New research from the University of Southampton shows that copper and copper alloys will rapidly destroy norovirus
A combined technique of liposuction and tummy tuck
Nausea is one of the most debilitating symptoms of migraine and affects 80 percent of migraine suffers in the United States. Leading headache physician, Dr. Zoltan Medgyessy of the Berolina Clinic in Lohne, Germany demonstrated in a trial that pressure to the P6 antiemetic point on the inner wrist with an acupressure wristband is an effective and quick therapy for relieving nausea of migraine sufferers.
Migraine can be a disabling neurological disorder. It affects 36 million Americans, according to the American Migraine Foundation, and is considered by the World Health Organization as the 19th leading cause of all years lived with disability for both males and females.
Dr. Medgyessy’s acupressure study with the Department of Headache / Department of Psychosomatic at the Berolina Clinic included 41 patients who experienced an average of 33.1 migraine days during the previous three months with an average nausea intensity of 6.2 out of 10. Patients were given Sea-Band acupressure wristbands instead of antiemetic drugs during a migraine attack and 83 percent of patients noticed reduction of nausea. Reported nausea after therapy was rated a 2.9 out of 10 and relief was reported after an average of 28 minutes. Nearly all participants (98 percent) said they would use Sea-Band again for migraine nausea.
‘Acupressure wristbands are drug-free and that is an important advantage in using this therapy for migraine nausea as they have no risks for interaction with migraine drugs or the side effects commonly experienced with antiemetics, such as dizziness or tiredness,’ commented Dr. Medgyessy. ‘There are still many unknowns about migraine, making findings such as these an important stride toward improving the quality of life for those who suffer from the condition. I’m grateful that the International Headache Congress has given me a platform to share the results of my team’s study and look forward to discussing it with my colleagues.’
EurekAlert
A novel drug may help increase the effectiveness of radiation therapy for the most deadly form of brain cancer, report scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center. In mouse models of human glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the new drug helped significantly extend survival when used in combination with radiation therapy.
The study provides the first pre-clinical evidence demonstrating that an ATM kinase inhibitor radiosensitizes gliomas. Gliomas are brain tumours that originate from glial cells, which provide support for nerve cells and help regulate the internal environment of the brain. ATM, or ataxia telangiectasia mutated, is an enzyme that helps repair DNA damage. The scientists used an experimental drug, KU-60019, to block the activation of ATM, which led to the enhanced destruction of the gliomas due to their reduced ability to repair the DNA damage caused by the radiation treatment. The new approach was particularly effective against gliomas that have a mutation in the p53 tumour suppressor gene, which accounts for approximately 30 percent of all glioma cases.
‘Sadly, the average life expectancy of patients diagnosed with glioblastoma is just 12 to 15 months,’ says the study
A new study suggests that CPAP (continuos positive air passage) therapy reduces nightmares in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Results show that the mean number of nightmares per week fell significantly with CPAP use, and reduced nightmare frequency aft er starting CPAP was best predicted by CPAP compliance.
A brain imaging research team led by Simon Fraser University neuroscientist Dr. Ryan D
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center doctors have found that using stress cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging in an Emergency Department observation unit to care for patients with acute chest pain is a win-win – for the patient and the institution.
In a small, single-centre clinical trial, Chadwick Miller, M.D., M.S., and colleagues found that evaluating older, more complex patients in the observation unit with stress cardiac MRI, as opposed to usual inpatient care, reduced hospital readmissions, coronary revascularisation procedures and the need for additional cardiac testing.
The observation unit is an area of the Emergency Department designed for short stays – longer than a typical ED visit, said Miller, but shorter than a hospital admission. Cardiac MRI is a type of heart testing that uses magnetic forces to capture pictures of the heart.
‘We were looking at the optimum way to evaluate people with chest pain and focusing on those patients who are generally older, have many risk factors for coronary disease or may have had prior health problems, basically the intermediate to higher risk population,’ Miller said. ‘At most hospitals in the United States, after evaluation in the emergency department, these patients are admitted to the hospital to complete their care.’
