A study by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center
A new study suggests that echocardiography be included as part of screenings to help identify student athletes with heart problems that could lead to sudden death.
The Cincinnati Children
A new ground-breaking technology was recently used at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) where two cardiologists, Dr. David Birnie and Dr. Pablo Nery, implanted anew innovative leadless defibrillator, the subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator (S-ICD), to a 18year-old patient. Under Health Canada
Jonathan Friedberg, M.D.A University of Rochester Medical Center study challenges treatment guidelines for early stage follicular lymphoma, concluding that six different therapies can bring a remission, particularly if the patient is carefully examined and staged at diagnosis.
The research underlines the fact that when cancer strikes, modern patients and their oncologists across the United States are taking many diverse treatment paths when there is scant data to support one method over another. This study suggests that the old standard approach
New research shows that boosting a protein pathway in the body
A tiny medical device no larger than an eyelash may significantly reduce eye pressure in glaucoma patients and allow some to stop using eye-drop medications, according to year-one clinical trial results for the device. Results of the HYDRUS I clinical trial, which indicate successful control of eye pressure in all study participants, will be presented today at the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, jointly conducted this year with the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology.
The Hydrus stent is one of several promising mini-drainage devices now in clinical trials in the United States and other countries. If future trials confirm micro-stents’ effectiveness, they could someday help protect millions of glaucoma patients from vision loss or blindness.
Open-angle glaucoma, the most common form of the disease, affects nearly three million people in the U.S and 60 million worldwide.[ Though it is a multi-factorial disease, currently the only proven way to prevent vision loss is by reducing intra-ocular pressure (IOP). The treatment choices are effective but less than ideal, as some patients may not use eye drop medications consistently enough to control their IOP, while others simply don’t respond to the drugs. Surgical procedures to open blocked drainage channels or implant larger stents, which are used only for patients with advanced glaucoma, carry risks of infection, bleeding, deterioration of other parts of the eye, and vision loss.
In this particular study of 69 patients suffering from mild to moderate open-angle glaucoma, IOP was reduced to acceptable levels in 100 percent of participants after they received minimally invasive stent implant surgery. In 40 patients the stent was placed during cataract surgery, a procedure that also reduces IOP. Twenty-nine patients had the Hydrus stent placed without cataract surgery to assess whether the stent would be effective on its own. No significant complications occurred in either patient group. At the six-month follow up, 85 percent of combined surgery and 70 percent of stent-only patients no longer needed eye drop medications to control their IOP. Reductions in IOP were consistent among all patients and remained stable at the one year follow up.
‘So far, mini-stents appear to have important advantages in that they allow us to treat open-angle glaucoma at earlier stages and with lower complication risk,’ said Thomas W. Samuelson, M.D., a glaucoma specialist with Minnesota Eye Consultants, who served as the HYDRUS I trial’s medical monitor. ‘If the devices can effectively control IOP over many years, it would be a real breakthrough in combating this blinding disease.’
Dr. Samuelson cited the experience of an 81-year-old retired neurosurgeon who had tried multiple glaucoma medications, then had a drainage procedure called a trabeculoplasty, but couldn’t achieve safe IOP levels. In 2010, the Hydrus was implanted in his right eye during cataract surgery, followed by the same surgery in his left eye a year later. A follow-up exam two months ago, confirmed that his IOP levels remained acceptably low in both eyes, without the use of eye drops.
American Academy of Ophthalmology
A new Cochrane Review concludes that all countries should consider establishing proper home birth services. They should also provide low-risk pregnant women with information enabling them to make an informed choice. The review has been prepared by senior researcher, statistician Ole Olsen, the Research Unit for General Practice, University of Copenhagen, and midwifery lecturer PhD Jette Aaroe Clausen.
In many countries it is believed that the safest option for all women is to give birth in hospital. However, observational studies of increasingly better quality and in different settings suggest that planned home birth in many places can be as safe as planned hospital birth and with less intervention and fewer complications.
‘If home birth is going be an attractive and safe option for most pregnant women, it has to be an integrated part of the health care system,’ Ole Olsen says and adds, ‘In several Danish regions the home birth service has been very well organised for several years. This is not the case everywhere in the world.’
The updated Cochrane Review concludes that there is no strong evidence from experimental studies (randomised trials) to favour either planned hospital birth or planned home birth for low-risk pregnant women. At least not as long as the planned home birth is assisted by an experienced midwife with collaborative medical back up in case transfer should be necessary.
Routines and easy access to medical interventions may increase the risk of unnecessary interventions in birth explaining why women who give birth at home have a higher likelihood for a spontaneous labour. There are 20-60 per cent fewer interventions, for example fewer caesarean sections, epidurals and augmentation among those women who plan a homebirth; and 10-30 per cent fewer complications, for example post partum bleeding and severe perineal tears.
