Body

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – August 27, 2013 – Women undergoing treatment for breast cancer are widely prescribed calcium and vitamin D supplements to prevent and manage osteoporosis, an unwanted side effect of breast cancer therapies. However, new research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center finds that the recommended daily doses of these supplements may not prevent loss of bone mineral density (BMD) in these women.

Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) is a cancer of the white blood cells that is most commonly found in adults and in the elderly. Its incidence has been estimated to be 1 to 2 in 100,000 people. CML was the first cancer to be associated with a genetic abnormality, known as the Philadelphia Chromosome, which 95% of all CML patients carry in their cells.

KNOXVILLE—Two Tennessee high school students have now done what many scientists strive for: publishing their research in a top science journal.

Dalton Chaffee and Hayes Griffin worked with mentor R. Tucker Gilman, a former postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to study mate choice.

Their work was published this week in the journal Evolution.

A strategy that combines two effective colorectal cancer screening methods, fecal immunological test and colonoscopy, may improve prevention and detection of colorectal cancer and reduce costs, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (CGH), the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- All living things must obey the laws of physics — including the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe's disorder, or entropy, can only grow. Highly ordered cells and organisms appear to contradict this principle, but they actually do conform because they generate heat that increases the universe's overall entropy.

Still, questions remain: What is the theoretical threshold for how much heat a living cell must generate to fulfill its thermodynamic constraints? And how closely do cells approach that limit?

DETROIT – A first-ever technique using ice slush and minimally invasive robotic surgery to remove a particularly large type of kidney stone has been reported by urologists at Henry Ford Hospital.

Dubbed RANL, for robotic anatrophic nephrolithotomy, the technique was devised to remove staghorn calculi – large kidney stones with sharp, craggy branches – that can cause disease and sometimes death if left untreated.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 27, 2013) – By creating a powerful new gene regulation system called CRISPR-on, Whitehead Institute researchers now have the ability to increase the expression of multiple genes simultaneously and precisely manipulate each gene's expression level. The system is effective in both mouse and human cells as well as in mouse embryos.

HIV-infected people who carry a gene for a specific protein face a 20-fold greater risk of contracting cryptococcal disease, according to a study published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Philadelphia, Pa. (August 27, 2013) - Techniques developed by astronomers seeking a clear view of objects in space are coming closer to home, as eye care professionals apply the concept of wavefront optics to understanding—and correcting—subtle visual abnormalities of the human eye, according to a special article in the September issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry.

Each year, millions of people in the United States get a tuberculosis skin test to see if they have the infection that still affects one third of the world's population. But the standard diagnostic test is difficult to give, because a hypodermic needle must be inserted at a precise angle and depth in the arm to successfully check for tuberculosis.

When ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS, a preinvasive malignancy of the breast) is described as a high-risk condition rather than cancer, more women report that they would opt for nonsurgical treatments, according to a research letter by Zehra B. Omer, B.A., of Massachusetts General Hospital—Institute for Technology Assessment, Boston, and colleagues.

An intervention not focused on weight loss was effective for weight gain prevention among socioeconomically disadvantaged black women, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Promoting clinically meaningful weight loss among black women has been a challenge. Compared to white women, "black women have higher rates of body weight satisfaction, fewer social pressures to lose weight, and sociocultural norms that tolerate heavier body weights," according to the study background.

Thyroid ultrasound imaging could be used to identify patients who have a low risk of cancer for whom biopsy could be postponed, according to a study by Rebecca Smith-Bindman, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues.

The retrospective case-control study of 8,806 patients who underwent 11,618 thyroid ultrasound imaging examinations from January 2000 through March 2005 included 105 patients diagnosed as having thyroid cancer.

A meta-analysis of previously reported studies by Gregory P. Moore, M.D., F.R.C.P.C., of The Ottawa Hospital, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues examined the rate of moderate to severe and severe neurodevelopmental impairment by gestational age in extremely preterm survivors followed up between ages 4 and 8 years, and determined whether there is a significant difference in impairment rates between the successive weeks of gestation of survivors.

Clinicians use the do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order not only as a guide for therapeutic decisions during a cardiopulmonary arrest but also as a surrogate for broader treatment directives, according to a study by Amy Sanderson M.D., of Boston Children's Hospital, M.A., and colleagues.