Body

DETROIT – A new Henry Ford Hospital study takes a closer look at one of the lesser known, but potential most serious side-effects of ACE inhibitor use – facial, tongue and airway swelling – and identifies a successful and less invasive course of treatment.

Using a treatment protocol developed by Henry Ford, patients' symptoms were quickly diagnosed and promptly treated to reduce swelling, resulting in no tracheotomies to open the airway or reported deaths, says study author Samer Al-Khudari, M.D.

What Medicare would pay for and where a radiation oncologist practiced were two factors that strongly influenced the choice of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for treating breast cancer, according to an article published April 29 online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The use of IMRT and the cost of radiation therapy increased sharply over the period of the study.

One of the ocean currents which particularly interests oceanographers and climatologists is the Gulf Stream. This current, originating in the Gulf of Mexico, transports enormous amounts of warm tropical waters to the North Atlantic and is the cause of Europe's habitable climate. Climate predictions point to the fact that this will change in the future and affect especially the climate in countries of the Mediterranean region, with more dry spells.

Fish and marine species are among the most threatened wildlife on earth, due partly to over exploitation by fishing fleets. Yet there are differences in assessing trends in worldwide fishing stocks which, researchers writing in Conservation Biology argue, stem from inappropriate use of time trends in catches.

People with rare diseases have the same right to high-quality health care in line with current medical knowledge as other patients do. However, relevant and reliable clinical studies on rare diseases are often lacking. Among other things, this makes the development of corresponding guidelines more difficult, but precisely such guidelines could help improve treatment quality.

Antibiotics rather than surgery may be the better treatment for cases of appendicitis in which the appendix hasn't burst, according to a new study.

The study's authors say the findings suggest that nonperforating appendicitis, as the disease is called when the appendix hasn't burst, may be unrelated to perforating appendicitis, in which the appendix has burst.

Call it a mystery with a stubby tail: an odd-looking mouse discovered through a U.S. government breeding program in the 1940s that had a short, kinky tail and an extra set of ribs in its neck – and nobody knew why.

A team of scientists led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco has now spilled the genetic secrets of this mutant rodent. In doing so, they may have uncovered a new wrinkle in the genetic code – an entirely unrecognized way our bodies regulate how genes are expressed in different tissues throughout life.

Allowing adolescents to drink alcohol under adult supervision does not appear to teach responsible drinking as teens get older. In fact, such a "harm-minimization" approach may actually lead to more drinking and alcohol-related consequences, according to a new study in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

An individual's personality can have a big effect on their life. Some people are outgoing and gregarious while others find novel situations stressful which can be detrimental to their health and wellbeing. Increasingly, scientists are discovering that animals are no different.

A new study led by Dr Kathryn Arnold, of the Environment Department at the University of York has added important experimental evidence showing that animal personalities are reflected in their oxidative stress profiles. The research is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

DETROIT – Women are at higher risk than men of developing kidney damage after undergoing a coronary angiogram, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.

Researchers found that women are 60 percent more likely than men to develop radiocontrast-induced nephropathy (RCIN), an adverse side effect that causes kidney dysfunction within 24 to 72 hours after patients are administered an iodine contrast dye during the common heart imaging test.

The number of cases of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has continued to rise significantly in the first decade of the 21st century and could lead to more deaths than ovarian cancer, lymphoma, leukaemia, or kidney cancer, reveals research published ahead of print in the Thorax journal.

IPF is the most common of the pneumonias that happen without an apparent cause and previous studies have shown that incidence and deaths from the disease are rising in the UK and the USA.

People who have a heart attack are likely to be more seriously affected if the attack happens in the morning, reveals research published ahead of print in Heart journal.

Heart attacks that occur between 6am and noon are more likely to leave a 20% larger area of dead tissue (infarct) caused by the attack, which is more serious for the person affected, than at any other time of the day.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Bacterial infections really stink. And that could be the key to a fast diagnosis.

Researchers have demonstrated a quick, simple method to identify infectious bacteria by smell using a low-cost array of printed pigments as a chemical sensor. Led by University of Illinois chemistry professor Ken Suslick, the team published its results in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

ST. PAUL, Minn. –Group appointments where doctors see several people for a longer time may be feasible for Parkinson's disease, according to a new study published in the April 27, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

A new chemical bonding process can add new functions to stainless steel and make it a more useful material for implanted biomedical devices. Developed by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Alberta and Canada's National Institute for Nanotechnology, this new process was developed to address some of the problems associated with the introduction of stainless steel into the human body.