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Brooks Rehabilitation's new specialty clinic to provide advanced treatments for back and neck

Brooks Rehabilitation's newest specialty clinic, the Brooks Center for Back & Neck Health, offers patients advanced treatments for both acute and chronic conditions of the spine, including whiplash, lumbar stenosis, cervical or lumbar radiculopathy, cervical or lumbar instability, sciatica, TMJ, osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, and more. According to the National Institutes of Health, back pain is the second most common reason Americans go to the doctor (headaches are the first), and among the most common reasons for surgery. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of physical therapy for affecting outcomes in patients with spinal conditions.

19 Aug 2009

Young innovators Andrea Armani and Ellis Meng to feature in Technology Review magazine's 2009 TR35 list

The University of Southern California today announced that two faculty members from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have been recognized by Technology Review magazine as some of the world's top innovators under the age of 35. Andrea Armani, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Ellis Meng, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, will both appear on the prestigious 2009 TR35 list.

19 Aug 2009

Compete rates Healthgrades.com number one doctor-ratings web site

HealthGrades.com is the #1 doctor-ratings Web site – by an enormous margin – according to an analysis of Web traffic by Compete, a TNS Media company. HealthGrades.com, long known for its hospital-quality ratings, is the public Web site of the leading healthcare ratings company, featuring quality reports and ratings of every practicing doctor, hospital and nursing home in the country.

19 Aug 2009

Medicare Part D premiums to rise slightly

Medicare Part D drug premiums are expected to increase slightly while the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services details which states have the highest rates of prescription drug use.

19 Aug 2009

New understanding on meningitis cause

A specific protein on the surface of a common bacterial pathogen allows the bacteria to leave the bloodstream and enter the brain, initiating the deadly infection known as meningitis. The new finding, which may guide development of improved vaccines to protect those most vulnerable, including young infants and the elderly, is now available online in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

19 Aug 2009

White House offers reassurance that public option is very much alive

The Wall Street Journal: "The White House sent an email to members of Congress and other supporters saying that President Barack Obama wants a public insurance option as part of health-care overhaul. Ms. Sebelius seemed to suggest otherwise on Sunday, saying a public option isn't an 'essential element.'"

19 Aug 2009

Efforts to create treatment guidelines are often complicated

The development of treatment guidelines for illnesses such as diabetes is a complicated process.

19 Aug 2009

Fatigue during radiotherapy for breast or prostate cancer may be caused by inflammation

Patients who experience fatigue during radiotherapy for breast or prostate cancer may be reacting to activation of the proinflammatory cytokine network, a known inflammatory pathway, according to a report in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

19 Aug 2009

Discovery of key factor that stimulates brain cancer cells to spread

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found that the activity of a protein in brain cells helps stimulate the spread of an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). In a move toward therapy, the researchers showed that a small designer protein can block this activity and reduce the spreading of GBM cells grown in the laboratory.

19 Aug 2009

Low-dose estrogen effective for metastatic breast cancer

When estrogen-lowering drugs no longer control metastatic breast cancer, the opposite strategy might work. Raising estrogen levels benefited 30 percent of women whose metastatic breast cancer no longer responded to standard anti-estrogen treatment, according to research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions.

19 Aug 2009

Massachusetts could prove model to cut costs

CNNMoney reports that Massachusetts could prove to be a model for how to grapple with high health care costs as its own soaring costs threaten national efforts at reform.

19 Aug 2009

Xceleron to acquire an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry instrument under agreement with GlaxoSmithKline

XCELERON, a leader in the field of ultra-sensitive bioanalytical studies supporting clinical research, today announced that it has signed a second Master Service Agreement with GlaxoSmithKline. Under the terms of this agreement, Xceleron will provide analytical support to GlaxoSmithKline and its affiliated research organizations. As part of the deal, Xceleron will increase capacity through the acquisition of an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) instrument.

19 Aug 2009

e-infrastructure to tackle diseases

Disease knows no borders and now researchers in Europe and the Mediterranean shoreline are using electronic infrastructures (e-Infrastructures) to coordinate and cooperate internationally.

19 Aug 2009

New study suggests financial situation of U.S. hospitals improving

The median profit margin of U.S. hospitals increased from 0.17 percent in the third quarter of 2008 to 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, according to an analysis of hospital finances published today by Thomson Reuters.

19 Aug 2009

Custom-tailored anti-cancer drugs

Cancer remains a deadly threat despite the best efforts of science. New hopes were raised a few years ago with the discovery that the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells could be thwarted by blocking the action of proteasomes. Biochemists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have illuminated a reaction pathway that does just that, in collaboration with researchers from Nereus Pharmaceuticals, based in San Diego, California. In the current issue of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, they report insights that could potentially lead to the development of custom-tailored anti-cancer drugs.

19 Aug 2009