Miller, who serves as director of clinical research and executive vice-chair of Emergency Medicine at Wake Forest Baptist, said the study built on previous research findings that more complex patients managed in an observation unit with stress CMR testing experienced a reduction in care costs of about $2,100 per patient per year. For the new study, the researchers wanted to specifically look at three care events: coronary revascularization, hospital readmissions and additional heart testing.
The researchers recruited 105 patients from Wake Forest Baptist’s Emergency Department, randomizing them to receive care either in the Observation Unit with CMR or in the hospital. The patients were followed for 90 days, after which the researchers found significant reductions in coronary revascularization procedures, fewer hospital readmissions and fewer recurrent cardiac testing episodes or the need for additional testing.
‘What’s exciting about this is not only can we reduce events that are important to patients, but we can reduce costs as well,’ Miller said. ‘What we think is happening is that the cardiac MRI is more accurately selecting patients who will benefit the most from having invasive procedures done. It’s a win-win.’
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Removing one of the tiniest organs in the body has shown to provide effective treatment for high blood pressure. The discovery, made by University of Bristol researchers could revolutionise treatment of the world
If all medical errors were counted together as a single cause, they would likely rank as the third leading cause of death in the United States. As health care personnel race to improve the quality of their care to save lives and prevent unneeded harm, a new study indicates there is more they can do to learn about what errors are occurring and why.
Researchers from the Drexel University School of Public Health demonstrated a systematic analysis of hospital administrative data for patient safety at a population level, in a recent paper in the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management. They say that health care organisations have an untapped opportunity to use their own administrative data in this way as a ‘springboard to problem identification’ at the leading edge of preventing even those medical errors that are not yet preventable.
‘For example, a patient may receive a drug in the Emergency Department and develop an allergic reaction, but did not have any known allergies at the time of treatment,’ said Dr. Jennifer Taylor, an associate professor at Drexel who led the study. ‘While such events may not be deemed to be preventable now, we need to start tracking them so our research and development colleagues know what
New research has found a small increase in cancer risk following exposure to CT scans in children and young people.
The study used anonymised medical records for 11 million young Australians, including 680,000 who were exposed to CT scans between 1985 and 2005.
The Australian researchers, with colleagues at Oxford University and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, found that for every 1,400 CT scans before the age of 20 there was one extra case of cancer over the following 10 years.
This small increase in cancer risk must be weighed against the undoubted benefits from CT scans in diagnosing and monitoring many different health conditions.
In most cases, the benefits of having a scan clearly outweigh the risk. But these new findings will remind doctors to order CT scans only when there is a definite medical reason and to insist that CT scans use the lowest possible X-ray dose, say the researchers.
The research team was led by Professor John Mathews at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Mathews says: ‘CT scans have great medical benefits. In the same way that standard X-rays are helpful in bone fractures, CT scans can provide detailed three-dimensional pictures to diagnose or exclude disease in any suspect part of the body.
‘As an individual patient, your risk of cancer from a CT scan is very low. In the vast majority of cases the benefits of a CT scan in diagnosing a condition or guiding treatment will outweigh the risks. I’d certainly have a CT scan if a doctor said ‘I think you should have a scan’ and explained why I needed it.
‘Nevertheless, it is clear from our study that it is important for doctors to use CT scans only where they are necessary. By reducing the number of scans performed in a large population, there will be a small but corresponding reduction in the number of cancers in later years.’
CT scans use multiple X-ray images to produce detailed images of structures inside the body including the internal organs, blood vessels, bones and tumours.
It is already well known that large doses of radiation can damage DNA and increase the risk of a later cancer. However, the radiation doses from CT scans are very small, and there has been uncertainty about whether such small doses would really cause cancer, and whether any small increase in risk could be measured reliably.
This new Australian study was able to answer this question by linking anonymised Medicare records of CT exposures for the entire population of young Australians, aged 0-19 years between 1985 and 2005, to cancers diagnosed up to the end of 2007. It is not yet known what will be seen with longer follow-up.
Oxford University
April 2024
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