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Simple clinical criteria can eliminate pulmonary embolism risk and expense

Although clots in the lung (pulmonary embolism or PE) are the second-leading cause of sudden death in the United States, blood tests and ultrafast CT scanning to detect PE are being used on so many patients that over 90% of these tests are negative.

17 May 2007

Merits and risks of postmenopausal hormone therapy

The study was categorized as a primary prevention trial for coronary heart disease, although the fact that mean age at recruitment was 63 years was not given enough importance at that time. WHI investigators concluded that hormone therapy (HT) was not cardioprotective, and, in fact, its riskbenefit ratio did not favor the use of postmenopausal hormones for prevention of chronic diseases.

17 May 2007

Virtual Iraq provides better understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder

Weill Cornell Medical College researchers are using a virtual reality simulation called "Virtual Iraq" to better understand how symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develop.

17 May 2007

Cells that cause Ewing's sarcoma identified

Inserm researchers at the Institut Curie have identified the cells that cause Ewing’s sarcoma.

16 May 2007

Chemical maps hint at drug's effects on schizophrenia

Antipsychotic drugs do most of their work in the brain, but they also leave behind in the bloodstream a trail of hundreds of chemicals that may be used in the future to direct better treatment for schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions, say Duke University Medical Center researchers.

16 May 2007

The Phi Complex as a neuromarker of human social coordination

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) have been able to identify neural signatures of effective, real-time coordination between people in one of the first studies in the field of social neuroscience to actually record, measure and analyze both behavior and brain activity simultaneously in two interacting humans.

16 May 2007

Peanut allergies overstated

Despite hundreds of families being told their children have peanut allergies every year, many of the children may be able to eat peanuts safely, a study by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Sydney Children's Hospital has found.

15 May 2007

Cardiotrophin 1 molecule shows potential for diagnosing hypertensive cardiopathy

Scientists from the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) from the University of Navarra investigate whether cardiotrophin 1, a molecule that can be measured in blood, can be used as a diagnostic marker for hypertensive cardiopathy.

11 May 2007

Genetic component to autism

Using an innovative statistical approach, a research team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, Los Angeles, has identified two regions of DNA linked to autism.

10 May 2007

Bipolar all too often misdiagnosed

According to researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) there are twice as many Americans with bipolar disorder as previously thought, and many are untreated.

9 May 2007

Low-dose MDCT of the abdomen and pelvis reduces hospital stay in patients with acute nonspecific abdominal pain

Extremely low-dose MDCT of the abdomen and pelvis is useful in providing needed diagnostic information and reducing hospital stay in patients with acute nonspecific abdominal pain, according to a new study by researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA.

9 May 2007

Study provides clues about inability to imitate and empathize in autistic children

New imaging research at UCLA shows that impairments in autistic children's ability to imitate and empathize can be linked to dysfunction in the brain's mirror-neuron system.

8 May 2007

4 percent of US adults have some form of bipolar disorder

Approximately 4.4 percent of U.S. adults may have some form of bipolar disorder during some point in their lifetime, including about 2.4 percent with a "sub-threshold" condition, according to an article in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

8 May 2007

CT angiography can replace digital subtraction angiography

CT angiography (CTA) alone is an effective, noninvasive means to detect peripheral vascular disease, according to a study conducted by researchers at Charite Campus Benjamin Franklin in Berlin, Germany.

8 May 2007

Social behavior differs in children with family history of autism

The baby brothers and sisters of autistic children do not seek emotional cues from adults, or respond to them, as often as other toddlers do, suggests new research from the University of California, San Diego.

8 May 2007

Functional anesthetic discography allows diagnosis of lower back pain cause

Functional anesthetic discography (FAD), a new diagnostic procedure involving injecting anesthetic directly into a spinal disc, can be used to confirm the presence of injured discs as the source of a patient's lower back pain symptoms, according to a new study by researchers from Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, NY.

8 May 2007

MDCT eliminates need for catheter angiography for aortic injury diagnosis

Contrast-enhanced 64-MDCT that definitively reveals acute trauma to the aorta does not need confirmation from invasive catheter angiography, which saves valuable time in treating patients in trauma centers, according to a new study by researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

8 May 2007

Scientists create cheaper 3-D ultrasound device

Almost every doctor's surgery has an ultrasound scanner. Medical ultrasonography allows us to see an unborn child in its mother's womb and helps to detect gall stones or identify tumor-like lumps.

8 May 2007

High intracoronary attenuation significantly improves diagnostic accuracy in 64-slice CT-CA of the coronary arteries

For the study, 170 patients with suspected coronary artery disease underwent CT-CA. The average vascular attenuation measured in the aortic root and in coronary arteries was used to divide the population into two groups of 85 patients each, one with low attenuations and one with high.

8 May 2007