Nearly 80 percent of trauma centers in the United States that serve predominantly minority patients have higher-than-expected death rates, according to new Johns Hopkins research. Moreover, the research shows, trauma patients of all races are 40 percent less likely to die — regardless of the severity of their injuries — if they are treated at hospitals with lower-than-expected mortality rates, the vast majority of which serve predominantly white patients. The findings, described in an article published in the October issue of Annals of Surgery, offer confirmation and ...

Exposing young women and girls under the age of 20 to ionizing radiation can substantially raise the risk of their developing breast cancer later in life. Scientists may now know why. A collaborative study, in which Berkeley Lab researchers played a pivotal role, points to increased stem cell self-renewal and subsequent mammary stem cell enrichment as the culprits. Breasts enriched with mammary stem cells as a result of ionizing irradiation during puberty show a later-in-life propensity for developing ER negative tumors - cells that do not have the estrogen receptor. Estrogen ...

NEW YORK (September 11, 2013) – Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) treatment in a hospital setting using low dose oral vancomycin showed similar effectiveness compared to high dose, according to a new study by researchers at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. These data were presented yesterday at the 53rd Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy meeting in Denver. Patients with CDI treated with vancomycin at the low dose (LD) (125 mg every 6 hours) and high dose (HD) (greater than ...

Boston, MA – A study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) found that brachytherapy treatment was associated with better cause-specific survival and overall survival in women with cervical cancer. The population-based analysis also revealed geographic disparities and decline in brachytherapy treatment in the United States. Brachytherapy is a type of cancer treatment in which radioactive implants are inserted directly into the tissue near the tumor site. The study is published in the September 2013 issue of The International Journal of Radiation Oncology. The ...

AMES, Iowa – It happens to all kinds of flat, disk galaxies – whether they're big, little, isolated or crowded in a cluster. They all grow out of their irregular, clumped appearance and their older stars take on the same smooth look, predictably fading from a bright center to a dim edge. Or, as Curtis Struck, an Iowa State University astronomer, wrote in a research summary: "In galaxy disks, the scars of a rough childhood, and adolescent blemishes, all smooth away with time." But how does that happen? Struck, a professor of physics and astronomy who studies galaxy ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society American Chemical Society presidential symposium: Innovation and entrepreneurship INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 10, 2013 — An historic shift is occurring in traditional innovation in chemistry — which touches more than 96 percent of all the world's manufactured goods — away from large companies and toward smaller entrepreneurs ...

High adherence to antiretroviral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is associated with a high level of protection from HIV acquisition by HIV-uninfected partners in heterosexual couples where only one of the partners is HIV positive, according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, which was led by Jessica Haberer, from Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States, included 1,147 HIV-uninfected participants who were enrolled in three Ugandan sites of the Partners PrEP Study- a randomized controlled trial to determine efficacy and safety of PrEP. ...

Transnational tobacco companies' investments in smokeless tobacco products, such as snus (a moist tobacco product that is placed under the upper lip), in Europe are not due to a concern for the health impacts of smoking but are instead driven purely by business interests according to new research by Silvy Peeters and Anna Gilmore from the University of Bath UK and the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, published this week in PLOS Medicine. To inform the policy debate surrounding snus, which is banned from sale in the European Union (EU) under legislation that is ...

A team of researchers led by Professor Joseph Heitman has discovered procreation between genetically identical fungi Cryptococcus neoformans can result in genetic changes and diversity in their offspring, lending insight into how they can evolve to cause and spread disease. These results are published 10 September 2013 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. "These studies turn our view of the functions of sex by 180 degrees and reveal that sex doesn't just mix up already existing genetic diversity, but can actually create it from scratch," said Professor Heitman, Chair ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Though some might disagree, most biologists think the purpose of sex is to create diversity among offspring. Such diversity underpins evolution, enabling organisms to acquire new combinations of traits to adapt to their environment. However, scientists have been perplexed to find that many fungi and microorganisms procreate with exact replicas of themselves, where the expected outcome would simply be more of the same. Now researchers have found the act of sex between such genetically identical organisms can itself be mutagenic, meaning it can create ...

Neuroscientists at Western University (London, Canada) have made a remarkable new discovery revealing the underlying molecular process by which opiate addiction develops in the brain. Opiate addiction is largely controlled by the formation of powerful reward memories that link the pleasurable effects of opiate-class drugs to environmental triggers that induce drug craving in individuals addicted to opiates. The research is published in the September 11th issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The Addiction Research Group led by Steven Laviolette of the Schulich School ...

PHILADELPHIA — Using a highly sensitive technology called NanoString, researchers have identified seven targets that could potentially be used to develop new immunotherapies for patients with metastatic melanoma, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "We identified seven potential candidate genes that deserve further consideration as targets for melanoma immunotherapy," said Richard Morgan, Ph.D., staff scientist at the Tumor Immunology Section of the Center for Cancer Research, National ...

