The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) announces the immediate releasePDF of Care of the Critically Ill and Injured During Pandemics and Disasters: CHEST Consensus Statement today in the Online First section of the journal CHEST while the global health-care community cares for patients with the Ebola virus. The consensus statement aims to guide ethical decision-making, coordination of care, resource conservation, and research in crises. The statement was developed by over 100 clinicians and experts representing a broad variety and scope of clinical fields from more than nine countries. It offers the latest evidence-informed suggestions on how to best prepare and manage the critically ill and injured during large-scale disasters and pandemics.

As many as 35 percent of patients who undergo surgery to remove soft tissue sarcomas experience wound-healing complications due to radiation they receive before surgery.

Now a study suggests that a simple test called transcutaneous oximetry may be able to predict which of these patients are most likely to experience wound-healing complications, potentially enabling surgeons to take extra precautions.
Lukas Nystrom, MD, of Loyola University Medical Center, presented his findings during the 2014 annual meeting of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society. Dr. Nystrom received the society

A disposal, plastic listening device that attaches to the abdomen may help doctors definitively determine which post-operative patients should be fed and which should not, an invention that may improve outcomes, decrease healthcare costs and shorten hospital stays, according to a UCLA study.

Some patients who undergo surgery develop a condition called post-operative ileus (POI), a malfunction of the intestines. The condition causes patients to become ill if they eat too soon, which can lengthen an affected patient’s hospital stay by two to three days. Until now, there was no way to monitor for POI other than listening to the belly for short periods with a stethoscope, said study first author Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

If proven successful, the device, a non-invasive acoustic gastrointestinal surveillance biosensor called AbStats, could also be used to help diagnose irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease, in addition to helping obese people learn by the sounds from their gut when they should or shouldn’t eat to help them lose weight.

Spiegel and his team worked with researchers at the UCLA Wireless Health Institute at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science to develop the sensor, which resembles a small plastic cap and has a tiny microphone inside to monitor digestion.

‘We think what we’ve invented is a way to monitor a new vital sign, one to go along with heart rate, blood pressure and respiration. This new vital sign, intestinal rate, could prove to be important in diagnosing and treating patients,’ Spiegel said. ‘The role of wearable sensors in healthcare has reached mainstream consciousness and has the capacity to transform how we monitor and deliver care. Yet, there are very few biosensors that are supported by any peer-reviewed evidence. This study represents peer-reviewed evidence supporting use of a biosensor, a device born and bred out of UCLA multidisciplinary research.’

In this study, the biosensor was used to listen to sounds emanating from the intestines and was connected to a computer that measured the rate of acoustic events

An international team of scientists has shown that more than 80 per cent of bowel cancers could be treated with existing drugs.
The study found that medicines called

Researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center are exploring ways to wake up the immune system so it recognizes and attacks invading cancer cells. Tumours protect themselves by tricking the immune system into accepting everything as normal, even while cancer cells are dividing and spreading.

One pioneering approach uses nanoparticles to jumpstart the body’s ability to fight tumours. Nanoparticles are too small to imagine. One billion could fit on the head of a pin. This makes them stealthy enough to penetrate cancer cells with therapeutic agents such as antibodies, drugs, vaccine type viruses, or even metallic particles. Though small, nanoparticles can pack large payloads of a variety of agents that have different effects that activate and strengthen the body’s immune system response against tumours.

There is an expanding array of nanoparticle types being developed and tested for cancer therapy. They are primarily being used to package and deliver the current generation of cancer cell killing drugs and progress is being made in that effort.
‘Our lab’s approach differs from most in that we use nanoparticles to stimulate the immune system to attack tumours and there are a variety of potential ways that can be done,’ said Steve Fiering, PhD, Norris Cotton Cancer Center researcher and professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and of Genetics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. ‘Perhaps the most exciting potential of nanoparticles is that although very small, they can combine multiple therapeutic agents.’

The immune therapy methods limit a tumour