DENVER – Radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy is increasingly being used in the curative treatment for un-resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). But, until now, researchers had not looked at the cost-effectiveness of the treatment. In the October issue of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's journal, the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO), researchers compared the cost-effectiveness of different modified radiotherapy schemes and conventional fractional radiotherapy in the curative treatment of un-resected NSCLC patients. They conclude ...

DENVER – Although numerous randomized clinical trials have demonstrated a benefit of chemotherapy for patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), these trials have predominantly compared different chemotherapy regimens rather than comparing chemotherapy to best supportive care. Some of them included chest radiation or prophylactic cranial irradiation. Moreover, many trials excluded elderly patients. A recent retrospective study looked at the benefit of chemotherapy on survival of elderly patients with SCLC in the community. This is the first large-scale analysis of chemotherapy ...

DENVER – According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 160,340 lung cancer deaths occurred in the United States in 2012, accounting for 28 percent of all cancer deaths. While survival from lung cancer has improved since the early 1990s, racial differences in lung cancer survival persist such that blacks experience poorer 5-year survival for lung cancer compared to whites. In the October issue of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's journal, the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO), researchers conclude that while proportionally more blacks ...

A study at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation as part of their treatment were less likely to need a feeding tube or suffer unwanted side effects such as worsening of diet or narrowing of the throat passage if they performed a set of prescribed swallowing exercises — called a "swallow preservation protocol" — during therapy. The study, conducted from 2007 to 2012, was led by Dr. Marilene Wang, a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center and professor-in-residence in the department of head and neck surgery ...

(Philadelphia, PA) - Many people who survive a heart attack find themselves back in the hospital with a failing heart just years later. And the outcome often is unfavorable, owing to limited treatment options. But scientists at Temple University School of Medicine's Cardiovascular Research Center (CVRC) recently found hope in an unlikely source – stem cells in cortical, or compact, bone. In a new study, they show that when it comes to the regeneration of heart tissue, these novel bone-derived cells do a better job than the heart's own stem cells. According to the study's ...

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 4, 2013 – Abbott announced today promising preliminary results from a study presented at the ESC Congress 2013, suggesting that its high sensitive troponin test may help doctors improve the diagnosis and prognosis of patients presenting with symptoms of a heart attack.1 The test could be particularly beneficial for women, who may have different presenting symptoms and are often under-diagnosed.2 The study, which is being conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, is evaluating Abbott's ARCHITECT STAT High Sensitive Troponin-I (hsTnI) test, ...

SHERIDAN, WY—Throughout the western United States, Canada, and Mexico, Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum Sarg.) is known for its pleasant fragrance and valuable wood. The juniper's wood—highly valued for its durability, rich color, and pleasant aroma—is popular for use as interior paneling, furniture, and fence posts. For centuries, the leaves and berries of Rocky Mountain juniper, which contain strongly aromatic essential oil, have been used extensively by native people of North America to treat a number of medical conditions. A recent study evaluated several ...

GAINESVILLE, FL—The University of Florida's (UF) Blueberry Breeding Program has been developing successful blueberry cultivars for more than 60 years. The cultivars released from UF are credited with creating a Florida blueberry industry that was valued at $48 million in 2010, and allowing rapid expansion of blueberry production in other subtropical areas of the world. In the past, blueberry flavor selection in the program was based on two standards: subjective ratings from breeders, and a berry's sugar-to-acid ratio. Recently, scientists have determined that the "eating ...

BATON ROUGE – What happens when you tell a lie? Set aside your ethical concerns for a moment—after all, lying is a habit we practice with astonishing dexterity and frequency, whether we realize it or not. What goes on in your brain when you willfully deceive someone? And what happens later, when you attempt to access the memory of your deceit? How you remember a lie may be impacted profoundly by how you lie, according to a new study by LSU Associate Professor Sean Lane and former graduate student Kathleen Vieria. The study, accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied ...

A University of Iowa physiologist has a new technique to measure the stiffness of the aorta, a common risk factor for heart disease. And it can be as simple as measuring the pulse in your finger. The new procedure developed by Gary Pierce, assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Physiology, works by placing an instrument called a transducer on the finger or over the brachial artery, located inside the arm just beneath the elbow. The readout, combined with a person's age and body mass index, lets physicians know whether the aorta has stiffened. Currently, ...

A team of University of Texas at Arlington biologists working with the U.S. Geological Survey has found that watershed wetlands can serve as a natural source for the improvement of streams polluted by acid rain. The group, led by associate professor of biology Sophia Passy, also contends that recent increases in the level of organic matter in surface waters in regions of North America and Europe – also known as "brownification" – holds benefits for aquatic ecosystems. The research team's work appeared in the September issue of the journal Global Change Biology. The ...

Amid growing competition for freshwater from industry and cities, coupled with a rising world shortage of potash, nitrogen and phosphorus, an international study predicts a rapid increase in the use of treated wastewater for farming and other purposes worldwide. However, research shows that treated wastewater -- comparable in North America alone to the volume of water flowing over Niagara Falls -- is mostly unused and, in many nations, not even quantified. Of 181 countries studied, only 55 have information on three key aspects of wastewater: generation, treatment, ...

