diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Nov. 8, 2012 – What do a tight, fitted bed sheet and a blood clot in the wrist have in common? Both are associated with a condition called sheet fitting palsy. True to its name, the palsy is reported in those who spend a long period of time repeatedly trying to pull a fitted bed sheet over the corner of a mattress. But it has also been reported in basketball players and in those who do push-ups as exercise.
Decades of extreme weather crippled, and ultimately decimated, first the political culture and later the human population of the ancient Maya, according to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers that includes two University of California, Davis, scientists.
Physician-researchers from the Cardiac Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia presented new findings on pediatric cardiovascular disease at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012 in Los Angeles. They described racial disparities in risk factors for sudden cardiac death, imaging modalities and novel approaches to assessing cardiac anomalies, ventricular assist device use, special considerations in syndromes in adult congenital heart disease, changes in immunosuppressive drugs after pediatric heart transplant, and many other topics.
People can lip-read themselves better than they can lip-read others, according to a new study by Nancy Tye-Murray and colleagues from Washington University. Their work, which explores the link between speech perception and speech production, is published online in Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Most people cannot read lips - just try watching television with the sound turned off and see how much of a news item you understand. If you see someone speak a sentence without the accompanying sounds, you are unlikely to recognize many words.
Bethesda, MD – The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) commends Air India for continuing to transport research animals. In a letter to the company, FASEB expressed its appreciation for Air India's perseverance in the face of considerable pressure from animal rights groups to discontinue shipping laboratory animals. "Animals are crucial for the advancement of biomedical research, and scientists around the world are dependent upon their safe and humane shipment," stated FASEB President Judith S. Bond.
(Boston) – Physicians at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have developed a training video for health care providers about how to effectively use capnography to monitor ventilation and carbon dioxide levels for patients under anesthesia or conscious sedation. This is the sixth video published in the New England Journal of Medicine's Videos in Clinical Medicine section produced by BMC. It highlights the importance of using capnography to increase patient safety.
WASHINGTON, DC, November 8, 2012 — Higher neighborhood education is associated with better self-rated health among Asian Americans who live in Asian ethnic neighborhoods, but this correlation between individual health and neighborhood education levels does not exist for Asian Americans living in non-Asian neighborhoods, according to a recent study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
MADISON — For the first time, Wisconsin researchers have taken skin from patients and, using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, turned them into a laboratory model for an inherited type of macular degeneration.
Dr. David Gamm, director of the UW's McPherson Eye Research Institute, said that while Best disease is relatively rare, having a patient-specific model of the eye disease, which destroys the macula of the retina, could lead to a greater understanding of more common eye disorders such as age-related macular degeneration.
ANAHEIM, CA. (November 8, 2012) – Imagine a world where you could never dine away from home, wear makeup, smell of sweet perfumes or eat a large percentage of food on store shelves. According to allergists at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting that is kicking off today in Anaheim, Calif., that is the world for 2 to 3 percent of individuals living with a spice allergy.
Cancer patients with mutations or variations in two genes -– PIK3CA and PTEN -– who have failed to respond to several, standard treatments, respond significantly better to anti-cancer drugs that inhibit these genes' pathways of action, according to research presented at the 24th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Dublin, Ireland, today.
HOUSTON – (Nov. 7, 2012) – Electronic health records (EHRs) are expected to improve patient safety, but they themselves can present challenges for which health care providers must be prepared. Experts at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have proposed a framework to help develop new national patient safety goals unique to electronic health record-enabled clinical settings.
Their report appears in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
New research into controversial pay-for-performance schemes has suggested they may help to save the lives of NHS patients.
A 'significant' fall in mortality rates for certain conditions emerged in a study by health experts and economists from the Universities of Nottingham, Manchester, Cambridge and Birmingham into the use of incentives at hospitals in the North West of England.