Researchers from North Carolina State University, Institut Langevin and Paris-Descartes University have conducted a proof-of-concept study that raises the possibility of using ultrasound techniques to detect cervical stiffness changes that indicate an increased risk of preterm labour in pregnant women. While additional work needs to be done, it may ultimately give doctors a new tool for determining when to provide treatment that can prevent preterm birth.

Premature births can mean low birthweights and other medical problems for newborns, but there are steps that doctors can take to reduce the chances of premature birth if early warning signs are detected. One of those early symptoms is a softening of the cervix. Traditionally, this stiffness is assessed by manually palpating the cervix.

Inhome test kits, coupled with patient education, help parents reduce allergen levels in their homes, according to scientists. The researchers found that parents may become more motivated to participate in allergen reduction interventions, when they can actually see results for themselves.

The scientists specifically looked at dust mites, microscopic relatives of the spider, that live in dust on mattresses, bedding, upholstered furniture, carpets, curtains, and other soft furnishings. Dust mites contain allergens known to trigger symptoms in people who are allergic to them, and especially those with asthma.

Data from the ILUMIEN II trial found that guidance from optimal coherence tomography (OCT) was associated with comparable stent expansion as guidance from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Coronary stents must be optimally deployed with full lesion coverage and complete stent expansion to optimize outcomes. Less than full expansion can result in stent thrombosis or restenosis. Previous studies have found that the strongest predictor of stent thrombosis and restenosis is the minimum stent area (MSA) achieved after PCI.
Advanced imaging techniques, such as IVUS and OCT, help cardiologists to measure, place, and expand the stent with optimal precision. By achieving greater stent luminal dimensions, IVUS-guidance has been associated with improved event-free survival compared to angiographic guidance alone. Compared to IVUS, OCT has superior resolution but does not penetrate as deeply into the arterial wall. Consequently it has limitations in assessing the true diameter of the native artery. It is unknown whether stent expansion, a surrogate of clinical outcomes, is as great with OCTguidance as with IVUS-guidance.
ILUMIEN II was a prospectively planned, retrospective comparison of OCT-guidance in ILUMIEN I and IVUS-guidance in ADAPT-DES. The overall study population initially included a total of 940 patients (one lesion randomly chosen per patient; 354 from ILUMIEN I and 586 from ADAPTDES). Aft er 1:1 propensity matching, 286 patients/lesions from each group were analyzed (n=572).Both the OCT and IVUS analyses were performed by the CRF Clinical Trials Center.
The primary endpoint was post-PCI stent expansion (%) defined as the minimum stent area (MSA) divided by the mean reference lumen area as assessed by OCT in ILUMIEN I and by IVUS in ADAPT-DES. The secondary endpoints were the following IVUS and OCT core lab measures:
Mean stent expansion (defined as stent volume/stent length divided by the mean reference lumen area);
Prevalence of major edge dissection (≥3 mm in length); Prevalence of major stent malapposition (malapposition distance/luminal diameter ≥20%). The secondary endpoint using angiographic core lab measures (independent of technique) was post-PCI mean lumen diameter (MLD), percent diameter stenosis, and acute gain.
The post-PCI stent expansion was 72.8% [63.3, 81.3] in the OCT-guided group compared to 70.6% [62.3, 78.8] in the IVUSguided group (p=0.29). Similar rates of major stent edge dissection (2.4% vs. 1.0%, p=0.29) and major stent malapposition (1.4% vs. 0.7%, p=0.69) occurred in both groups.

A new breast cancer survivorship care guideline created by the American Cancer Society and the American Society of Clinical Oncology provides guidance to primary care and other clinicians in caring for the estimated 3.1 million female adult survivors of breast cancer in the United States. The guideline is the third in a continuing series of guidelines to provide guidance on identifying and managing potential physical and psychosocial long-term and late effects of cancer and its treatment, as well as other key elements of adult post-treatment survivorship care. Previous guidelines address the needs of survivors of prostate and colorectal cancers.
The guideline recommends that breast cancer patients should undergo regular surveillance for breast cancer recurrence, including evaluation with a detailed cancer-related history and physical examination, and should be screened for new primary breast cancer consistent with guidelines. At the same time, data do not support performing routine laboratory tests or imaging tests, except mammography when indicated, in asymptomatic patients to evaluate for breast cancer recurrence.
The guideline also recommends that primary care clinicians counsel patients about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, monitor for post-treatment symptoms that can adversely affect quality of life, and counsel patients to adhere to endocrine therapy. In addition to recommendations about screening tests and lifestyle factors, the guideline includes information on a broad range of other issues, from cognitive impairment and body image to fatigue and care coordination.

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have set out to help build the world’s first total-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, a medical imaging device that could change the way cancers and other diseases are diagnosed and treated.
The project is a consortium led by a UC Davis research team and includes scientists from Berkeley Lab and the University of Pennsylvania. It’s supported by a recently announced five-year, $15.5 million ( Euro 13 million) Transformative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health.
The consortium’s goal is to build a PET scanner that images the entire human body simultaneously, a big jump from today’s PET scanners that only scan 20-cm segments at a time. In addition to being able to diagnose and track the trajectory of a disease in a way not possible today, a total-body PET scanner would reduce a patient’s radiation dose by a factor of 40, or decrease scanning time from 20 minutes to just 30 seconds.
Berkeley Lab’s contribution, led by William Moses of the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, is to develop electronics that send data collected by the scanner’s detectors to a computer, which converts the data into a three-dimensional image of the patient. The new scanner will have half a million detectors, and the data from each detector must be electronically transmitted to a computer, so the task is incredibly complex.
‘We’re developing the electronic interface between the detectors and the computer algorithm-and the electronics for this scanner is an order of magnitude more complicated than what’s been done before,’ says Moses. ‘But Berkeley Lab has a long history developing instrumentation for nuclear medical imaging, including PET scanners, and this project is another milestone in our research.’
The total-body PET scanner is the latest project in Berkeley Lab’s PET-related research, coming at a time when technology has advanced to the point that it s possible to efficiently process the data generated from the scanner’s half a million detectors.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratoryhttp://tinyurl.com/zyqhukj