2 views are better than 1 in 3-D breast screening
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One view 3D breast screening (tomosynthesis) means less radiation dose and about five seconds less compression, but a study from Yale University, New Haven, CT, found that obtaining both views is necessary to help ensure that a cancer won’t be missed.
There are practices in Europe that have reported performing only a single view, specifically the mediolateral oblique (MLO) view, said Dr. Noa Beck, the lead author of the study. Two views are standard in the U.S. for 3D breast screening; “we wanted to see if one view would be sufficient,” she said. Seven breast imagers reviewed 164 cancers visualized with tomosynthesis and noted on what views the cancers could be seen. The study found that 56% of cancers were equally well seen on both the MLO view and the craniocaudal (CC) view; 34% of the cancers were either better or only seen on the CC view, said Dr. Beck. “The CC view achieves better compression, and this likely explains the reason the CC view showed lesions more clearly. In a few cases, lesions were only seen on the MLO view because of where the cancers were located in the breast,” she said.
The study results emphasize that “obtaining both views is necessary to ensure that a cancer will be optimally visualized,” said Dr. Beck.
CPAP improves work productivity for sleep apnea patients
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The study will be presented today (11 April 2013) at the Sleep and Breathing Conference in Berlin, organised by the European Respiratory Society and the European Sleep Research Society.
Previous research has demonstrated that people with sleep apnoea are less productive at work, usually due to excessive daytime sleepiness. This study aimed to assess whether continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) improved productivity at work.
The researchers used the Endicott Work Productivity Scale, a questionnaire designed to assess productivity at work, and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, a globally accepted questionnaire which assesses daytime sleepiness. Included were 45 patients with sleep apnoea of working age (between 40 and 56 years), who completed the questionnaires at the outset and after 3 months of CPAP treatment.
The results showed that 35 of the patients who had good adherence to CPAP treatment showed significant improvement in their productivity at work and in their daytime sleepiness. The 10 patients who did not follow the treatment programme had no significant improvement in symptoms or work productivity.
Cardiopoietic ‘Smart’ Stem Cells Show Promise in Heart Failure Patients
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Translating a Mayo Clinic stem-cell discovery, an international team has demonstrated that therapy with cardiopoietic (cardiogenically-instructed) or “smart” stem cells can improve heart health for people suffering from heart failure. This is the first application in patients of lineage-guided stem cells for targeted regeneration of a failing organ, paving the way to development of next generation regenerative medicine solutions. Results of the clinical trial appear online of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The multi-center, randomized Cardiopoietic stem cell therapy in heart failure (C-CURE) trial involved heart failure patients from Belgium, Switzerland and Serbia. Patients in the control group received standard care for heart failure in accordance with established guidelines. Patients in the cell therapy arm received, in addition to standard care, cardiopoietic stem cells—a first-in-class biotherapeutic. In this process, bone marrow was harvested from the top of the patient’s hip, and isolated stem cells were treated with a protein cocktail to replicate natural cues of heart development. Derived cardiopoietic stem cells were then injected into the patient’s heart.
“The cells underwent an innovative treatment to optimize their repair capacity,” says Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., study senior author and director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine. “This study helps us move beyond the science fiction notion of stem cell research, providing clinical evidence for a new approach in cardiovascular regenerative medicine.”
New Mayo Software Identifies and Stratifies Risk Posed by Lung Nodules
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A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Mayo Clinic has developed a new software tool to noninvasively characterize pulmonary adenocarcinoma, a common type of cancerous nodule in the lungs. Results from a pilot study of the computer-aided nodule assessment and risk yield (CANARY) are published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.
“Pulmonary adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer and early detection using traditional computed tomography (CT) scans can lead to a better prognosis,” says Tobias Peikert, M.D., a Mayo Clinic pulmonologist and senior author of the study. “However, a subgroup of the detected adenocarcinomas identified by CT may grow very slowly and may be treatable with less extensive surgery.”
CANARY can noninvasively stratify the risk lung adenocarcinomas pose by characterizing the nodule as aggressive or indolent with high-sensitivity, specificity and predictive values.
First tests of old patent medicine remedies from a museum collection
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What was in Dr. F. G. Johnson’s French Female Pills and other scientifically untested elixirs, nostrums and other quack cures that were the only medicines available to sick people during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries?
Scientists provided a glimpse today based on an analysis of a museum collection of patent medicines used in turn-of-the-century America. It was part of the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, which is being held here this week.
