Pregnant women with obstructive sleep apnea are more than five times as likely to die in the hospital than those without the sleep disorder, a comprehensive national study by University of South Florida researchers found.
Among delivery-related hospital discharges, sleep apnea was also associated with an increase in severe medical conditions that are top causes of maternal death, including pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, an enlarged heart and pulmonary blood clots.
Dr. Judette Louis, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, led the large-scale national study appearing in the journal SLEEP. She specialises in maternal-foetal medicine, working out of Tampa General Hospital.
Sleep apnea causes repeated awakenings and pauses in breathing during the night. Previous smaller studies have found that the condition increases the risk for poor pregnancy outcomes, including pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure in pregnancy associated with loss of protein in the urine), restricted growth of the foetus, preterm delivery and gestational diabetes. Obesity appears to contribute to the adverse effects.
However, the USF study provided the first large-scale U.S. analysis of the association between sleep apnea and maternal deaths.
‘The astounding association with maternal death was surprising,’ said lead author Judette Louis, MD, MPH, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine who works out of Tampa General Hospital. ‘I did not expect to find such a difference in mortality between pregnant women who had sleep apnea and those who did not, especially when we controlled for obesity and other complicating factors.
While more study is needed, the increased likelihood of death for those with sleep apnea may be explained in part by the physiological demands of pregnancy, she said. ‘Underlying damage or chronic disease caused by sleep apnea may be exacerbated by the stresses of pregnancy.’
Maternal death rates have increased slightly in recent years, and obesity is one suspected reason.
‘Our study indicates that sleep apnea may also play a role, whether a woman is obese or not,’ said Dr. Louis, who holds a joint appointment in the USF College of Public Health

Commonly used disinfectants do not kill human papillomavirus (HPV) that makes possible non-sexual transmission of the virus, thus creating a need for hospital policy changes, according to researchers from Penn State College of Medicine and Brigham Young University.

‘Because it is difficult to produce infectious HPV particles for research, little has been known about HPV susceptibility to disinfection,’ said Craig Meyers, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Penn State College of Medicine.

Use of disinfectants on HPV in health care settings has been based on what works on other viruses or what is thought should be effective.

Meyers collaborated with Richard Robison, an expert in microbial disinfectants at Brigham Young University.

HPV is estimated to be among the most common sexually transmitted diseases and is linked to cervical cancers. For this study, researchers grew HPV16, a specific strain that is responsible for up to 60 percent of all HPV-associated cancers. They then used 11 common disinfectants on the virus.

These disinfectants included ones made of ethanol and isopropanol because these are common ingredients in surface disinfectants and hand sanitises used in both public and health care settings. Study of these hand sanitises is important because other research has shown high levels of HPV DNA on fingers of patients with current genital infections. While HPV is susceptible to certain disinfectants, including hypochlorite and peracetic acid, it is resistant to alcohol-based disinfectants.

‘Chemical disinfectants in hand sanitiser are commonly used in the general population to prevent the spread of infectious diseases,’ Meyers said. ‘For flu or cold viruses they are very effective. But the data shows that they do nothing for preventing the spread of human papillomavirus.’

They also tested other common disinfectants, including glutaraldehyde, which is used for sterilisation in medical and dental facilities. Results show that glutaraldehyde is not effective at inactivating the HPV virus.

Other research has suggested that HPV could be transmitted non-sexually. The current study shows that medical instruments considered sterile could pose a risk for transmission.

‘Chemical disinfectants used in the hospitals and other healthcare settings have absolutely no effect on killing human papillomavirus,’ Meyers said. ‘So unless bleach or autoclaving is used in the hospital setting, human papillomavirus is not being killed and there is a potential spread of HPV through hospital acquired or instrument or tool infection.’

Meyers said the results suggest a need for a change in disinfectant use policies. Penn State University

Men who show signs of chronic inflammation in non-cancerous prostate tissue may have nearly twice the risk of actually having prostate cancer than those with no inflammation, according to results of a new study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. The link between persistent inflammation and cancer was even stronger for men with so-called high-grade prostate cancer

Your smartphone now can see what the naked eye cannot: A single virus and bits of material less than one-thousandth of the width of a human hair.
Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his team have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment. The device weighs less than half a pound.

Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have designed a protype system-on-chip (SoC) that could make possible a fully implanted cochlear implant.
A cochlear implant is a device that electronically stimulates the auditory nerve to restore hearing in people with profound hearing loss. Conventional cochlear implants are made up of an external unit with a microphone and sound processor to pick up and encode sound, and an internal unit that is seated in the skull and connected to an electrode array inserted into the cochlea. The external unit raises concerns in some individuals with social stigma and has limited use in the shower or during water sports.