Whenever cardiac insufficiency or serious heart defects worsen, such deterioration is often associated with a loss of muscular mass and muscular strength. Scientists at the Charit
A recent study led by DCRI Fellow Jacob Doll found that approximately two-thirds of the patients who were referred to rehabilitation did not attend an initial session.
Cardiac rehabilitation programmes include a mixture of exercise regimens, health education, and cardiovascular risk reduction and medication adherence support. These programmes, which typically comprise 2 to 3 weekly sessions for a total of 36 sessions, are associated with improvements in lifestyle, functional capacity, and quality of life for older adults. Despite this, rates of referral and adherence have traditionally been low, particularly in older adults.
In this study, Doll and his colleagues used data from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry Acute Coronary Treatment Intervention Outcomes Network Registry and Medicare claims to identify 58,269 patients 65 years or older who had a heart attack between 2007 and 2010. Of these patients, 36,376 (62.4 percent) were referred to cardiac rehabilitation. Only 11,862 patients (32.6 percent) attended at least one rehab session during the year following hospital discharge. Of those who had not been referred, 1,795 (8.2 percent) attended at least one session.
Only about 5 percent of the patients completed all 36 sessions, even though the sessions are usually covered by insurance.
These findings, the study
Patients suffering from chronic cardiopulmonary diseases could soon have a solution to help them accurately monitor their health and warn doctors at the first sign of trouble.
By simply carrying their cellphone, equipped with the health-tracking app, MoveSense, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a patient
Academics at Loughborough University hope to boost early detection rates of cancer in developing countries with their portable labinabriefcase that can operate even at high temperatures.
Believed to be the first kit of its kind dedicated to the portable measurement of cancer biomarkers, the concept is the brainchild of Dr Nuno Reis, a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering.
The number of people dying from cancer in developing countries is on the increase, partly due to steadily ageing populations, but also due to limited access to proper diagnostic tools. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for over 8 million deaths per year, and 70% of the world
Robotically steering flexible needles can reach their intended target in tissue with sub-millimetre level accuracy. This has been demonstrated by the doctoral research of Momen Abayazid, who is affiliated with the research institute MIRA of the University of Twente. A major advantage of steering flexible needles is that one can avoid obstacles or sensitive tissues and can re-orient the path of the needle in real time as you insert the needle.
During many diagnostic and therapeutic procedures a needle is inserted into soft tissue, such as during biopsies, or inserting radioactive seeds in order to combat prostate cancer. In many of these operations the accurate positioning of the needle is of the utmost importance. In general, rigid needles with a relatively large diameter are used in these procedures. However, the drawback of these needles is that they cannot be manoeuvred when inserted into tissue and hence cannot avoid any obstacles. In addition, the tissue and organs deform during needle insertion. As a result, the needle often misses its target.
The University of Twente is has developed a robot-assisted system for steering flexible needles with an asymmetric tip. Such a needle naturally bends when inserted into tissue due to its asymmetric tip. By performing a sequence of insertions and rotations, one can steer the needle in complex three-dimensional paths. The needle is controlled by a robot and is tracked in real time using ultrasound images. This ensures that it is possible to adjust the needle
Surgeons at the University Hospitals Leuven have used a new technique for two recent liver transplants. In both cases the organ was preserved prior transplantation in a device that mimics the environment of that in the human body, making sure the liver stays
The cost of treating hepatitis C virus (HCV) could be cut up to 50 percent if mathematical models are used to predict when patients can safely stop taking direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medication, according to a new study by researchers at Loyola University Health System and Loyola University Chicago.
An estimated 170 million people have the blood-borne infection worldwide, which is a major cause of chronic liver disease. The recent approval of DAAs has led to a revolution in the treatment of HCV, but the high cost of DAAs limits access to treatment in America and abroad.
Although there is no evidence that human prion disease, AD or cerebral amyloid angiopahy (CAA) is contagious (spread from person to person by direct contact), the study of eight patients suggests that amyloid beta (the peptides that form the main components of the amyloid plaques found in the brains of patients with AD) may potentially be transmissible via certain medical procedures.
