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Archive for month: August, 2020
Scientists lead study on new treatment for prostate cancer
Scientists at the University of York have discovered a potential new treatment for prostate cancer using low temperature plasmas (LTPs).
The study is the first time LTPs have been applied on cells grown directly from patient tissue samples. It is the result of a unique collaboration between the York Plasma Institute in the Department of Physics and the Cancer Research Unit (CRU) in York
A3 adenosine receptor can activate ‘off signals’ for pain
St. Louis University scientists led by professor of pharmacological and physiological sciences Daniela Salvemini, Ph.D., discovered that drugs targeting the A3 adenosine receptor can ‘turn off’ pain signals in the spinal cord to provide relief from chronic pain.
Pain is the most common reason that people seek medical attention, but the available treatments–most commonly non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and opioids–are not always successful at relieving pain in patients with chronic pain. For this reason, Salvemini and colleagues teamed up with researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the University of Arizona and two institutes in Quebec, Canada, to investigate a new target for treating chronic pain: the A3 adenosine receptor or A3AR.
In earlier studies, Salvemini’s laboratory demonstrated that two drugs which target the A3AR–IB-MECA and MRS5698–were effective in treating several models of chronic pain, including painful chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, metastatic cancer pain, and nerve injury. More recently, the group sought to uncover the mechanism of A3AR pain relief.
‘Chronic pain can result from the loss of regulatory mechanisms in the nervous system pathway that transmits pain,’ Salvemini said. ‘Adenosine acts as a regulatory signalling molecule in other areas of the nervous system, so we hypothesized that A3AR might also play a role in regulating pain signals during pain processing.’
Indeed, Salvemini and colleagues found that A3AR drugs not only relieved pain, but did so by activating an inhibitory transmitter system known as the gamma amino-butyric acid (GABA) system. In areas of the spinal cord and brain dedicated to pain processing, A3AR activation promoted GABA signalling by preventing the breakdown and removal of GABA from neuronal synapses.
‘In chronic pain, GABA signalling is often lost or diminished. Our A3AR drugs were able to restore GABA signalling in areas that process pain and ‘turn off’ the signals that maintain the pain state,’ Salvemini said.
With A3AR drugs demonstrating good safety profiles in clinical trials as anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer agents, Salvemini and colleagues are enthusiastic about the potential of these new drugs to treat chronic pain in patients. EurekAlert
Optical resonance-based biosensors designed for medical applications
A telecommunications engineer of the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre, has designed optical resonance-based biosensors for use in medical applications like, for example, the detecting of celiac disease. Besides achieving greater resolution and sensitivity, the materials used in these devices are much cheaper and more versatile than the ones used in current technologies (mainly gold and noble metals) so they could offer a potential alternative in the design of biomedical sensors.
A biosensor is an instrument that uses biological molecules (bioreceptors) to detect other biological or chemical substances. In this thesis the bioreceptors have been antibodies, biological molecules that the body produces specifically to fight off antigens. An antigen is a substance foreign to the human body; our immune system recognises it as a threat and in the presence of it the body reacts by producing antibodies to identify and neutralise it. What is more, the biosensor is made up of a substrate (where the physical phenomenon that translates the biological reactions into intelligible information takes place) and the immobilisation layer which causes the antibodies to become attached to the substrate.
‘One of the unique features,’ says the author, ‘is that for the substrate we use silicon waveguides on which we generate a specific type of resonance.’ The biosensors designed are based on the movement of the wavelength of the resonances generated on the basis of the quantity of antigens detected. ‘When the antibodies come together with the antigens, there is a minimum change in the wavelength that our biosensors are capable of picking up.’ This is possible thanks to the resolution achieved by these biosensors and their sensitivity, ‘which enables us to see how much resonances shift on the wavelength as the antibody-antigen links increase.’
The work carried out by Abi
Study finds no harm from hospital policies that let families observe CPR
When a hospital patient
Study confirms effectiveness of new stroke treatment
A research paper confirms earlier findings that a procedure called endovascular therapy (ET) for ischemic stroke is the best treatment option for many patients by reducing the incidence of disability. This is the fourth research paper published this year that confirms the efficacy of the treatment.
