On 16 July 2014 the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) published the results of a literature search for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines on the treatment of people with breast cancer. The aim of the report is to identify those recommendations from current guidelines of high methodological quality that may be relevant for the planned revision of the disease management programme (DMP). According to the results of the report, there is no compelling need for revision of any part of the DMP. However, IQWiG identified some aspects that ...

Scientists have designed a new self-assembling nanoparticle that targets tumours, to help doctors diagnose cancer earlier. The new nanoparticle, developed by researchers at Imperial College London, boosts the effectiveness of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning by specifically seeking out receptors that are found in cancerous cells. The nanoparticle is coated with a special protein, which looks for specific signals given off by tumours, and when it finds a tumour it begins to interact with the cancerous cells. This interaction strips off the protein coating, ...

Scientists now have a better understanding of how short DNA strands decompose in microseconds. A European team found new fragmentation pathways that occur universally when DNA strands are exposed to metal ions from a family of alkaline and alkaline earth elements. These ions tend to replace protons in the DNA backbone and at the same time induce a reactive conformation leading more readily to fragmentation. These findings by Andreas Piekarczyk, from the University of Iceland, and colleagues have been published in a study in EPJ D. They could contribute to optimising cancerous ...

University of Leicester researchers have released evidence substantiating an unexpected dual role of an important component of the immune system. Findings by researchers at the University's Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation – including three PhD graduates – are published in a paper for the journal 'Medical Microbiology and Immunology'. The paper presents significant new findings about the protein properdin – an important part of the immune system. It is a positive regulator in the alternative pathway of complement activation – which means it plays a ...

Stem cells can substitute the lost cells after central nervous system injury, decrease nervous tissue damage and promote neurofunctional recovery. Many brain injury models, including middle cerebral artery occlusion and traumatic brain injury models, have confirmed that neural stem cells (NSCs) can migrate from subventricular zone to injured cerebral cortex. But the mechanism underlying activation of endogenous NSCs in the ischemic brain remains unclear. Dr. Hyung-Seok Kim, Chonnam National University Medical School, Korea and his team revealed that NSCs were activated ...

Ventricular enlargement has been suggested as a structural biomarker for normal aging and progression of some illnesses, such as Alzheimer's disease. However, the question of how this structural change in the brain in normal elderly affects change of white matters remains a topic of interest and concern. Dr. Sang Seok Yeo, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Republic of Korea, and his team performed a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study to investigate the question. They detected four regions of interest in the periventricular white matter of 60 normal subjected aged ...

The brain has a low renewable capacity for self-repair and generation of new functional neurons in the treatment of trauma, inflammation and cerebral diseases. Cytotherapy is one option to regenerate central nervous system that aim at replacing the functional depleted cells due to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are also considered a candidate for cytotherapy because they can differentiate into neurons/nerve cells, pass across blood-brain barrier, migrate into the injured region, secrete neurotrophic factor, and provide microenvironment ...

This news release is available in Spanish. The new research paper, which reports on one of the first experimental studies in the world to analyze how cooperative attitudes evolve in different age ranges, was written by the professors from the OpenSystems research group of the Department Fundamental Physics at the Universidad de Barcelona (UB), Josep Perelló and Mario Gutiérrez-Roig, Anxo Sánchez, of the Complex Systems Interdisciplinary Group (Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos - GISC) of the Mathematics Department at the Universidad Carlos III de ...

There is an increasing interest in Parkinson's disease (PD) treatment by increasing dopamine content and reducing dopaminergic metabolites in the brain. Xuming Yang, Shanghai Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China and his team detected dopamine content and dopaminergic metabolites in the midbrain of PD rats, which were treated by neural stem cell (NSC) transplantation and Zhichan decoction administration, using high-performance liquid chromatography, and determined global optimization of dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and homovanillic acid levels using genetic ...

Previous studies have shown that chrysophanol protects against learning and memory impairments in lead-exposed adult mice. Ji Zhang, Hebei North University, China, proposed a hypothesis that chrysophanol can alleviate learning and memory dysfunction and hippocampal injury in lead-exposed neonatal mice. Results showed that chrysophanol alleviated hippocampal neuronal cytoplasmic edema, promoted mitochondrial crista fusion, significantly improved learning and memory abilities, decreased lead content in blood, brain, heart, spleen, liver and kidney, increased superoxide dismutase ...

People who selflessly step up and donate a kidney can face insurance challenges afterwards, despite the lack of evidence that they have increased health risks. The finding, which comes from a new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation, suggests that actions by insurers may create unnecessary burden and stress for those choosing to donate and could negatively impact the likelihood of live kidney donation. The impact of kidney donation on the ability to change or initiate health or life insurance following donation is unknown. To investigate, Dorry ...

Healthy living kidney donors often face pointless post-donation hurdles when seeking or changing health or life insurance, according to results of a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers. "Living donors are some of the healthiest people in the United States. They're heavily screened before they're approved for donation and should be easily insurable," says study leader Dorry Segev, M.D., Ph.D., M.H.S., an associate professor of surgery and epidemiology at The Johns Hopkins University. Under terms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), health insurance ...