‘Patience is important if women want to avoid interference and give birth spontaneously,’ says Jette Aaroe Clausen. ‘At home the temptation to make unnecessary interventions is reduced. The woman avoids for example routine electronic monitoring that may easily lead to further interventions in birth.’
Jette Aaroe Clausen adds that interventions in childbirth are common in many countries, but also that there is a growing concern internationally because interventions may lead to iatrogenic effects; iatrogenic effects meaning unintended consequences of the intervention. Routine electronic monitoring may for example lead to more women having artificial rupture of membranes which in turn can lead to more interventions.
While the scientific evidence from observational studies has been growing, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the case Ternovszky versus Hungary has handed down a judgement stating that ‘the right to respect for private life includes the right to choose the circumstances of birth’. This is quoted in the review.
Thus the conclusions of the review are based on human rights and ethics as well as on results from the best available scientific studies.
University of Copenhagen
Thanks to tiny microneedles, eye doctors may soon have a better way to treat diseases such as macular degeneration that affect tissues in the back of the eye. That could be important as the population ages and develops more eye-related illnesses
Excitement around the potential for targeted nanoparticles (NPs) that can be controlled by stimulus outside of the body for cancer therapy has been growing over the past few years. More specifically, there has been considerable attention around near-infrared (NIR) light as an ideal method to stimulate nanoparticles from outside the body. NIR is minimally absorbed by skin and tissue, has the ability to penetrate deep tissue in a non-invasive way and the energy from NIR light can be converted to heat by gold nanomaterials for effective thermal ablation of diseased tissue.
In new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), researchers describe the design and effectiveness of a first-of-its-kind, self assembled, multi-functional, NIR responsive gold nanorods that can deliver a chemotherapy drug specifically targeted to cancer cells and selectively release the drug in response to an external beam of light while creating heat for synergistic thermo-chemo mediated anti-tumour efficacy.
‘The design of this gold nanorod and its self-assembly was inspired by nature and the ability of complimentary strands of DNA to hybridize on their own without imposing complicated chemical processes on them,’ explained Omid Farokhzad, MD, an anesthesiologist, director of the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at BWH, and senior author of this study. ‘Each functionalized DNA strand individually, and the self assembled components as a system, play a distinct yet integrative role resulting in synergistic targeted and triggered thermo-chemotherapy capable of eradicating tumours in our pre-clinical models.’
One DNA strand is attached to the gold nanorod and the complementary strand is attached to a stealth layer and a homing molecule that keeps the system under the radar of the immune system while targeting it directly to cancer cells. When the DNA strands come together, the targeted gold nanorod is formed and the double stranded DNA serves as the scaffold for binding the chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin, which can be released in response to NIR light that concurrently results in generation of heat by the gold nanorods.
‘This new platform is comprised of three distinct functional components and each plays a role in contributing to the triple punch of triggered thermotherapy, controlled doxorubicin release, and cancer cell targeting,’ explained Zeyu Xiao, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at BWH and lead author of this study.
To demonstrate the robust capability of this nanorod system, Farokhzad and colleagues used a pre-clinical model to evaluate the in vivo anti-tumour efficacy in two different tumour models and four different groups with different drug regiments, each group varying in weight and tumour size. Researchers administrated an injection of the novel, self-assembled nanoparticle and then 10 minutes post-injection, the tumours were irradiated using NIR light that activated the nanoparticle using the gold nanorod and created heat. The results showed that this platform successfully delivered heat and anti-cancer drugs and synergistically eradicated tumors.
‘Thermal ablation is already commonly used in cancer treatment,’ said Dr. Farokhzad. ‘What is extremely exciting about this platform is that we are able to selectively target cancer cells and then hit the tumour twice: first with a controlled release of a chemotherapy drug and then secondly with triggered induction of heat from the activation of the gold nanorod. And all this can be done non-invasively.’
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
A new study suggests that nicotinamide, more commonly known as vitamin B3, may be able to combat some of the antibiotic-resistance staph infections that are increasingly common around the world, have killed thousands and can pose a significant threat to public health.
The research found that high doses of this vitamin increased by 1,000 times the ability of immune cells to kill staph bacteria. The work was done both in laboratory animals and with human blood.
The findings were by researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, UCLA, and other institutions.
The work may offer a new avenue of attack against the growing number of ‘superbugs.’
‘This is potentially very significant, although we still need to do human studies,’ said Adrian Gombart, an associate professor in OSU
Beukenlaan 137
5616 VD Eindhoven
The Netherlands
+31 85064 55 82
info@interhospi.com
PanGlobal Media IS not responsible for any error or omission that might occur in the electronic display of product or company data.
