Pilocytic astrocytoma, the most common brain tumor in children, is usually slow-growing and benign. However, surgeons often cannot completely remove the diffusely growing tumor. This means that patients need further treatment in order to destroy remaining tumor tissue. Chemotherapy or radiation therapy can lead to severe side-effects and have only little effect on these slowly growing tumors. Affected children therefore urgently need new, targeted therapies. A typical genetic defect in these brain tumors is already known: "From our own research we know that there is ...

Insufficient cleaning could allow build-up of microbes on orthodontic retainers, researchers at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute have found. Dr Jonathan Pratten and colleagues looked at the types of microbes which live on retainers. This study, which found potentially pathogenic microbes growing on at least 50% of the retainers, is published today in the Society for Applied Microbiology's journal Letters in Applied Microbiology and could indicate a need for the development of improved cleaning products for orthodontic retainers. Dr Pratten and his team took samples from ...

Improving land management and farming practices in Australia could have an effect on global climate change, according to a study published in the International Journal of Water. Natural Sequence Farming is a descriptor used when sustainable agriculture mimics the once highly efficient functions of the Australian landscape. NSF pioneer Peter Andrews of Denman in New South Wales and coordinator of the NSF movement, Duane Norris of Hardy's Bay, New South Wales explain how NSF techniques could re-couple environmental carbon and water cycles not only to improve farming yields ...

Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) results from hepatic venous outflow obstruction at any level from hepatic venules to the right atrium. Few patients respond to medical treatment (anticoagulation ± thrombolytic therapy, diuretics). However, most patients need intervention to restore the hepatic blood flow. Restoring outflow in one of the major hepatic veins by balloon dilatation ± stenting is the management of choice. When not possible or failed, transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) is used. Follow up of patients after radiological intervention is crucial in ...

The incidence and mortality associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been increasing worldwide, and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection plays an important role in the pathogenesis of HCC. Previous studies have suggested that host factors, such as sex, alcohol consumption, smoking, diabetes mellitus, and obesity, are important risk factors for HCC. Meanwhile, it has been reported that HCV infection causes insulin resistance and leads to oxidative stress, potentiating fibrosis and hepatic carcinogenesis. However, the factors that influence the development of HCC ...

Vitamin D deficiency is a well reported complication in chronic cholestatic liver disease such as primary biliary cirrhosis. While the prevalence and treatment of this deficiency has been addressed in many articles over the last decades, little is known of the vitamin D status in alcoholic liver cirrhosis. A research article published on February 21, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The authors described the serum vitamin D status in a retrospective case series of patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis compared to those with primary ...

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is dramatically increasing throughout the world. Insulin resistance is a hallmark of type 2 diabetes, and it most often precedes the onset of hyperglycemia and predicts development of type 2 diabetes. At present, thiazolidinediones (TZD), the agonists of the peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor γ, are the main agents to improve insulin sensitivity in the liver, adipose tissue, and skeletal muscle, thus improving glycaemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. Despite the efficacy, some deleterious side effects of TZDs, including ...

City-data.com is a website that lists statistics about American cities and towns. Recently, I spent some time looking at the numbers for Prescott and Prescott Valley. I can't really tell you why I decided to check up on Yavapai County, but I did and what I found out led me to some interesting thoughts regarding bankruptcy in Prescott. Whenever I look at bankruptcy in an area I start off by diving into the data relating to housing and income. Prescott has a fairly low median income for Arizona at $41,010 where as Arizona as a whole has a median income of $48,745. This in ...

Impairment of oral intake occurs in the majority of patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) receiving chemoradiotherapy. Placement of prophylactic percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube in asymptomatic newly diagnosed HNC before chemoradiation is a common practice in some centers. In some studies, PEG has been associated with a decrease in treatment related weight loss in patients with HNC, but no studies have examined the utilization rate. A research article published on February 28, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The ...

Its head looks like a turkey's, its body resembles a chicken's – now scientists can explain why one of the poultry world's most curious specimens has developed such a distinctive look. The Transylvanian naked neck chicken – once dubbed a Churkey or a Turken because of its hybrid appearance – has developed its defining feature because of a complex genetic mutation. Researchers at The Roslin Institute at The University of Edinburgh found that a vitamin A-derived substance produced around the bird's neck enhanced the effects of the genetic mutation. This causes a protein ...

Traditionally, both air and tap water have been used as oral contrast agents to achieve adequate gastric distension for preoperative computed tomography (CT) imaging in patients with early gastric cancer (EGC). Despite introduction of multi-detector row CT techniques and the use of multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) images, the detection rate of EGC on hydrostomach CT has still been unsatisfactory. A research article published on February 28, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The authors conducted a comparison study for the detection ...

Colonoscopy is considered a safe procedure, although complications can occur. The most dreaded of these is iatrogenic perforation. The literature reports perforation rates of 0.03%-0.8% for diagnostic procedures, and a rate of 0.15%-3% for therapeutic procedures. Mechanisms of perforation are the result of either mechanical disruption of the colonic wall (e.g. thermal injury, forced push into a diverticulum, or stretching of the bowel with loops or the slide-by technique) or excessive air insufflation. After perforation, prompt abdominal surgery is usually recommended, ...

