Body

BOSTON, MA - Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has been used as an effective tool for cancer evaluation and has been found to be highly sensitive in detecting breast tumors, but there is no evidence that pre-operative MRI translates into improved outcomes following breast conserving surgery. Traditionally, patients who are scheduled to undergo breast-conserving lumpectomy for breast cancer undergo a breast MRI prior to surgery to help inform the surgeon about the size, shape, and location of the tumor.

Canada spends more than $400 million annually on drugs prescribed to seniors even though the medicines should be avoided for older patients, according to new UBC research.

The study's authors conclude that the full cost to Canada's health-care system is closer to $2 billion when hospital visits and other repercussions of inappropriate prescriptions are factored in.

Professor Anja Groth and her research team at the University of Copenhagen are concerned with understanding the basic molecular mechanisms responsible for the development and maintenance of the more than 200 specific cell types in our body. Now, new groundbreaking results have made them take out a patent on their knowledge.

In a study published online by JAMA Cardiology, Jared W. Magnani, M.D., M.Sc., formerly of the Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues examined race-specific associations of atrial fibrillation with stroke, heart failure, coronary heart disease (CHD), and all-cause mortality among more than 15,000 individuals.

Blacks with atrial fibrillation (AFib) have nearly double the risk than their white counterparts of stroke, heart failure, coronary heart disease (CHD) and mortality from all causes, according to a study published today in JAMA Cardiology.

Mini-guts grown in the lab using cystic fibrosis patients' cells can help pinpoint those who are most likely to benefit from new drugs, according to a new study. The findings pave the way to exploiting so-called organoids as a tool for screening drugs and personalizing treatment for patients with cystic fibrosis and other genetic diseases. Cystic fibrosis, a condition in which sticky mucus clogs the lungs and other organs, is caused by mutations in the CFTR channel.

Since gun law reform and the Firearms Buyback program 20 years ago, Australia has seen an accelerating decline in intentional firearm deaths and an absence of fatal mass shootings, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports today in a landmark study.

The team, led by James Cook University's Associate Professor Eric Roberts, discovered the oldest known example of fungus gardens within fossil termite nests from the Great Rift Valley of Africa in 25 million year old sediments.

Fungus farming termite colonies cultivate fungi in gardens in subterranean nests or chambers, helping to convert plant material into a more easily digestible food source for the termites.

Numbers of a rare species of moth - found only in York in England - have tumbled in recent years, a team including researchers from the University of York have discovered.

The Dark Bordered Beauty (Epione vespertaria) is found on Strensall Common, an area of protected lowland heath near York. This is the last known English site for the moth, although there is a handful of populations in Scotland, where the moth is also rare.

ATLANTA--The transmission of Taenia solium, a pork tapeworm species that infects humans and causes late-onset seizures and epilepsy, can be stopped on a population-wide level with mass treatments of both pigs and humans, researchers have shown.

Researchers from several institutions, including Georgia State University, contributed to the study and published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Hops, the flower cones used in beer-making, are also found in dietary supplements designed to help treat post-menopausal symptoms and other conditions. Scientists are now investigating whether an extract from the plant could also help fend off breast cancer. In the ACS journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, one team reports new lab tests on breast cells that support this possibility.

A recent study found that that sperm of men who smoke has a greater extent of DNA damage than that of non-smokers.

Researchers also assessed 422 proteins in participants' sperm. One protein was absent, 27 proteins were underrepresented, and 6 proteins were over-represented in smokers. Analyses of these proteins suggest that cigarette smoking may promote an inflammatory response in the male reproductive tract.

The BJU International study included 20 nonsmoking men and 20 men who smoked.

A study of 430 hospitals in the developing world found that more than one-third lacked running water, a deficiency that can lead to unsanitary conditions for patients in general and dangerous conditions for those who need surgery.

A new technology can read the order (sequence) of the "letters" making up DNA code with enough accuracy to reveal how bacteria use high-speed evolution to defeat antibiotics. That is the finding of a study led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and published June 22 in the journal Nature.

The technology, called Maximum Depth Sequencing (MDS), eliminates the error introduced by core methods behind current high-speed DNA sequencing machines to catch genetic changes so rare that older methods could not tell them apart from machine error.

A phase 1 clinical trial testing a novel combination therapy developed by scientists at VCU Massey Cancer Center slowed the growth of cancer in the majority of trial participants, which were patients with advanced solid tumors. Approximately 61 percent of these patients experienced some degree of tumor growth delay, with multiple partial responses and one complete response. A phase 2 study testing the same combination of the drugs sorafenib and pemetrexed in patients with recurrent or metastatic triple negative breast cancer is now open at Massey.