Culture

People with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression can lose weight and keep it off through a modified lifestyle intervention program, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded study reported online today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new white paper, "Enhancing the role of case-oriented peer review to improve quality and safety in radiation oncology: Executive Summary," that recommends increased peer review within the radiation therapy treatment process and among members of the radiation oncology team in order to increase quality assurance and safety, according to the manuscript published as an article in press online in Practical Radiation Oncology (PRO), the official clinical practice journal of ASTRO.

A new Guidance recently published by the European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis (ESCEO) and the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) reflects the most current advances in the diagnosis and management of osteoporosis, the 'silent disease' which affects up to one in two postmenopausal women.

"The serious impact of fragility fractures due to osteoporosis is vastly underestimated by many health care professionals," stated ESCEO President Professor Jean-Yves Reginster.

ITHACA, N.Y. — With a dizzying number of ties in our social networks – that your Aunt Alice is a neighbor of Muhammad who is married to Natasha who is your wife's boss – it's a wonder we remember any of it. How do we keep track of the complexity? We cheat, says a Cornell University sociologist in Scientific Reports (March 21), a publication of Nature.

Study: http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130321/srep01513/full/srep01513.html

(Boston) – A new study involving researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has identified barriers that clinicians face in correctly ordering appropriate laboratory tests and highlights some solutions that may simplify this process and improve patient outcomes. The study, published in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, was led by Elissa Passiment, EdM, of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science and James L. Meisel, MD, associate professor of medicine at BUSM.

(CHICAGO) – Platelet rich plasma (PRP) therapy has been used to manage pain associated with torn tendons, muscles and ligaments, mostly in athletes, at all levels. Though it has anecdotally been successful, the evidence to support its efficaciousness is weak. Researchers at the Rothman Institute at Jefferson participated in a multi-center randomized prospective study to evaluate the clinical value of PRP versus an active control group to determine its effectiveness in managing the pain and tenderness associated with tennis elbow.

CHICAGO – Eighty-four percent of patients suffering from chronic tennis elbow (lateral epicondylar tendinopathy) reported significantly less pain and elbow tenderness at six months following platelet rich plasma (PRP) treatment, according to results from the largest, multi-center study, to date, on PRP and tennis elbow, presented today at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).

CHICAGO — A new study, presented today at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), identifies predictors of complications and mortality following a hip fracture, including dialysis, cardiac disease, diabetes, and a longer time before surgery – the only modifiable risk factor when patients are hospitalized.

CHICAGO -- Obesity alone may not diminish outcomes or increase the risk of complications in total knee replacement (TKR) patients, according to two research studies presented today at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). However, TKR replacement patients may face significantly longer hospital stays and related costs.

Total knee replacement in obese patients previously has been associated with increased post-operative complications and lower clinical function scores in multiple research studies.

A new study has found that Spanish nurses trained specifically to resolve acute health problems of low complexity provide care of comparable quality to that of general practitioners. Published early online in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, the findings suggest that nurses may be able to take on some of the care generally provided by physicians.

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have completed a phase II clinical trial to determine the safety and efficacy of dasatinib for patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, or acute myeloid leukemia resulting from MDS and have failed treatment with azanucleosides. The therapy may not be effective for all patients, but those with trisomy 8 chromosomal disorder have higher rates of stable disease and respond better to treatment with dasatinib, the study shows.

A survey of UK doctors found that 97% have prescribed placebo treatments to patients at least once in their career.

Researchers at the Universities of Oxford and Southampton in the UK discovered that 97% of doctors have used 'impure' placebo treatments, while 12% have used 'pure' placebos.

Boston, MA — Women who experienced physical, emotional, or sexual abuse as children are more likely to have a child with autism than women who were not abused, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Those who experienced the most serious abuse had the highest likelihood of having a child with autism — three-and-a-half times more than women who were not abused.

Visits to the ER are not always for true medical emergencies – and some policymakers have been fighting the problem by denying or limiting payments if the patient's diagnosis upon discharge is for "nonemergency" conditions.

Now a new UC San Francisco study challenges that framework by showing that criteria used as a basis to determine the appropriateness of an emergency room visit and to deny payment is inherently flawed. The study analyzed nearly 35,000 visits to hospital emergency departments around the country.

"The 4(1H)-quinolone-3- diarylethers are selective potent inhibitors of the parasite mitochondrial cytochrome bc1 complex," Professor Avery said.

"These compounds are highly active against the types of malaria parasites which infect humans, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax," she said.

"What is really exciting about this study is that a new class of drugs based on the 4(1H)-quinolone-3- diarylethers would target the malaria parasite at different stages of its lifecycle."