Medical News

RSS

Natural polymer Chitin shows great healing properties

Chitin is a polymer very common in nature as part of animals' and plants' physical structures.

16 Jul 2007

Children with Tourette's better at mental grammar skills

Children with Tourette's syndrome may have to put up with some unwanted movement and verbal tics, but neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute have found that they are much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than are children without the disorder.

16 Jul 2007

Boston Scientific to settle product lawsuits

Boston Scientific Corporationhas announced that an agreement has been reached to settle claims associated with a series of product communications issued by Guidant Corporation in 2005 and 2006. Boston Scientific acquired Guidant Corporation last year.

16 Jul 2007

ACMG recognizes progress made in newborn screening

In support of the latest March of Dimes Newborn Screening Report Card, the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) strongly urges every state to require complete testing of all newborns for a 'core panel' of genetic and congenital conditions.

16 Jul 2007

Credit card firms and life insurance companies are the least trusted of all financial bodies in the UK

The index, a wholly new approach to the measurement of trust among the general public, shows that brokers and advisers are the most trusted, followed by building societies, then banks, then investment companies.

16 Jul 2007

Hope for cure for insulin-dependent diabetes

A diagnosis of type I diabetes means a life sentence of medical follow-up. While treatments have become simpler and less restrictive in recent years, they are still a burden, especially for young patients.

16 Jul 2007

DNA' s double helix shape explained

Researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have uncovered a missing link in scientists' understanding of the physical forces that give DNA its famous double helix shape.

13 Jul 2007

Breakthough in understanding of how mutations occur in genes

For the first time, it can now be shown what enzyme copies the genetic make-up of cells.

13 Jul 2007

Trial examines diaphragm use in preventing HIV in women

A clinical trial involving 5,045 women in South Africa and Zimbabwe found no statistical difference in the rate of new HIV infections in the two study arms: those who received a diaphragm plus lubricant along with male condoms for their partners and those who only received male condoms.

13 Jul 2007

Study on soccer headgears

From small scrapes to hospital emergencies, playing soccer can be painful, and even dangerous.

13 Jul 2007

2 week wait rule for breast cancer patients questioned

The "two week wait rule" is failing breast cancer patients and needs to be reviewed urgently say the authors of a seven year study examining the impact of the target, published on bmj.com.

13 Jul 2007

Src inhibitors may prove beneficial in breast cancer therapy

Estrogen, which binds estrogen receptor alpha (ER-alpha), is a risk factor for breast cancer development.

13 Jul 2007

Spectranetics receives FDA go ahead to market laser catheters

Spectranetics Corporation has announced it has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market its TURBO elite line of laser catheters for the treatment of all stenoses and occlusions within arteries of the leg.

13 Jul 2007

Counterfactual thinking

If you're like most people, you've probably experienced a shoulda-woulda-coulda moment; a time when we lament our missteps, saying that we should have invested in a certain stock, should have become a doctor instead of a lawyer and so on.

13 Jul 2007

Sciton receives FDA approval for laser-assisted lipolysis and pulsed light treatment of wrinkles

Sciton has announced that the new ProLipo laser module received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for laser-assisted lipolysis, and its BBL broadband pulsed light received clearance for the treatment of wrinkles.

13 Jul 2007

Robotic telerounding may get you home faster

New research published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows that robotic telerounding may significantly reduce the length-of-stay of patients undergoing laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery if used to supplement standard postoperative visits, or rounds, made by surgeons.

13 Jul 2007

Discovery of one important function of junk DNA

Scientists have only recently begun to speculate that what's referred to as junk DNA , the 96 percent of the human genome that doesn't encode for proteins and previously seemed to have no useful purpose , is present in the genome for an important reason.

13 Jul 2007

New target for muscular dystrophy drug therapy

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report how the gene for utrophin, which codes for a protein very similar to dystrophin, the defective protein in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), puts the brakes on its own expression in muscle cells, thereby suggesting a new target for treatment.

13 Jul 2007

Clinical responses to antiretroviral drug therapy simulated for the first time

Treatment of HIV patients must balance the need to suppress viral replication against the harmful side effects and significant cost to the patient of antiretroviral therapy.

13 Jul 2007

NDA for Lubiprostone to treat irritable bowel syndrome with constipation

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has announced that it has submitted a supplemental New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to seek market approval of a lower strength of lubiprostone (8 mcg) to treat irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C).

13 Jul 2007