Body

Needle biopsy, the standard of care radiological procedure for diagnosing breast cancer, is underused with too many patients undergoing the more invasive, excisional biopsy to detect their disease, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also finds that patients are often influenced by surgeons to undergo the unnecessary surgery -- a decision that's costly and can negatively impact their diagnosis and treatment.

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a rich source of adult stem cells - hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs)- that can be used for bone marrow transplantation; however, UCB transplantation is hampered by low numbers of HSPCs per donation, which delays engraftment and immune reconstitution.

Radiation from standard X-rays is relatively low and doesn't significantly raise lifetime cancer risks for most young children, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

Researchers followed 337 children under age 6 who had surgery for heart disease at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. Their operations required almost 14,000 imaging procedures, including X-rays, computed tomography (CT) scans, and cardiac catheterization procedures using video X-rays called fluoroscopies.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – One of the longest studies of its type has found that use of statins in older men is associated with less physical activity, a significant issue for a population that's already sedentary.

The findings, published today in JAMA Internal Medicine, raise concerns about a decline in much-needed physical activity among men who take some of the most widely prescribed medications in the world. Almost one-third of older Americans take statins, usually to reduce their cholesterol levels.

Bottom Line: Lifetime support for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) ranges from a cost of $1.4 million to $2.4 million in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Author: Ariane V.S. Buescher, M.Sc., of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and colleagues.

Bottom Line: Adolescent bullies, victims and bully-victims (defined as those who are simultaneously both bullies and victims) were more likely to carry weapons.

Author: Mitch van Geel, Ph.D., of Leiden University, the Netherlands, and colleagues.

Background: Previous research suggests adolescents involved in bullying are more likely to carry weapons than peers who are not involved in bullying.

Bottom Line: Older men who were prescribed statins (the cholesterol-lowering medications associated with muscle pain, fatigue and weakness) engaged in modestly lower physical activity

Author: David S.H. Lee, Pharm.D., of Oregon State University/Oregon Health and Science University College of Pharmacy, Portland, and colleagues.

Background: Physical activity is important for older adults to remain healthy. Muscle pain, fatigue, and weakness are common side effects in patients prescribed statins.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Children with heart disease are exposed to low levels of radiation during X-rays, which do not significantly raise their lifetime cancer risk. However, children who undergo repeated complex imaging tests that deliver higher doses of radiation may have a slightly increased lifetime risk of cancer, according to researchers at Duke Medicine.

(New York – June 9, 2014) -- A protein may be the key to maintaining the health of aging blood stem cells, according to work by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recently published online in Stem Cell Reports. Human adults keep stem cell pools on hand in key tissues, including the blood. These stem cells can become replacement cells for those lost to wear and tear. But as the blood stem cells age, their ability to regenerate blood declines, potentially contributing to anemia and the risk of cancers like acute myeloid leukemia and immune deficiency.

DETROIT – Researchers have found that antiviral therapy may be successful in preventing hepatitis B virus from developing into the most common form of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

That was the finding of a study published in the May issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Investigators from Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., and Kaiser Permanente in Honolulu, Hawaii and Portland, Ore. participated in the study, along with investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

SAN DIEGO (June 6, 2014) — Humans and corals are about as different from one another as living creatures get, but a new finding reveals that in one important way, they are more similar than anyone ever realized.

A biologist at San Diego State University has discovered they share the same biomechanical pathway responsible for triggering cellular self-destruction. That might sound scary, but killing off defective cells is essential to keeping an organism healthy.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Staph infections that become resistant to multiple antibiotics don't happen because the bacteria themselves adapt to the drugs, but because of a kind of genetic parasite they carry called a plasmid that helps its host survive the antibiotics.

Plasmids are rings of bare DNA containing a handful of genes that are essentially freeloaders, borrowing most of what they need to live from their bacterial host. The plasmids copy themselves and go along for the ride when the bacteria divide to copy themselves.

Road salt takes a toll on lakes and rivers, but what about its impact on the organisms that live and forage at the asphalt's edge? Sodium chloride is a common remedy for icy roadways and while it makes driving easier, the ubiquitous use of road salt has played a starring role in altering patterns of sodium availability with little understood consequences for the development and evolution of wild animals.

A new bovine TB control strategy to be piloted in Northern Ireland risks spreading the disease rather than supressing it, scientists warn.

Researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield predict that culling badgers which test positive for TB could increase the movement of remaining badgers, potentially infecting more cattle with the disease.

BOSTON – As elite soldiers of the body's immune response, B cells serve as a vast standing army ready to recognize and destroy invading antigens, including infections and cancer cells. To do so, each new B cell comes equipped with its own highly specialized weapon, a unique antibody protein that selectively binds to specific parts of the antigen. The key to this specialization is the antigen-binding region that tailors each B cell to a particular antigen, determining whether B cells survive boot camp and are selected for maturation and survival, or wash out and die.