Clostridium difficile (‘C. diff’) infection is a leading cause of hospital-associated diarrhoea, and the frequency and severity of infections are on the rise.

D. Borden Lacy, Ph.D., associate professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, and colleagues recently demonstrated that the C. difficile toxin, TcdB, induces rapid cell death of human colon cell lines and pig colonic tissue. The investigators now report that TcdB-induced cell death requires the assembly of a host epithelial enzyme complex (NOX) and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Treatments that reduced expression of parts of the NOX complex, inhibited NOX component function, or ‘scavenged’ ROS all protected colon cells against the C. difficile toxin. Likewise, treatment of colon explants with an inhibitor of the NOX enzyme core or with the antioxidant NAC protected against TcdB-induced tissue damage.

The findings support the concept of using compounds to block ROS or reduce their generation as a strategy for protecting the colonic lining of patients with C. difficile infection. Vanderbilt University

Getting a second urine sample and blood pressure measure as patients head out of the doctor

Whole-body MRI may serve as a valuable non-invasive tool for assessing the risk of heart attack and stroke in diabetic patients, according to a new study.
Diabetes is a metabolic disease characterised by an increased concentration of glucose in the blood. There are 347 million diabetic patients worldwide, and the World Health Organization projects that diabetes will be the seventh leading cause of death by 2030.
Patients with diabetes are known to develop atherosclerosis, or thickening of the arterial walls, at an accelerated rate, resulting in a higher incidence of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE), such as a heart attack or stroke. However, there are wide variations in the degree of risk for adverse events among diabetic patients.

In recent years, whole-body MRI has emerged as a promising means to assess the cardiovascular systems of people with diabetes.
‘One of the major advantages of whole-body MRI in this population is that the technique itself is not associated with radiation exposure, and larger body areas can be covered without increased risk, especially in younger patients,’ said Fabian Bamberg, M.D., M.P.H., from the Department of Radiology at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. ‘As such, MRI can be used to evaluate the whole-body degree of disease burden that is not clinically apparent yet.’
Dr. Bamberg and colleagues studied the predictive value of whole-body MRI for the occurrence of MACCE in 65 patients with diabetes. The patients underwent a contrast-enhanced whole-body MRI protocol, including brain, cardiac and vascular sequences. The researchers then conducted follow-up inquiries to assess the rate of MACCE in the study group.
Follow-up information was available for 61 patients. After a median of 5.8 years, 14 patients had experienced MACCE. Patients who had detectable vascular changes on whole-body MRI faced a cumulative MACCE risk rate of 20 percent at three years, and 35 percent at six years. None of the patients with a normal whole-body MRI went on to experience MACCE.

The findings point to a role for whole-body MRI as an accurate prognostic tool for diabetic patients that could speed effective treatments to those at risk, Dr. Bamberg said. Radiological Society of North America

A team of researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have developed a prototype of a new imaging tool that may one day help to detect breast cancer early, when it is most treatable.
If effective, the new device, called a photoacoustic mammoscope, would represent an entirely new way of imaging the breast and detecting cancer. Instead of X-rays, which are used in traditional mammography, the photoacoustic breast mammoscope uses a combination of infrared light and ultrasound to create a 3-D map of the breast.
In the new technique, infrared light is delivered in billionth-of-a-second pulses to tissue, where it is scattered and absorbed. The high absorption of blood increases the temperature of blood vessels slightly, and this causes them to undergo a slight but rapid expansion. While imperceptible to the patient, this expansion generates detectable ultrasound waves that are used to form a 3-D map of the breast vasculature. Since cancer tumours have more blood vessels than the surrounding tissue, they are distinguishable in this image.
Currently the resolution of the images is not as fine as what can be obtained with existing breast imaging techniques like X-ray mammography and MRI. Future versions are expected to improve the resolution as well as add the capability to image using several different wavelengths of light at once, which is expected to improve detectability.
The Twente researchers, who belong to the Biomedical Photonic Imaging group run by Professor Wiendelt Steenbergen, have tested their prototype in the laboratory using phantoms

Diabetes Mellitus, a metabolic disorder that affects nearly 170 million people worldwide, is characterised by chronic hyperglycaemia that disrupts carbohydrate fat and protein metabolism resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action or both. DM can cause long-term damage, dysfunction and even failure of various organs.
Patients with DM may develop corneal complications and delayed wound healing. This slow wound healing contributes to increased infections and the formation of bed sores and ulcers. Corneal complications include diabetic neuropathies and ocular complications that often lead to reduced vision or blindness.
A team of Wayne State University researchers recently developed several diabetic models to study impaired wound healing in diabetic corneas. Using a genome-wide cDNA array analysis, the group identified genes, their associated pathways and the networks affected by DM in corneal epithelial cells and their roles in wound closure. The findings may bring scientists one step closer to developing new treatments that may slow or thwart DM