Myocardial blood flow (MBF) and myocardial flow reserve (MFR) have been identified as accurate indicators for graft failure after cardiac transplantation, according to a new study published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Utilizing positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging to quantify MBF and MRF, researchers were able to successfully detect patients with cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV), the most serious condition facing transplant patients late after their surgery. In addition, researchers found that MFR had a significantly higher accuracy when predicting the overall prognosis for cardiac transplant patients.
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Schistosomiasis is a severe infectious disease caused by parasitic worms. As an intermediate host, freshwater snails play a central role in the life cycle of the parasite. In a recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in cooperation with the Kenya-based International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) succeeded in proving that snail populations in waterbodies contaminated with pesticides were significantly larger than in uncontaminated waterbodies. The pesticides used in agriculture may well be an outright driver for the risk of infection with schistosomiasis, the researchers warn.
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Several coronaviruses circulate worldwide and constantly infect humans, which normally causes only mild respiratory disease. Currently, however, we are witnessing a worldwide spread of a new coronavirus with more than 90,000 confirmed cases and over 3,000 deaths. The new virus has been named SARS coronavirus-2 and has been transmitted from animals to humans. It causes a respiratory disease called COVID-19 that may take a severe course. The SARS coronavirus-2 has been spreading since December 2019 and is closely related to the SARS coronavirus that caused the SARS pandemic in 2002/2003. No vaccines or drugs are currently available to combat these viruses.
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Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem demonstrated in mice that intestinal bacteria reprogram DNA activity in cells of the gut mucosa and thus have a considerable impact on the development of the healthy gut. Acute intestinal inflammation induced under experimental conditions led to a huge increase in the activity of inflammation-related and cancer-promoting genes in the mucous membrane cells of microbe-colonized animals.
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Researchers with Nemours Children’s Health System utilized Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to more precisely identify genomic characteristics of leukemias in children, the most common childhood cancer. The study, published today in BMC Medical Genomics, identified new genetic structural variants that could be used to assess the presence of minimal residual disease during the course of chemotherapy and help determine response to various therapies.
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Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a novel treatment for sepsis—one of the leading causes of hospital death—that enhances the body’s bacteria-capturing neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) so that they more effectively capture infectious bacteria, resist degradation, and improve sepsis outcomes and survival.
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Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have found that children with a rare food allergy known as food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome, or FPIES, have a significantly higher chance of being diagnosed with other allergic conditions, including eczema, traditional food allergy and asthma. But the researchers also found that FPIES did not directly cause those other allergies.
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Social isolation could be associated with increased inflammation in the body, new research from the University of Surrey and Brunel University London has found.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, used in combination with the evaluation of expert radiologists, improve the accuracy in detecting cancer using mammograms. This is one of the main conclusions of an international study conducted, among others, by researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the University of Valencia (UV), and which has been published in one of the world’s largest medical journals in the field, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study is based on the results obtained in the Digital Mammography (DM) DREAM Challenge, an international competition led by IBM where researchers from the Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-UV) have participated along with scientists from the UPV’s Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications (iTEAM).
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On Thursday in the National Academy of Medicine’s Perspectives, public health leaders including CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy Distinguished Lecturer Scott Ratzan, MD called for informed and active public policy leadership to employ strategically coordinated health communication and outreach on COVID-19 and other emerging global health threats.
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