Research from the University of Copenhagen is shedding new light on the brain's complicated barrier tissue. The blood-brain barrier is an effective barrier which protects the brain, but which at the same time makes it difficult to treat diseases such as Alzheimer's. In an in vitro blood-brain barrier, researchers can recreate the brain's transport processes for the benefit of the development of new pharmaceuticals for the brain. The new research findings are published in the AAPS Journal. Ninety-five per cent of all tested pharmacological agents for treating brain disorders ...

New research from The University of Texas at Dallas demonstrates that drug paraphernalia triggers the reward areas of the brain differently in dependent and non-dependent marijuana users. The study, published July 1 in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, demonstrated that different areas of the brain activated when dependent and non-dependent users were exposed to drug-related cues. The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. According to a 2013 survey from the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of ...

The mysterious spotted green pigeon (Caloenas maculata) was a relative of the dodo, according to scientists who have examined its genetic make-up. The authors say their results, published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, support a theory that both birds are descended from 'island hopping' ancestors. The only known example of the spotted green pigeon is the Liverpool pigeon, which is currently in the World Museum, Liverpool. The only other known specimen has been lost, and there are no records of the bird in the wild. There is no record of where the ...

Mental health patients are at their highest risk of dying by suicide in the first two weeks after leaving hospital - a report out today shows. Around 3,225 patients died by suicide in the UK within the first three months of their discharge from hospital – 18% of all patient suicides, between 2002-2012. The University of Manchester's National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness found that 526 patients died within the first week, the peak time of risk in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland; it is the first two weeks in Wales. ...

This is the first study to investigate cerebral palsy over such a broad range of family relationships. Cerebral palsy is the most common cause of physical disability in children, affecting approximately two in 1,000 live births in the developed world (and many more elsewhere). It originates from damage to the 'immature' brain and several risk factors in pregnancy have been identified such as preterm delivery, abnormal growth, exposure to infection and lack of oxygen at birth. Previous studies have found a possible family link with cerebral palsy, but positive findings ...

Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta, Robert Harding Chair in global child health and policy and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto believes that criminal sanctions are necessary to deter growing research misconduct. He says the fact that research fraud is common is no longer news, but a review by PubMed in 2012 found that 67% of research article retractions were "attributable to scientific misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud". Dr Bhutta says the consequences of research fraud on human health can be "huge" and that ...

Neuroscientists at The University of Texas at Austin have generated mutant worms that do not get intoxicated by alcohol, a result that could lead to new drugs to treat the symptoms of people going through alcohol withdrawal. The scientists accomplished this feat by inserting a modified human alcohol target into the worms, as reported this week in The Journal of Neuroscience. "This is the first example of altering a human alcohol target to prevent intoxication in an animal," says corresponding author, Jon Pierce-Shimomura, assistant professor in the university's College ...

University of Southampton researchers have found that rainwater can penetrate below the Earth's fractured upper crust, which could have major implications for our understanding of earthquakes and the generation of valuable mineral deposits. It had been thought that surface water could not penetrate the ductile crust - where temperatures of more than 300°C and high pressures cause rocks to flex and flow rather than fracture - but researchers, led by Southampton's Dr Catriona Menzies, have now found fluids derived from rainwater at these levels. Fluids in the Earth's crust ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—A new study from the Gladstone Institutes has revealed a way to alleviate the learning and memory deficits caused by apoE4, the most important genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, improving cognition to normal levels in aged mice. In the study, which was conducted in collaboration with researchers at UC San Francisco and published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, scientists transplanted inhibitory neuron progenitors—early-stage brain cells that have the capacity to develop into mature inhibitory neurons—into two mouse models of Alzheimer's ...

Fewer Americans are having strokes and those who do have a lower risk of dying from them finds a new study led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers. The study found a 24 percent overall decline in first-time strokes in each of the last two decades and a 20 percent overall drop per decade in deaths after stroke. However, the decline in stroke risk was concentrated mainly in the over-65 set, with little progress in reducing the risk of strokes among young people. In contrast, the drop in stroke-related deaths each decade was primarily found among ...

Despite the belief that early HIV infection presents with a well recognized flu-like syndrome, most physicians are unable to use clinical skills to differentiate those who should and should not be tested for HIV infection, according to a study published July 15 in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Researchers at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and University of British Columbia, Oregon Health and Science University, and Duke University Medical Centre analyzed data from over 24,000 patients, and discovered physicians have great difficulty recognizing ...

In a study that included a large sample of black and white U.S. adults from several communities, rates of stroke incidence and subsequent death decreased from 1987 to 2011, with decreases varying across age-groups, according to a study in the July 16 issue of JAMA. Stroke ranks fourth among all causes of death in the U.S. and is recognized as a leading cause of serious physical and cognitive long-term disability in adults. Almost 800,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and over 600,000 of them are first-ever events. Stroke incidence varies by gender and ethnic group, ...

A telephone-delivered intervention, which included automated symptom monitoring, produced clinically meaningful improvements in chronic musculoskeletal pain compared to usual care, according to a study in the July 16 issue of JAMA. Pain is the most common symptom reported both in the general population and patients seen in primary care, the leading cause of work disability, and a condition that costs the United States more than $600 billion each year in health care and lost productivity. Musculoskeletal pain accounts for nearly 70 million outpatient visits annually in ...