WASHINGTON – People who get away with cheating when they believe no one is hurt by their dishonesty are more likely to feel upbeat than remorseful afterward, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. Although people predict they will feel bad after cheating or being dishonest, many of them don't, reports a study published online in APA's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "When people do something wrong specifically to harm someone else, such as apply an electrical shock, the consistent reaction in previous research has ...

Tampa, FL (Sept. 3, 2013) -- A stress-related protein genetically linked to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders contributes to the acceleration of Alzheimer's disease, a new study led by researchers at the University of South Florida has found. The study is published online today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. When the stress-related protein FKBP51 partners with another protein known as Hsp90, this formidable chaperone protein complex prevents the clearance from the brain of the toxic tau protein associated with Alzheimer's disease. Under ...

USC scientists have discovered a population of neurons in the brains of juvenile songbirds that are necessary for allowing the birds to recognize the vocal sounds they are learning to imitate. These neurons encode a memory of learned vocal sounds and form a crucial (and hitherto only theorized) part of the neural system that allows songbirds to hear, imitate, and learn its species' songs – just as human infants acquire speech sounds. This discovery will allow scientists to uncover the exact neural mechanisms that allow songbirds to hear their own self-produced ...

BETHESDA, MD—SEPTEMBER 4, 2013—A matched-peer controlled study of science faculty at minority-serving institutions (MSI) shows that an outside mentoring support program increased the number of peer-reviewed research publications, the number of federal grants, and the variety of professional and curricular activities of those who participated versus academic peers who did not. The study, published today in the journal, CBE-Life Sciences Education, looked at outcomes from the Visiting Professorship (VP) Program, organized by the Minorities Affairs Committee (MAC) of the ...

Yale School of Medicine researchers have discovered a protein that is the missing link in the complicated chain of events that lead to Alzheimer's disease, they report in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Neuron. Researchers also found that blocking the protein with an existing drug can restore memory in mice with brain damage that mimics the disease. "What is very exciting is that of all the links in this molecular chain, this is the protein that may be most easily targeted by drugs," said Stephen Strittmatter, the Vincent Coates Professor of Neurology and senior author ...

Seattle, Wash. – September 4, 2013 – A study published today in Aging Cell identifies a new tool to accurately analyze extremely rare mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions associated with a range of diseases and disorders as well as aging. This approach, which relies on Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR™) technology, will help researchers explore mtDNA deletions as potential disease biomarkers. The accumulation of mtDNA mutations is associated with aging, neuromuscular disorders, and cancer. However, methods to probe the underlying mechanisms behind this mutagenesis have been ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A defective trash-disposal system in the brain's resident immune cells may be a major contributor to neurodegenerative disease, a scientific team from the Stanford University School of Medicine has found. Preliminary observations show that this defect appears in the brains of patients who died of Alzheimer's disease, so correcting it may someday prove to be an effective way of preventing or slowing the course of the disease. "We were fortunate in being able to compare microglia — the brain's own immune cells — from five patients who died of Alzheimer's ...

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's New Technology Telescope to explore more than 100 planetary nebulae in the central bulge of our galaxy. They have found that butterfly-shaped members of this cosmic family tend to be mysteriously aligned — a surprising result given their different histories and varied properties. The final stages of life for a star like our Sun result in the star puffing its outer layers out into the surrounding space, forming objects known as planetary nebulae in a wide range of beautiful and striking shapes. One type ...

University of Calgary scientists have overcome an 'Achilles' heel' of quantum-based secure communication systems, using a new approach that works in the real world to safeguard secrets. The team's research – published in the journal Physical Review Letters back-to-back with similar work by a group from Hefei, China – also removes a big obstacle to realizing future applications of quantum communication, including a fully functional quantum network. "I hope that our new quantum key distribution (QKD) system shows to people who take security seriously that QKD has many ...

Throughout Asia, humans and monkeys live side-by side in many urban areas. An international research team from the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Jahangirnagar University has been examining transmission of a virus from monkeys to humans in Bangladesh, one of the world's most densely populated countries. The scientists have found that some people in these urban areas are concurrently infected with multiple strains of simian foamy virus (SFV), including strains from more than one source (recombinant) that researchers originally detected ...

SAN FRANCISCO – Sept. 4, 2013 – People with cataract-related vision loss who have had cataract surgery to improve their sight are living longer than those with visual impairment who chose not to have the procedure, according to an Australian cohort study published this month in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. After comparing the two groups, the researchers found a 40 percent lower long-term mortality risk in those who had the surgery. The research is drawn from data gathered in the Blue Mountains Eye Study, a population-based cohort ...

Resveratrol, a polyphenolic compound, is synthesized in several plants and possesses beneficial biological effects, which include anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties. Resveratrol exhibits neuroprotective effects in models of many diseases, such as cerebral ischemia, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. However, there is a lack of data evaluating the effect of resveratrol in vascular dementia. Dr Boai Zhang and team from the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University found that resveratrol improved learning ...

Expression of soluble CD40L has been shown to increase sig-nificantly in conditions such as stroke, myocardial infarction, unstable angina, high cholesterol, or other cardiovascular events. 95% of the circulating CD40L exists in activated platelets. However, the specific pathway of the transition of CD40L is not elucidated, and whether Golgi apparatus is involved in the expression of platelet CD40L still needs to be proven. Dr. Wei Lu and colleagues from Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, found that platelet Golgi apparatus displayed significant morphological ...