Colon cancer is more likely to be lethal in children and young adults than middle-aged adults. In a single-institution study, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Tex., found that differences in mortality rates persist regardless of whether pediatric, adolescent, and young adult patients (aged 24 and younger) were born with a predisposition for colon abnormalities or disease and for the first time conclude that young people are more likely to have metastases outside the colon, into the abdominal cavity, when they are diagnosed. Their findings put families, clinicians, and surgeons on alert to be sure abdominal complaints in young people are thoroughly and carefully evaluated when first reported, and aggressively treated if cancer is discovered. Study findings appears in an “article in press” on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print.
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When a patient arrives at an American emergency room today, they have a higher chance than ever before of seeing a doctor who’s a woman or a person of color. And they’re also more likely than ever to get a survey after they go home, asking how satisfied they were with their ER care.
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A team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University and Fudan University has found that adding a certain adjuvant to a vaccine increased its ability to fight multiple strains of influenza. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes using lipid components of a pulmonary surfactant to encapsulate the adjuvant to allow lung-resident alveolar macrophages to recognize it. Susanne Herold and Leif-Erik Sander with the Universities of Giessen and Marburg Lung Center and the Berlin Institute of Health, respectively, have published a Perspective piece describing the work by the team in the same journal edition.
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Diabetes affects more than 400 million people worldwide and is a major public health problem. Although commonly referred to as a single disease, it actually constitutes a group of metabolic disorders with hyperglycaemia as a common feature. Of all its forms, monogenic diabetes—due to a mutation in one of the genes involved in the management of blood sugar levels—affects 1% to 4% of all cases of diabetes. Often confused with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, more than 90% of monogenic cases are misdiagnosed. A study carried out by scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences in Vilnius with more than 1,200 young diabetics allowed to accurately identify the proportion of monogenic diabetes in the whole pediatric diabetes population. Consequently, treatments were adjusted according to the genetic characteristics of the disease in order to improve patients’ quality of life. The results that can be read in the journal Diabetes, highlight the need for precision medicine in the management of metabolic diseases.
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Despite growing concerns about antibiotic resistance, the discovery of new antibiotic drugs has slowed as new molecules become increasingly difficult to identify. But in a paper publishing February 20 in the journal Cell, researchers demonstrate a method to uncover new antibiotics quickly and efficiently through machine learning.
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Researchers at CHU Sainte-Justine and Université de Montréal have discovered a new mechanism involved in the expression of Down syndrome, one of the main causes of intellectual disability and congenital heart defects in children. The study’s findings were published today in Current Biology.
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People often use the phrase “mind over matter” to describe situations where aches and pains in the body are overridden using the mind. A gardener comes in from gardening and is surprised to discover a nasty cut on her hand, something she wasn’t aware of while focused on her plants. Or a soldier in Afghanistan is wounded by a bullet but feels little pain until he is safe in the infirmary. If pain was directly and entirely linked to bodily injury, these examples would be impossible. A cut would always lead to mild pain, whereas a gunshot wound would immediately cause severe pain. But this is not always the case.
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The Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has this week published a report detailing the first six months of the legislation in action in Victoria.
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Secondhand smoke, which is linked to cancer and other serious illnesses, may also be contributing to soaring rates of chronic liver disease in adults and children, a new USC study finds.
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Startling new evidence from medical investigators in New York suggests that “heading” a ball in soccer—in which players propel it with their heads—can lead to cognitive impairment in members of the sport who are endowed with a dementia-associated gene.
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