When surgeons operate to remove a tumour, determining exactly where to cut can be tricky. Ideally, the entire tumour should be removed while leaving a continuous layer of healthy tissue, but current techniques for locating the tumours during surgery are imprecise. Now a multidisciplinary team from the University of California, San Diego, is developing an alternate means of precisely tagging breast cancer tumours for removal or targeted destruction.

Breast cancer is the most common female cancer in the U.S., and the main cause of death in women ages 40-59, according to UptoDate, an information service for clinical physicians. Over a lifetime, 1 in 8 women in the U.S. is expected to develop breast cancer. Despite great strides in survival, there is trauma associated not only with the disease, but also with its treatment. Many women want to avoid a full mastectomy, but conventional breast-conserving approaches, such as lumpectomy, can be arduous. Up to 25 % of lumpectomies require a second surgery to excise the entire tumour.

The UCSD team is working on a better method for tagging tumours that should reduce the need for follow-up surgeries. The researchers developed iron-doped

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

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

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

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