Vitamin D deficiency common in patients with lung disease

Disorders of sex development are lifelong conditions that are usually diagnosed at birth or during adolescence. In a recent study of 13 teenaged girls with disorders of sex development, the girls were guarded and reticent about sharing personal information about their disorder during adolescence, but some of them learned to engage in conversations with more confidence as they moved towards adulthood. The participants noted that frustrations about their bodily differences and the limitations of their bodies limited physical spontaneity, impacted on their perceived sexual ...

A bundled intervention focused on evidence-based infection prevention practices, safety culture and teamwork, and scheduled measurement of infection rates considerably reduced central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) across intensive care units (ICUs) in seven Abu Dhabi hospitals, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality report. The intervention, undertaken by 18 ICUs, achieved an overall 38 percent reduction in these infections; and the number of units with a quarterly CLABSI rate of less than one infection ...

Fast Facts Research finds that one-quarter of patients who survive a critical illness and an ICU stay experience PTSD. Researchers are looking into using ICU diaries as a promising therapeutic tool to prevent PTSD in ICU survivors. Existing psychological problems, large amounts of sedation and reports of frightening ICU memories appear to contribute to the increased risk of PTSD in ICU survivors. Post-traumatic stress disorder is often thought of as a symptom of warfare, major catastrophes and assault. It's rarely considered in patients who survive a critical ...

A recent randomized trial that looked at the feasibility of 2013 guidelines issued by the American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Improvement Project for trauma resuscitation found that delivering universal donor plasma to massively hemorrhaging patients can be accomplished consistently and rapidly and without excessive wastage in high volume trauma centers. The plasma is given in addition to red blood cell transfusions to optimize treatment. The 2013 guidelines recommend that universal donor products be immediately available on arrival of severely injured patients, ...

Montréal, April 20, 2014 - A new study by immunology researchers at the IRCM led by Javier M. Di Noia, PhD, sheds light on a mechanism affecting AID, a crucial enzyme for the immune response. The scientific breakthrough, published in the latest issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine, could eventually improve the way we treat the common flu, as well as lymphoma and leukemia. The researchers study white blood cells, called B-lymphocytes, whose main function is to produce antibodies to fight against infections. More specifically, they focus on an enzyme found ...

WASHINGTON (April 20, 2015) - The use of continuous positive airway pressure was associated with a significant reduction in the recurrence of atrial fibrillation in patients with obstructive sleep apnea, according to an analysis of data from past research published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Clinical Electrophysiology. Researchers from the New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City performed a meta-analysis of seven studies including 1,087 patients to determine if continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) reduced the ...

Confronted by extreme scarcity of nutrients in an Australian dune ecosystem, the leaves of different plant species converge on a single efficient strategy to conserve phosphorus, an essential nutrient. But it is a different story underground, say researchers, including Ben Turner, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Plants on older dunes draw from a full bag of tricks, and take advantage of nearly all of the known adaptations for acquiring nutrients to capture the phosphorus they need. "Plants cope with phosphorus scarcity in a similar way above-ground ...

Two new papers from the lab of Zach Schafer, Coleman Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Notre Dame, offer insights into how breast cancer cells avoid anoikis, which is cell death induced by detachment from the extracellular matrix (ECM). "Metastasis, the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumor site to distant sites in the body, is responsible for in excess of 90 percent of cancer deaths," Schafer said. "In order for cancer cells to metastasize, they must survive the trip from the primary tumor to a secondary site. A significant barrier to ...

In results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015, a University of Colorado Cancer Center study shows that orally administering the chemical silibinin, purified from milk thistle, slows the ability of colorectal cancer stem cells to grow the disease. When stem cells from tumors grown in silibinin-fed conditions were re-injected into new models, the cells failed to develop equally aggressive tumors even in the absence of silibinin. "It's very simple: tumors from mice that were initially fed silibinin had fewer cancer stem cells, ...

Researchers from The University of Manchester working with drug development company Evgen Pharma, have developed a new combination of drugs which could overcome treatment resistance and relapse in breast cancer. In research to be revealed at the American Association of Cancer Research annual conference on Monday, the researchers show that in the most common type of breast cancer, affecting 70% of patients, the drug Sulforadex helps overcome resistance to routinely used hormonal treatments by targeting the cancer stem cell population. While most women initially respond ...