Body

PHILADELPHIA — Oncologists who treat patients with pancreatic cancer may be one step closer to understanding why gemcitabine, the only currently available treatment, works in some cases but not in others, according to a paper in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

David Tuveson, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of pancreatic cancer medicine at the University of Cambridge, utilized a laboratory model to test the combination of gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel in pancreatic cancer.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Often faced with overwhelming anxiety, patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer can find themselves in distress, and new research recommends nurses play a key role in alleviating concerns, leading to a better quality of life for patients.

A diagnosis of lung cancer – the leading cause of cancer death in the United States – brings with it high levels of stress and raises existential issues and death-related thoughts and concerns in patients, said Rebecca H. Lehto, assistant professor in the College of Nursing at Michigan State University.

Amsterdam, February 28, 2012 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today the publication of an important clinical guide from the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) in the February issue of Maturitas. This clinical guide details the role of selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) against postmenopausal osteoporosis as the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the use of bazedoxifene and lasofoxifene.

When the Icelandic banking system was privatised in 2003, it inaugurated a period of furious expansion of both loans and risky investments. The bubble burst in 2008. At that time, the nominal assets of the three largest banks was 14 times bigger than Iceland's entire GDP.

The crash shook Icelandic society to its foundations with mass bankruptcy, drastic increases in unemployment, loss of savings, increased indebtedness and raised taxes. Deteriorating health care and emigration of highly educated people are other consequences that will affect Iceland for a long time to come.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Nearly one in three women who have breast cancer surgery will need to return to the operating room for additional surgery after the tumor is evaluated by a pathologist.

A new service at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center cuts that number drastically by having pathologists on-site in the operating suite to assess tumors and lymph nodes immediately after they are removed. Meanwhile, the surgeon and patient remain in the operating room until the results are back, and any additional operating can be done immediately.

The bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes atypical pneumonia, is helping scientists uncover how cells make the most of limited resources. By measuring all the proteins this bacterium produces, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and collaborators, have found that the secret is fine-tuning.

Controlling nerve cells with the aid of light: this is made possible by optogenetics. It enables, for example, the investigation of neurobiological processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal precision. The key tool of optogenetics is the light-activated protein channelrhodopsin. Biophysicists from Bochum and Berlin have now succeeded in explaining the switching mechanism through an interdisciplinary approach. The researchers report on their findings in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Redistribution of water molecules

In the United States alone, approximately 6 million people suffer from an irregular heartbeatcalled atrial fibrillation (AF), and since the incidence increases with age, it is predicted that 15.9million Americans will be affected by 2050. The most devastating side effect of AF is stroke, buta new device from Boston Scientific may prevent them from occurring.

Researchers from Atritech, now part of Boston Scientific, developed the WATCHMAN device, asmall mesh umbrella that can be inserted into part of the heart cavity to prevent the formation ofblood clots that cause strokes.

The inaugural international guidelines for the diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease (RHD), a disease that affects tens of millions of people worldwide, have today been published by the World Heart Federation in Nature Reviews Cardiology.

The guidelines define the minimum requirements needed to diagnose RHD in individuals without a clear history of acute rheumatic fever (ARF), and will have important global and national implications.

Certain commonly prescribed sleeping pills are associated with a more than fourfold increased risk of death, even among those taking fewer than 18 doses a year, indicates research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

And these drugs are also associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer among those taking high doses, the study shows.

A significant proportion of vegetarians and other patients with dietary preferences borne out of cultural/religious practices are unwittingly consuming animal gelatin in prescribed medicines, reveals research published online in Postgraduate Medical Journal.

The findings prompt the authors to call for more comprehensive labelling of drug content and for vegetarian alternatives to animal gelatin to be used in manufacture.

The self-inflicted removal of one or both eyes, which has traditionally been attributed to sexual guilt, is, in fact, caused by untreated psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia, reveal researchers in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

This type of self-inflicted mutilating injury is fortunately very rare, emphasise the authors, but over 50 cases have been published in medical journals over the past 50 years.

(February 23, 2012) — A great deal has been learned in the ten years since the first results emerged from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI). Hormone therapy (HT) remains the most effective treatment available for menopausal hot flashes and night sweats. However, there is a growing body of evidence that formulation, route of administration, timing of therapy and duration of therapy may produce different effects.

Scientists from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii – Manoa (UHM) and colleagues recently discovered that land-based plant material and coastal macroalgae indirectly support the increased abundances of bottom fish in submarine canyons, like those off the north shore of Moloka'i. Less than a few miles from the shore, these underwater canyons connect to deep river valleys that cut across the landscape of north Moloka'i.

SAN ANTONIO -- A two-year effort to prevent infections in children healing from cardiac surgery reduced sternum infections by 61 percent, a San Antonio researcher announced at the Cardiology 2012 conference Feb. 23 in Orlando, Fla.

Faculty from UT Medicine San Antonio carried out a new infection-control protocol for 308 children who underwent sternotomies at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Children's Hospital between 2009 and 2011. UT Medicine is the clinical practice of the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.