In a unique collaboration between scientists from the UK, Ecuador and Réunion, a new species of yeast has been discovered growing on the fruit of an unidentified and innocuous bramble collected from the biodiversity-rich Maquipucuna cloud forest nature reserve, near Quito, in Ecuador. "We are actively looking for new yeasts with the ability to ferment plant material to produce bio-energy," said Dr Steve James from the National Collection of Yeast Cultures at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich. The collection of yeasts at the institute is already used for bread ...

University of Manchester scientists have led an international team to discover new treatments for a rare and potentially lethal childhood disease that is the clinical opposite of diabetes mellitus. Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is a condition where the body's pancreas produces too much insulin – rather than too little as in diabetes – so understanding the disease has led to breakthroughs in diabetes treatment. This latest study, published in the journal Diabetes today (Wednesday), was carried out with clinical colleagues at hospitals throughout Europe and at the ...

Recently the West Valley View, the newspaper serving the communities of Avondale, Buckeye, Goodyear, Litchfield Park, and Tolleson ran an article on the tough economic times Arizona as a whole can look forward to over the next few years. Sadly, most Arizona residents had already come to this realization. The combination of the bursting of the massive housing bubble in Arizona and current rock-bottom housing values has left a look of people in a valueless house. Sprinkle in a dose of high unemployment and suddenly you have the making of a housing crisis. A quick search ...

INDIANAPOLIS – Stroke patients who are not successfully treated for depression are at higher risk of losing some of their capability to function normally, according to a study in the March 15, 2011 issue of the journal Neurology. Although as many as a third of those who experience a stroke develop depression, a new study by researchers from the Regenstrief Institute, the schools of health and rehabilitation sciences and of medicine at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center is the first to look whether managing ...

It is difficult to write a letter on a driving bus, or to measure small distances on a vibrating plate – the vibrations simply interfere too much. Any small vibration coming from the floor is already too much if there is an increased requirement with respect to accuracy. They hamper high-resolution measurements of distance or roughness – as in scanning electron microscopy. They are also not desired in production if precision is a requirement. For this reason, the devices must be settled in such a manner that they are stable and quiet. Damping is necessary also when the ...

WASHINGTON — Good travel data are essential to measure and monitor the performance of the U.S. transportation system and to help guide policy choices and investments in transportation infrastructure, says a new report from the National Research Council that calls for the creation of a national travel data program. Current data are inadequate to support decision making in the transportation sector. "Each day our transportation network serves hundreds of millions of travelers and handles millions of tons of freight, yet we are not collecting the data necessary to analyze ...

London, UK (March 15th, 2011) – WikiLeak's disclosures highlight longstanding problems of the overclassification of information and failure of transparency laws, says David L Sobel. When Barack Obama took office as president in January 2009, he identified transparency as one of the highest priorities on his agenda for change. Writing in the current issue of Index on Censorship, David L Sobel, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the US, suggests that the president's early promises remain unfulfilled. He argues that, with the US government's failure ...

Mohave County and its major areas of Kingman, Bullhead City, and Lake Havasu City are especially vulnerable to the poor economic times facing our country. Recently the Kingman Daily Miner reported that the Kingman and Lake Havasu areas had an unemployment rate of 10.2%, this is higher than the Arizona average of 9.4%. The biggest problem with this statistic is that it does not take in to account all the people that have either stopped looking for work or are underemployed. There is currently an epidemic of of unemployment and underemployment in Kingman, Arizona, as well ...

The massive marketing campaigns launched by publishing houses at the start of the academic year can cause people bound to suffer obsessive-compulsive disorder to develop this pathology before. The fact is that collecting articles without control is a symptom of this serious psychological disorder –one of which most known variants is Diogenes syndrom– and of shopping addiction. These are two mental disorders affecting approximately 12% of the population. Porcelain dolls, precious stones, world thimbles, watches, fans, dinosaurs, language courses, and tanks and ships in ...

Minneapolis, MN —March 15, 2011—A new study from the Journal of Marriage and Family shows that contrary to popular anxieties about slacker young adults who refuse to grow up, or indulgent parents who stifle their adult children's development by continuing to support them, there is evidence that parental assistance in early adulthood promotes progress toward autonomy and self-reliance. Study author Teresa Swartz, "The fact that young people depend so heavily upon their parents well beyond the age when most people from earlier generations had already started families and ...

Leuven - Jean-Christophe Marine (VIB, K.U.Leuven) strongly argues against the use of Cop1-inhibitory drugs. The protein Cop1 has –for a long time - been seen as an attractive drug target for cancer. But Jean-Christophe Marine found out that Cop1 acts as a tumor suppressor, and thus inhibits tumor formation. His new data will have direct implications for the development of cancer drug targets. Tumorigenesis: loss of control Tumors form when control over the cell division is lost; a process that could be compared to losing control over the speed of your car. Two main players ...

It is every patient's worst nightmare: to wake up in the recovery room after surgery to learn that something went wrong. In some cases, the bad outcome is simply a matter of chance: one of the known risks of the surgery happened to occur. But in other cases, the bad outcome is the direct result of the negligence of the physician performing the surgery and was entirely avoidable. Surgical mistakes happen much more often than most Americans realize. Sometimes these mistakes are minor and may never cause any harm to the patients, but this is not always the case. According ...

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, March 15, 2011– Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have shown that a significant number of patients with benign prostate enlargement (BPE) may have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), which may be the reason for their night awakenings and urination. This study compared men between the ages of 55 and 75 who were randomly sampled from primary care clinics, diagnosed with BPE and reported nocturia at least once nightly. The comparison control group had no BPE and one or no nocturia episodes per night. According to the new study published ...