Human transmission of prion disease has occurred as a result of various medical procedures (iatrogenic transmission), with incubation periods that can exceed five decades.
One such iatrogenic route of transmission was via the treatment in the UK of 1,848 persons of short stature with human growth hormone (HGH) extracted from cadaver-sourced pituitary glands, some of which were inadvertently prion-contaminated. The treatments began in 1958 and ceased in 1985 following reports of CJD among recipients. By the year 2000, 38 of the patients had developed CJD. As of 2012, 450 cases of iatrogenic CJD have been identified in countries worldwide after treatment with cadaverderived HGH and, to a lesser extent, other medical procedures, including transplant and neurosurgery.
John Collinge, Sebastian Brandner and colleagues at UCL conducted autopsy studies, including extensive brain tissue sampling, of eight UK patients aged 36
Men with prostate cancer who are undergoing radiation therapy can benefit from yoga, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report,
The new, first-of-its-kind study, led by Neha Vapiwala, MD, an associate professor in the department of Radiation Oncology at PSOM and Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center, found that general quality of life and measurements of side effects often experienced by prostate cancer patients
Statistically, about one in 20 women who undergo mammography screening can expect a suspicious finding. If further tests indicate a possibility of cancer, the screening physician recommends taking a tissue sample, or biopsy. Nearly 35,000 women every year face this situation. ‘However, in only about 17,000 of these cases is a malignant tumour actually found,’ says Dr. Sebastian Bickelhaupt, a radiologist at the DKFZ who has been investigating the use of advanced MR imaging in diagnosing breast cancer. ‘We have been looking at advanced imaging technologies as a potential way of reducing the number of invasive tissue examinations.’
In a mammogram, which examines the breast using X-rays, it is often impossible to distinguish benign from malignant abnormalities in tissues and thus exclude the existence of a malignant tumour to the physician’s satisfaction. If the situation can’t be clarified by further testing, such as an ultrasound examination, an invasive biopsy must be performed.
The DKFZ radiologists have optimized a method called diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) specifically for use in these cases. ‘Diffusion-weighted MRI is a special technique that allows us to see the movement of water molecules in tissues,’ explains Professor Heinz-Peter Schlemmer, head of Radiology at the DKFZ. ‘Since tumours strongly reduce the movement of these molecules, we decided to examine the potential of our optimized breast MRI for deeper investigations of suspicious findings, in hopes of avoiding an unnecessary biopsy.’
This idea led the DKFZ researchers to plan a study in close collaboration with the office-based physicians in Dr. Wolfgang Lederer’s team at Heidelberg ATOS Klinik and Dr. Heidi Daniel’s team at the Radiology Centre Mannheim, who routinely conduct mammography screenings. If a mammography shows a suspicious lesion, the patient is invited to the Radiology Centre Mannheim for further testing and, as a rule, also for biopsies.
‘For our study, we asked affected women if they were prepared to have an optimized breast MRI prior to the biopsy,’ Daniel explained. ‘We were surprised to get such a high rate of participation that we could proceed with the study quickly,’ Lederer adds. ‘We owe our thanks to the many participants,’ Lederer adds.
The DKFZ radiologists compared the MRI images with results from the biopsies. ‘Within the first 50 cases we investigated, we were already thrilled,’ says Bickelhaupt. ‘Adding the step of optimized breast MRI enabled us to classify over 90 percent of the suspicious findings correctly. That’s an enormous improvement over the 50-percent rate achieved by a combination of mammography and a subsequent ultrasound examination.’
In Schlemmer’s opinion, this does not mean that breast MRI is ready to replace screening mammography. ‘The positive results of our study are based on using MRI in combination with other tests. X-ray mammography also detects minute microcalcifications that indicate non-invasive breast cancer (DCIS), which do not appear in MRI.’ According to Schlemmer, optimized breast MRI is most suitable for clarifying a suspicious finding. A biopsy would only be required if the MRI indicates a high likelihood for a positive finding.
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