WASHINGTON — One of the most comprehensive looks at the use of hormone therapy in women over 65 with non-metastatic breast cancer found some welcome news. Except for frail patients, most participants in the large study complied with their oncologists' recommendations to treat their estrogen-positive breast cancer with hormone therapy — either an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen. These drugs prevent tumors from using estrogen to fuel growth. But the study, reported online June 16th in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also found that non-white women were much more likely ...

Bottom Line: Very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) babies who undergo major surgery appear to have an increased risk of death or subsequent neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI). Author: Frank H. Morriss, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and colleagues. Background: Some animal studies suggest general anesthesia for surgery can increase the risk for neurocognitive or behavioral deficits. This has raised some concerns about exposing infants to general anesthesia for surgery. How the Study Was Conducted: The authors examined the association between ...

Bottom Line: Military personnel with concussive traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by a blast or a nonblast-related event had similar outcomes, including headache severity and depression. Author: Christine L. Mac Donald, Ph.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and colleagues. Background: It has been estimated that in the U.S. military about 20 percent of the deployed force experienced a head injury in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those injured, about 83 percent had a mild, uncomplicated TBI or concussion. Blast injuries were the ...

CHICAGO --- In low-income and minority communities where colonoscopies may be prohibitively expensive for many residents, less-invasive, more frequent testing combined with automated reminders, can yield dramatic improvements in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates, according to a new Northwestern Medicine® study. The study found that community health center patients who received follow-up -– that is, outreach by mail, automated telephone and text messages, and calls by a health center staff member if no response was given in three months -- were more than twice as ...

(PHILADELPHIA) – A team of researchers led by Penn Medicine anesthesiologists have pinpointed the "top five" most common perioperative procedures that are supported by the least amount of clinical evidence, in an effort to direct providers to make more cost-effective treatment decisions. Their findings are published in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. The team surveyed anesthesiologists, many of them in academic practice, to identify the most common activities that should be questioned in the field, using practice parameters developed by the American Society ...

Explosions are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. A new study shows that military personnel with mild brain trauma related to such blasts had outcomes similar to those with mild brain injury from other causes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. However, nearly 80 percent of patients in both categories of brain trauma suffered moderate to severe overall disability within a year after injury. The analysis appears June 16 in JAMA Neurology. "We are interested ...

SEATTLE—People living in poverty are less likely to be screened regularly for colorectal cancer—and more likely to develop the disease and die from it. How to end these disparities—and raise screening rates, lower disease rates, and prevent deaths? A promising way is to mail fecal immunochemical tests (a newer kind of stool test) to populations, Beverly B. Green, MD, MPH, and Gloria D. Coronado, PhD, wrote in the June 17 JAMA Internal Medicine. Dr. Green is a Group Health physician and an associate investigator at Group Health Research Institute. Dr. Coronado is a senior ...

Cancer clinicians and a chaplain at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a new tool to help doctors, nurses and other health care providers talk to dying patients and families who are, literally, praying for a miracle. The AMEN (Affirm, Meet, Educate, No matter what) protocol, a script that can be used by medical staff, offers a way to negotiate these challenging conversations to affirm or acknowledge a patient's hope, share the patient's wish with others, continue to educate the patient and family about medical issues, and assure them that their health ...

Well-child visits are the foundation of pediatric primary care in the U.S. Accounting for more than one-third of all outpatient visits for infants and toddlers, the appointments are intended to give doctors the opportunity to identify health, social, developmental and behavioral issues that could have a long-term impact on children's lives. However, several studies have shown that the current system of well-child care leaves room for improvement. One major concern is that well-child care guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics call for physicians to provide ...

HOUSTON – (June 16, 2014) – How does a stem cell decide what path to take? In a way, it's up to the wisdom of the crowd. The DNA in a pluripotent stem cell is bombarded with waves of proteins whose ebb and flow nudge the cell toward becoming blood, bone, skin or organs. A new theory by scientists at Rice University shows the cell's journey is neither a simple step-by-step process nor all random. Theoretical biologist Peter Wolynes and postdoctoral fellow Bin Zhang set out to create a mathematical tool to analyze large, realistic gene networks. As a bonus, their open-access ...

MANHATTAN, KANSAS — Kansas State University diagnosticians are helping the cattle industry save millions of dollars each year by developing earlier and accurate detection of E. coli. Lance Noll, master's student in veterinary biomedical science, Greensburg; T.G. Nagaraja, university distinguished professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology; and Jianfa Bai, assistant professor in the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, are leading a project to improve techniques for detecting pathogenic Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7. A U.S. Department of Agriculture ...