Mark Benvenuto, Ph.D, who headed the study, explained that hundreds of untested products were sold in stores, by mail order or in traveling medicine shows during the patent medicine era. The products were called “patent medicines” not because they had been granted a government patent, but from an unrelated term that originated in 17th century England.
“This was an era long before the controlled clinical trials and federal regulations that ensure the safety and effectiveness of the medicines we take today,” Benvenuto explained. “Many patent medicines had dangerous ingredients, not just potentially toxic substances like arsenic, mercury and lead, but cocaine, heroin and high concentrations of alcohol.”
Deadly new bird flu vindicates controversial research
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Scientists in the Dutch city of Rotterdam know precisely what it takes for a bird flu to mutate into a potential human pandemic strain - because they’ve created just such mutant viruses in the laboratory.
So as they watch with some trepidation the emergence in China of a strain of bird flu previously unknown in humans, they also argue it vindicates their controversial decision to conduct these risky experiments despite fierce opposition.
Above all else, what the world needs to know about this new strain of H7N9 bird flu is how likely it is to be able to spread efficiently among human populations.
Declaring a truce with our microbiological frienemies
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Managing bacteria and other microorganisms in the body, rather than just fighting them, may be lead to better health and a stronger immune system, according to a Penn State biologist.
Researchers have historically focused on microbes in the body as primarily pathogens that must be fought, said Eric Harvill, professor of microbiology and infectious disease. However, he said that recent evidence of the complex interaction of the body with microbes suggests a new interpretation of the relationship.
“Now we are beginning to understand that the immune system interacts with far more beneficial bacteria than pathogens,” said Harvill. “We need to re-envision what the true immune system really is.”
Harvill said that this reinterpretation leads to a more flexible approach to understanding how the immune system interacts with microbes. This approach should balance between defending against pathogens and enlisting the help of beneficial microbes.
The risk of autism is not increased by ‘too many vaccines too soon’
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Although scientific evidence suggests that vaccines do not cause autism, approximately one-third of parents continue to express concern that they do; nearly 1 in 10 parents refuse or delay vaccinations because they believe it is safer than following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) schedule. A primary concern is the number of vaccines administered, both on a single day and cumulatively over the first 2 years of life. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers concluded that there is no association between receiving “too many vaccines too soon” and autism.
Dr. Frank DeStefano and colleagues from the CDC and Abt Associates, Inc. analyzed data from 256 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 752 children without ASD (born from 1994-1999) from 3 managed care organizations. They looked at each child’s cumulative exposure to antigens, the substances in vaccines that cause the body’s immune system to produce antibodies to fight disease, and the maximum number of antigens each child received in a single day of vaccination.
The researchers determined the total antigen numbers by adding the number of different antigens in all vaccines each child received in one day, as well as all vaccines each child received up to 2 years of age. The authors found that the total antigens from vaccines received by age 2 years, or the maximum number received on a single day, was the same between children with and without ASD. Furthermore, when comparing antigen numbers, no relationship was found when they evaluated the sub-categories of autistic disorder and ASD with regression.
Study uncovers new cells in the urethra which may detect hazardous substances
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A recent study conducted by a group of German scientists revealed the presence of a previously unknown cell in the urethra of mice. These chemosensory cholinergic brush cells are in close contact to sensory neurons that express cholinergic receptors.
The authors suggest that in analogy to brush cells of the respiratory tract, the urethral brush cells may also serve as sentinels being able to detecting hazardous substances and preventing their further retrograde ingression.
The results of this investigation will be presented at the upcoming 28th Annual EAU Congress which will kick off this Friday in Milan. The study won 2nd Prize for Best Abstract in Non-Oncology.
“Urinary tract infections rate among the most common indispositions among out- as well as in-patients and are chiefly triggered by bacteria entering the body through the urethra. We here discovered a previously not recognised cell which surveils this portal of entry,” commented the presenting author of the study, Ms. Katharina Filipski of the Anatomy and Cell Biology Department at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen in Germany.
Digital records could expose intimate details and personality traits of millions
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New research, published today in the journal PNAS, shows that surprisingly accurate estimates of Facebook users’ race, age, IQ, sexuality, personality, substance use and political views can be inferred from automated analysis of only their Facebook Likes - information currently publicly available by default.
In the study, researchers describe Facebook Likes as a “generic class” of digital record - similar to web search queries and browsing histories - and suggest that such techniques could be used to extract sensitive information for almost anyone regularly online.
