Body

The risk to children's health from X-ray radiation is easy to reduce without compromising diagnostic accuracy. Gerhard Alzen and Gabriele Benz-Bohm describe some ways to achieve this in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[24]: 407-14]).

The radiation risk is higher for children than for adults, as children's tissues have a higher cell division rate, and cells can be damaged during this process. Children's bodies also have a higher water content and therefore absorb more radiation, which can cause damage to their genes.

"Emotions can affect biological processes, which in turn can influence our decision-making processes," explains Dr. Israel Waismel-Manor of the University of Haifa's School of Political Science

Researchers involved in ESHRE's polar body screening study (launched in 2009) will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday) that results from the study are leading to a new understanding about how such abnormalities are developing, and they believe that the ovarian stimulation a woman receives might be playing a part. Understanding the mechanisms involved could help older women who are trying to have a healthy baby with their own oocytes.

The researchers say that this is the first time the effect of maternal height on multiple implantation has been shown. "In natural dizygotic twinning it is not possible to distinguish between multiple ovulation and implantation," said Dr. Lambers "whereas by studying pregnancies in mothers who have undergone DET we know exactly how many embryos were transferred and can therefore draw firm conclusions about the factors that influence the development of twin pregnancies."

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—Carbon dioxide may be the most name-dropped greenhouse gas, but methane is 20 times more potent. In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated that 20 percent of the nation's human-related methane emissions were attributable to livestock digestive processes. In Australia, livestock emissions account for 12 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions.

In Sweden almost 40 000 children have now been born after IVF, around 3 500 each year, and IVF children constitute 3% of all newborns. "This represents a large number of children and any adverse outcomes related to IVF are therefore a major public health issue," said Dr. Antonina Sazonova, from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden, who carried out the research with colleagues from the hospital and from Lund University.

Professor William G. Kearns told the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology that a three-day-old embryo (called a cleavage stage embryo) with an incorrect number of chromosomes (known as "aneuploidy") was capable of undergoing "a dynamic process of genetic normalisation" so that by day five, when it had developed to the blastocyst stage, it had become euploid, with the correct number of chromosomes.

This meant that the calendar method predicted ovulation correctly in only one in four women, whereas the ClearBlue Digital Ovulation test (20 test pack) predicted correctly in 99% of women over the same period.

High epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression was a good predictor of which lung cancer patients would survive longer when cetuximab (Erbitux) was added to first-line chemotherapy, according to research presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

ALK rearrangement has been found in 9.6% of lung cancer patients tested in the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium, and MET amplification in another 4.1%, reflecting how many patients might benefit from targeted therapies such as crizotinib, according to research presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

The Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium (LCMC), involving 14 U.S. cancer centers, was established to evaluate genetic alterations in 1,000 patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma.

Lung adenocarcinomas in people who have never smoked show greater genome instability than those in smokers, supporting the theory that lung cancer in never smokers arises through different pathways, according to research presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

In the first phase III study to include Western lung cancer patients, first-line treatment with erlotinib (Tarceva) nearly doubled progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy, according to research presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

Erlotinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that targets the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with EGFR activating mutations tend to respond well to TKI therapy.

A non-invasive PET imaging technique may identify lung cancers that respond best to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), allowing doctors to better select patients for personalized therapy, according to research presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

A new study in CHEST suggests that the use of combination antithrombotic therapy may increase the risk of clinically relevant bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Researchers from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France compared outcomes in 3,728 patients with AF receiving anticoagulation alone and 848 patients with AF receiving combination antithrombotic therapy (anticoagulant and antiplatelet therapy).