It's broadly assumed that cells degrade and recycle their own old or damaged organelles, but researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Kennedy Krieger Institute have discovered that some neurons transfer unwanted mitochondria – the tiny power plants inside cells – to supporting glial cells called astrocytes for disposal. The findings, published in the June 17 online Early Edition of PNAS, suggest some basic biology may need revising, but they also have potential implications for improving ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – A Canadian team lead by Stephen Grasby reports the discovery of the highest latitude perennial spring known in the world. This high-volume spring demonstrates that deep groundwater circulation through the cryosphere occurs, and can form gullies in a region of extreme low temperatures and with morphology remarkably similar to those on Mars. The 2009 discovery raises many new questions because it remains uncertain how such a high-volume spring can originate in a polar desert environment. Grasby and colleagues encountered the northernmost perennial ...

A study by University of Iowa researchers confirms that pathological gambling runs in families and shows that first-degree relatives of pathological gamblers are eight times more likely to develop this problem in their lifetime than relatives of people without pathological gambling. "Our work clearly shows that pathological gambling runs in families at a rate higher than for many other behavioral and psychiatric disorders," says Donald W. Black, MD, professor of psychiatry in the UI Carver College of Medicine. "I think clinicians and health care providers should be alerted ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Giving low doses of a particular targeted agent with a cancer-killing virus might improve the effectiveness of the virus as a treatment for cancer, according to a study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). Viruses that are designed to kill cancer cells – oncolytic viruses – have shown promise in clinical trials for the treatment of brain cancer and other solid tumors. This cell and animal study suggests that combining low ...

Confirming what neurocomputational theorists have long suspected, researchers at the Dignity Health Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. and University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that the human brain locks down episodic memories in the hippocampus, committing each recollection to a distinct, distributed fraction of individual cells. The findings, published in the June 16 Early Edition of PNAS, further illuminate the neural basis of human memory and may, ultimately, shed light on new treatments for diseases and conditions that adversely ...

Boston (June 16, 2014) – Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is characterized by choroidal neovascularization (CNV), or blood vessel growth, is the primary cause of blindness in elderly individuals of industrialized countries. The prevalence of the disease is projected to increase 50% by the year 2020. There is an urgent need for new pharmacological interventions for the treatment and prevention of AMD. Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School and other institutions have demonstrated for the first time ...

Irvine, Calif. — For caterpillars, having a well-rounded diet can be fraught with peril. UC Irvine and Wesleyan University biologists have learned that caterpillars that feed on one or two plant species are better able to hide from predatory birds than caterpillars that consume a wide variety of plants. This is probably because the color patterns and hiding behaviors of the caterpillar "specialists" have evolved to allow them to blend into the background flora more effectively than caterpillars that eat many different plant species. Moving among these diverse plant ...

A powerful new model to detect life on planets outside of our solar system, more accurately than ever before, has been developed by UCL (University College London) researchers. The new model focuses on methane, the simplest organic molecule, widely acknowledged to be a sign of potential life. Researchers from UCL and the University of New South Wales have developed a new spectrum for 'hot' methane which can be used to detect the molecule at temperatures above that of Earth, up to 1,500K/1220°C – something which was not possible before. To find out what remote planets ...

Proving that less really is more, five specific tests or procedures commonly performed in anesthesiology that may not be necessary and, in some cases should be avoided, will be published online June 16 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The "Top-five" list was created by the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®) for inclusion in the ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely® campaign. "The Top-five list of activities to question in anesthesiology was developed in an effort to reduce unnecessary, costly procedures and improve patient care," said Onyi Onuoha, M.D., M.P.H., lead ...

Investors and gamblers take note: your betting decisions and strategy are determined, in part, by your genes. University of California, Berkeley, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) researchers have shown that betting decisions in a simple competitive game are influenced by the specific variants of dopamine-regulating genes in a person's brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter – a chemical released by brain cells to signal other brain cells – that is a key part of the brain's reward and pleasure-seeking system. Dopamine deficiency leads to Parkinson's ...

Berkeley — What do you get when you mix theorists in computer science with evolutionary biologists? You get an algorithm to explain sex. It turns out that 155 years after Charles Darwin first published "On the Origin of Species," vexing questions remain about key aspects of evolution, such as how sexual recombination and natural selection produced the teeming diversity of life that exists today. The answer could lie in the game that genes play during sexual recombination, and computer theorists at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified an algorithm ...

A UNSW Australia-led team of researchers has discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis. The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to technological advances, such as better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices. The research is published in the journal Proceedings ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers used quantum theory – usually invoked to describe the actions of subatomic particles – to identify an unexpected and strange pattern in how people respond to survey questions. By conventional standards, the results are surprising: The scientists found the exact same pattern in 70 nationally representative surveys from Gallup and the Pew Research center taken from 2001 to 2011, as well as in two laboratory experiments. Most of the national surveys included more than 1,000 respondents in the United States. "Human behavior is very sensitive ...

Treating influenza relies on drugs such as Amantadine that are becoming less and less effective due to viral evolution. But University of Chicago scientists have published computational results that may give drug designers the insight they need to develop the next generation of effective influenza treatment. "It's very hard to design a drug if you don't understand how the disease functions," said Gregory Voth, the Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry. Voth and three co-authors offer new insights into the disease's functioning in the Proceedings ...