Greater function after stroke when blood clots removed from brain blood vessels
A technique that removes blood clots from large brain blood vessels reduced disability after stroke in a trial conducted in Catalonia, Spain, and co-led by an expert from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The results of the trial, known as REVASCAT, echo findings from other recent large studies that were stopped early when the technique, called endovascular therapy or stent retriever thrombectomy, appeared to be highly effective, said co-principal investigator Tudor Jovin, M.D., associate professor of neurology and neurological surgery, and director of the UPMC Stroke Institute. Originally, the REVASCAT trial expected to enroll nearly 700 participants.
Patients with severe form of immune condition are treated using gene therapy
Patients with the most severe form of the immune condition Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome have been successfully treated using gene therapy at GOSH.
The treatment meant that the children went from spending an average of 25 days in hospital in the two years prior to gene therapy to no days in the hospital in the two years after the treatment. It also allowed for one child who was confined to a wheelchair to return to normal physical activities without the use of the chair.
Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome (WAS) is a genetic condition that affects between one and 10 children in every million worldwide and reduces their ability to fight infection. Symptoms can include bleeding episodes, eczema and other recurrent skin infections, and autoimmune disease although there is a broad spectrum of severity within the disease with some children being more affected than others. The most severely affected children often need to spend time in hospital.
The condition can very successfully be treated by giving children a bone marrow transplant where faulty immune cells are replaced by working donor cells, although this relies on donors being a good match for patients. Without transplantation, patients with WAS often don
Use of pocket-sized ultrasound device reduces need for further testing in clinical settings
Results from a study presented at The International Liver Congress 2015 demonstrate that the use of a pocket-sized ultrasound device (PUD) helps to reduce the need for further testing in both the inpatient and outpatient setting.
The study evaluated the effectiveness of the PUD when testing for the following conditions: biliary-duct dilation, gallstones, ascites, splenomegaly, pleural effusion, pericardial effusion, urinary retention, urinary stones, abdominal mass and aortic aneurysm.
PUDs offer a comparable performance to standard ultrasonography, however the accuracy of a physical examination is often poor meaning that further tests are required. This study assessed whether adding the use of PUD to physical examination could lead to a reduction in the rate of additional tests.
Of the 1,962 patients included in the study:
726 (37%) were inpatients, 510 (26%) were hepatology outpatients and 726 (37%) were recruited from GPs
Gallstones (37%), ascites – excessive accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity (17%), pleural effusion (13%), urinary stones (13%) and urinary retention (12%) accounted for more than 90% of the clinical questions, confirmed by PUD in 66% of cases
The overall frequency of further tests needed after PUD was 37%
The rate of agreement between findings of the PUD and additional tests was 89%
This study found that after basic training, the use of a PUD offers a simple and effective way to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and reduce the number of tests a patient needs.
EurekAlert
Two treatments yield similar results for children after cardiac arrest
A large-scale, multi-centre study has shown that emergency body cooling does not improve survival rates or reduce brain injury in infants and children with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest more than normal temperature control.
Therapeutic hypothermia, or whole body cooling, can improve survival and health outcomes for adults after cardiac arrest and also for newborns with brain injury due to a lack of oxygen at birth. But, until now, this treatment has not been studied in infants or children admitted to hospitals with cardiac arrest.
‘Our results show that therapeutic hypothermia is no more effective for treating children after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest than maintaining body temperature within the normal range, ‘ said co-principal investigator Frank W. Moler, M.D., a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. ‘Both treatments help to control fever and result in similar outcomes for patients.’
More than 6,000 children suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the United States each year, according to the American Heart Association’s 2015 heart disease and stroke statistics. During cardiac arrest, the heart stops pumping effectively, and blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs. In many cases, the outcome is death or long-term disability.
The study included 295 participants between 2 days and 18 years old who were admitted to children’s hospitals for cardiac arrest, required chest compressions for at least two minutes and remained dependent on mechanical ventilation to breathe.
After their parents or guardians provided consent, children were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment groups. One group received body cooling for two days followed by three days of normal temperature control. Another group received normal temperature control for five days.
During the treatment, study participants lay between special blankets. Pumps circulate water through tubes in the blankets to maintain specific body temperature ranges: either a lower range of 89.6