Researchers at Cambridge’s Psychometrics Centre, in collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge, analysed a dataset of over 58,000 US Facebook users, who volunteered their Likes, demographic profiles and psychometric testing results through the myPersonality application. Users opted in to provide data and gave consent to have profile information recorded for analysis.
Facebook Likes were fed into algorithms and corroborated with information from profiles and personality tests. Researchers created statistical models able to predict personal details using Facebook Likes alone.
Arkansas governor vetoes bill banning abortions at 20 weeks
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Democratic Governor Mike Beebe on Tuesday vetoed a bill to ban most abortions in Arkansas at 20 weeks into pregnancy, though state lawmakers can override his decision with a simple majority vote.
The measure, which had been approved by an 80 to 10 vote in the state House and by a 25 to 7 vote in the state Senate, would provide exceptions only in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life. It is one of several bills introduced by Republicans this year seeking to restrict abortion. This is the first time the party has controlled both chambers since the Reconstruction era.
Beebe said in his veto letter that because it “would impose a ban on a woman’s right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion before viability, (the bill), if it became law, would squarely contradict Supreme Court precedent.”
Arkansas currently limits abortions after 25 weeks.
Studying the health of same-sex couples
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Same-sex couples that live together report worse health than people of the same socioeconomic status who are in heterosexual marriages, according to a national study that could have implications for the gay marriage debate.
Research has shown that married people are healthier than the unmarried. Yet, while gay marriage is gaining support in Michigan and around the country, most same-sex cohabiters do not have the option of legally marrying their partners, noted Hui Liu, Michigan State University sociologist and lead investigator on the study.
While Liu’s research does not directly assess the potential health consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage, she said it’s plausible that allowing same-sex couples to legally wed could improve their health.
“Legalizing same-sex marriage,” Liu said, “could provide the benefits associated with marriage – such as partner health-insurance benefits and increased social and psychological support - which may directly and indirectly influence the health of people in same-sex unions.”
Researchers explore PKC role in lung disease
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New research examines the role of PKC in airway smooth muscle contraction and raises the possibility that this enzyme could be a therapeutic target for treating asthma, COPD, and other lung diseases.
In the lungs, pathological increases in the contraction of the smooth muscle cells (SMCs) lining airway walls- a process that decreases airflow - contribute to the chain of events leading to asthma and COPD, two common lung diseases. Jose Perez-Zoghbi and colleagues from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center designed a series of experiments to investigate the role of the enzyme PKC in this process. The results, which appear in The Journal of General Physiology, provide new insight into the mechanisms involved in regulating luminal diameter of small airways and reveal PKC as a potential target for drug therapies.
The researchers used phase-contrast video microscopy, confocal microscopy, Western blot analysis, and pharmacological activators and inhibitors to investigate the role of PKC in airway SMC contraction in mouse lung slices.
Just say don’t: Doctors question routine tests and treatments
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Now there are 135.
That’s how many medical tests, treatments and other procedures - many used for decades - physicians have now identified as almost always unnecessary and often harmful, and which doctors and patients should therefore avoid or at least seriously question.
The lists of procedures, released on Thursday by the professional societies of 17 medical specialties ranging from neurology and ophthalmology to thoracic surgery, are part of a campaign called Choosing Wisely. Organized by the American Board of Internal Medicine’s foundation, it aims to get doctors to stop performing useless procedures and spread the word to patients that some don’t help and might hurt.
“Americans’ view of healthcare is that more is better,” said Dr Glenn Stream, a family physician in Spokane, Washington, and board chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which has identified 10 unnecessary procedures. “But there are a lot of things that are done frequently but don’t contribute to people’s health and may be harmful.”
Degenerative cervical spine disease may not progress over time
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Follow-up data on patients with degenerative disease of the upper (cervical) spinal vertebrae show little or no evidence of worsening degeneration over time, according to a study in the February 15 issue of Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
For many patients with “unstable” cervical degenerative spondylolisthesis, observation may be a better choice than surgery, according to the new research by Dr Moon Soo Park and colleagues of Medical College of Hallym University, Republic of Korea. They write, “Our results suggest that the majority of these patients may be stable and do not develop progression of disease or catastrophic neurologic deficits.”
Is Unstable Spondylolisthesis Really Unstable?
The researchers analyzed the “natural history” of cervical degenerative spondylolisthesis in 27 patients. Degenerative spondylolisthesis refers to “slipped” vertebrae caused by bone degeneration. Because spondylolisthesis is commonly thought to result in instability of the cervical spine, spinal fusion surgery (arthrodesis) is sometimes considered the appropriate treatment.