Heart disease patients with positive attitudes are more likely to exercise and live longer, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Researchers used a questionnaire to assess the moods of 600 ischemic heart disease patients in a Denmark hospital. Five years later, researchers found: The most positive patients exercised more and had a 42 percent less chance of dying for any reason during the follow-up period; deaths were less than 10 percent. Among patients with less positive attitudes, 50 ...

Cost, fear and a lack of information are barriers for minorities in urban communities to learn and perform CPR, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. In a small study, researchers interviewed 42 residents in Columbus, Ohio. The majority of participants were age 30 or older, African-American and female. Participants attended six focus groups and were asked about their knowledge of and training in CPR. Almost half of the participants lived in economically struggling, high-crime neighborhoods, ...

Barcelona, Spain: Obstructive lung disease (OLD) has been linked with a decline in cognitive functioning, including memory and information processing. A new study, which will be presented today (11 September 2013) at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress, suggests that impaired cognitive functioning could be an important factor in OLD. Previous research has found that people with OLD, including COPD, often experience global cognitive impairments, but this new study – using the UK Biobank Resource – focused on which domain-specific cognitive functions ...

In an examination of the effect of financial incentives on hypertension care at 12 outpatient clinics, physician-level (individual) financial incentives, but not practice-level or combined incentives, resulted in greater blood pressure control or appropriate response to uncontrolled blood pressure, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA. None of the incentives resulted in greater use of guideline-recommended medications compared with controls. "As part of the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. government has introduced pay for performance to all hospitals paid ...

A pay-for-performance program in electronic-health-records-(EHR)-enabled small practices led to modest improvements in cardiovascular care processes and outcomes, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA. "Most evaluations of pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives have focused on large-group practices," according to background information in the article. Small practices, where the majority of patients still receive care nationally, historically have provided lower-quality care—especially solo practices—and may have greater obstacles to improving care because ...

Among patients with diabetes, use of an outpatient electronic health record (EHR) in an integrated healthcare delivery system was associated with modest reductions in emergency department visits and hospitalizations, but was not associated with a change in office visit rates, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act authorizes up to $27 billion during 10 years to promote meaningful use of EHRs, with penalties for lack of EHR use beginning in 2015. With these substantial incentives, ...

Four weeks of treatment with a combination of the drug pentoxifylline and the corticosteroid prednisolone did not improve 6-month survival compared with prednisolone alone in 270 patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis, according to a study in the September 11 issue of JAMA. Treatment of severe forms of alcoholic hepatitis is extremely challenging because of the poor outcome. European and U.S. guidelines recommend the use of prednisolone or pentoxifylline in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of patients die after 6 months ...

"Monitoring of linear growth is a well-established part of pediatric health care in the developed world. Although monitoring aims to support early diagnosis and timely treatment of disorders affecting growth, such disorders are often diagnosed late," write Ulla Sankilampi, M.D., Ph.D., of Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland, and colleagues. As reported in a Research Letter, the authors compared the effectiveness of a novel computerized and automated growth monitoring (AGM) strategy integrated into an electronic health record (EHR) system in the primary care setting ...

A recently completed substudy of a larger clinical trial found that pre-exposure prophylaxis -- a new strategy to prevent HIV infection by prescribing a daily antiretroviral drug to at-risk individuals -- can be a powerful tool when participants take their medications. The trial of this strategy, also called PrEP, enrolled uninfected individuals in East Africa with an HIV-positive sexual partner and found that a combination of objective monitoring of how often participants took their daily medications and intensive counseling of those with lower rates of adherence prevented ...

HOUSTON (Sept. 11, 2013) – When health care pundits began to suggest that pay-for-performance would solve some of health care's woes, Dr. Laura Petersen, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Houston VA Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence, had questions. How do we know that it will solve those problems? she asked. How do we know whether or not it will create new problems? And how will we structure these payments? As a recognized expert in the area of health care services and quality, she set out to find the ...

Camouflaged creatures can perform remarkable disappearing acts but new research shows that predators can learn to read camouflage. The study, which used human subjects as predators searching for hidden moths in computer games, found that the subjects could learn to find some types of camouflaged prey faster than others. The research was carried out by the University of Exeter and the University of Cambridge and is published in the journal PLOS ONE. Moths with high contrast markings - that break up the shape of the body, like that of a zebra or giraffe - were best at ...

Scientists have discovered where plants build tannins, complex chemicals used by plants for defence and protection. The source is the tannosome, a newly discovered organelle that is found in most land plants. All living things are made from cells; whether they are single-celled organisms like amoeba, or enormous entities like Giant Redwoods (in which millions of cells make up the body of the organism). Although cells may become specialised for particular roles in an organism, they each undertake many different tasks. Internally each cell is furnished with a range of smaller ...

The London borough of Newham is famed for producing talents such as Idris Elba, Plan B and Mo Farrah, whilst also playing host to the Olympic Stadium and West Ham United Football Club. Now an international group of researchers have found that its residents have the smallest carbon footprint in the UK. In a study of 434 municipalities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, they showed that according to data taken from 2004, the lifestyle of each person in Newham caused an average of 10.21 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) to be emitted into the atmosphere ...