Body

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- When it comes to something as routine as delivering medicine and nutrition to patients through their bloodstream, all medical teams want to do the right -- and safe --thing.

But at the moment, it appears that this may not be the case.

By looking at data from 10 Michigan hospitals participating in an unprecedented collaborative quality-improvement effort, researchers have shown how much variation exists when it comes to the use of intravenous devices called peripherally inserted central catheters, or PICCs.

Feb. 16, 2016 (Bethesda, MD) -- It is critically important that colorectal cancer patients undergo colonoscopy after surgery to ensure that they do not have a second colon cancer, and to find and remove any additional polyps. According to new recommendations from the U.S. Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer, the evidence shows that post-operative colonoscopy is associated with improved overall survival for colorectal cancer patients. Between 0.7 and 7 percent of colorectal cancer patients have a second, concurrent cancer.

Fast metastasis and resistance to treatment are characteristic of aggressive types of cancer such as pancreatic cancer and certain kinds of breast cancer. They are also the main causes of cancer-related death, as there is currently no specific treatment available that is able to stop tumours spreading throughout the whole body. Researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have recently made a discovery that could change this. They have discovered a mechanism that promotes metastasis and causes tumours to become resistant to treatment.

Public health measures to reduce smoking would have more success if policy makers intervened to curb the vast profitability of the tobacco industry, say University researchers.

The lucrative nature of the cigarette market, dominated by a small number of large shareholder-owned companies, results in a vigorous fight against any new public health measures that may disrupt their profit-making.

LIFE ON EARTH - Reconstructing the emergence and evolution of life on our planet is tightly linked to the questions as to when and to what extent Earth's atmosphere became oxygenated. New geological studies based on data from Western Greenland indicate that small levels of atmospheric oxygen developed already 3.8 billion years ago, some 0.7-0.8 billion years earlier than previously thought.

Beavers are beneficial to the Scottish environment, say academics from The University of Stirling.

A study into the ecology and habitat engineering of beavers reintroduced to a site on Tayside in 2002 has found the creatures can improve biodiversity, minimise pollutants and reduce downstream flooding.

Another clue to the workings of trachoma - the world's leading infectious cause of blindness - has been revealed in a new study published in BMC Infectious Diseases. Researchers identified markers of genetic regulation present in the early stages of infection that could predispose children to developing the condition in its long-term, severe form.

The study was carried out by a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, part-funded by Fight for Sight and The Wellcome Trust, in partnership with colleagues in West Africa.

A study of all Norwegian men born between 1965 and 1985 shows that male cancer survivors are less likely to have children than those without a cancer diagnosis.

"These finds are important for male cancer survivors, seeing as we can identify groups at risk of having reproduction problems," says Maria Winther Gunnes, PhD candidate at the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Bergen (UiB) and lead author of a recently published article in the British Journal of Cancer.

May alter future cancer treatment

When a child needs repeated x-rays, exposure to radiation is always a concern for parents. A new study at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) finds that a relatively new imaging system known as EOS, which provides less radiation exposure, performed as well as conventional CT scans in assessing limb length.

A difference in leg length is a common condition treated by orthopedic surgeons. A child may be born with it, or it may be the result of infection, an injury, or related to another disease.

Researchers with Vanderbilt University have discovered that one small chemical change to an existing antibacterial drug results in a compound that is more effective against its target enzyme in tuberculosis.

Not only does the new compound -- a derivative of the fluoroquinolone moxifloxacin -- work better against the wild-type tuberculosis enzyme, it maintains activity against resistant forms of the enzyme, said Neil Osheroff, Ph.D., John Coniglio Professor of Biochemistry.

UNSW Australia-led researchers have discovered a way to produce a tenfold increase in the amount of methane gas emitted by naturally occurring microbes living in coal seams and on food waste.

The innovation could benefit the environment by extending the lifespan of coal seam gas wells, as well as improving the economics of using woody crops and left-over food as commercial sources of biogas.

The technique involves the addition of small amounts of a synthetic dye that forms previously unobserved needle-like crystals to help the methane-producing microbes grow faster.

Here's one more benefit of exercise: mice who spent their free time on a running wheel were better able to shrink tumors (a 50% reduction in tumor size) compared to their less active counterparts. Researchers found that the surge of adrenaline that comes with a high-intensity workout helped to move cancer-killing immune (NK) cells toward lung, liver, or skin tumors implanted into the mice. The study appears Feb. 16, 2016 in Cell Metabolism.

The annual deaths that occur each winter in Canada due to poor road conditions can be reduced with a multipronged strategy, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

Canada's road fatalities on a per-capita basis are twice those in Sweden, another country with inclement winter weather.

PHILADELPHIA -- (Feb. 16, 2016) -- Imagine developing a drug designed to inhibit a protein that helps cancer cells proliferate and survive only to find that the drug does not perform very well in the clinic. This was the dilemma faced by scientists researching inhibitors of signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT3), a protein that controls transcription by the STAT3 gene. When STAT3 was knocked out in a mouse model, researchers observed increased T-cell immune responses, suggesting a valuable therapeutic target.

The stick insect is a popular model organism in biological research for gaining a better understanding of insect walking movements. The advantage of the stick insect is that the structure of its body parts and nervous system are comparatively simple. For decades, textbooks have claimed that the force for maintaining body posture and driving movement was controlled independently by different joints.