Thousands of patients die each year in hospitals across North America due to medical errors that could be prevented were doctors and nurses provided with instant access to patient records via wireless technology. Cue the catch-22: the electromagnetic radiation caused by those very devices can interfere with electronic medical equipment and thus lead to serious clinical consequences for patients.

Luckily, that could soon change thanks to new research from Concordia University that helps define a clear rule of thumb for how close health-care workers with their Wi-Fi devices can be to electronic medical equipment.

In a study researchers from the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science assessed the risk that a medical device will malfunction when radio waves that emanate from portable devices like tablet computers are present in a hospital room.

Hospitals often specify that staff members carrying wireless transmitters not approach sensitive electronic medical devices any closer than a designated minimum separation distance (MSD).

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

Two UH engineering professors have developed novel optical probes with potential applications in improving diagnosis and treatment for patients with kidney disease.

Wei-Chuan Shih, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Chandra Mohan, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Endowed Professor of biomedical engineering, began collaborating just over a year ago. Shih

Schizophrenia, which affects 2 million to 3 million people in the U.S., causes hallucinations, delusions and disorganization. Left untreated, the disease can cause a significant loss in quality of life, including unemployment and estrangement from loved ones. But many people with schizophrenia can control the disorder and live without symptoms for several years if they consistently take prescribed antipsychotic medication, typically a daily pill.

The problem is that many people don

The apparent dearth of research on hepatitis B and C testing in many European countries could be hampering efforts to identify infected individuals, according to results from a comprehensive review of 136 studies.

The systematic review concluded that the current evidence base on hepatitis B and C testing appears to be lacking in many European countries. At present it is informed primarily by published articles and conference abstracts from just 6 out of 53 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region: Turkey, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The results indicate that some high-risk populations have been studied much more than others, but mostly only in a small number of countries. The results also appear to show high median testing uptake levels across Europe. However, since almost all of the studies used methodologies that required or encouraged study participants to undergo testing, high median testing uptake levels are not likely to be representative of the overall testing uptake in most populations.

‘It’s clear from our review that there are crucial gaps in our knowledge on hepatitis B and C testing – we do not yet have enough information to plan effective public health responses in Europe,’ commented Professor Jeffrey Lazarus, Professor of International Health Systems at Copenhagen University, Denmark. ‘Our research team is particularly concerned about the low numbers of published studies looking at migrants, prison inmates and men who have sex with men – all populations that might benefit greatly from targeted hepatitis testing interventions.’

Professor Tom Hemming Karlsen, Scientific Committee Member, European Association for the Study of the Liver, added: ‘Viruses that affect the liver, such as hepatitis B and C, can cause real problems if not identified and treated early. We need to raise awareness of the threat posed by these viruses and actively encourage testing across Europe. This is not only vital to diagnosis and treatment but also to prevention – to stopping the viruses spreading through populations and generations to come.’ News Medical