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John and Rebecca Moores professor earns UH 2012 Ester Farfel Award

H. Julia Hannay, the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Psychology, has earned the University of Houston (UH) 2012 Ester Farfel Award, a symbol of overall career excellence and the highest honor UH bestows on a faculty member. The annual award carries a cash prize of $10,000.

30 Apr 2012

Mammography remains beneficial for women in their 40s

Researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have published new findings that mammography remains beneficial for women in their 40s.

27 Apr 2012

Kidney donated two weeks after transplant

For the first time, a kidney that had been donated to a patient in need was removed and implanted into a new patient, the third individual to have the organ, after it failed in the first transplant recipient. Ray Fearing, a 27-year-old Arlington Heights resident received the organ from his sister, Cera, after a long battle with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a disease in which scar tissue develops on the part of the kidney that filters waste out of the blood, ultimately causing kidney failure.

26 Apr 2012

Study: hUC-MSCs reduce inflammation that causes colitis

When laboratory mice were modeled with colitis and treated with human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal cells, the cells homed in on the inflamed colon and effectively ameliorated colitis, reported a study published in a recent issue of Cell Transplantation.

24 Apr 2012

Study shows underutilization of epilepsy surgery

Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy, but since then the procedure has not been widely adopted-in fact, it is dramatically underutilized according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

24 Apr 2012

Nano-devices cross blood-brain barrier to deliver drug to treat cerebral palsy

A team of scientists from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have developed nano-devices that successfully cross the brain-blood barrier and deliver a drug that tames brain-damaging inflammation in rabbits with cerebral palsy.

23 Apr 2012

MTR can prevent cell death after traumatic brain injury

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers seeking a successful treatment for traumatic brain injury have found that the size and extent of damaged tissue can be reduced by using a new device to prevent cell death.

21 Apr 2012

Comparing publicly available hospital readmission rates can lead to misinformation

The odds that someone undergoing spinal surgery at a particular hospital will have to be readmitted to the same hospital within 30 days is an important measure of the quality of care patients receive. That's because these "hospital readmission rates" often reflect problems like hospital-acquired infections or complications from surgery.

18 Apr 2012

Autologous HSPPC-96 vaccine clinically beneficial for GBM patients

Study results from a Phase II multicenter clinical trial tracking the impact that autologous heat shock protein-peptide vaccine (HSPPC-96) has on recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients showed that such a vaccine may be clinically beneficial.

18 Apr 2012

Intervertebral disc repair phase 2 trial update from Mesoblast

Global regenerative medicine company Mesoblast Limited (ASX:MSB) has announced that its Phase 2 clinical trial investigating the use of allogeneic, or off-the-shelf, Mesenchymal Precursor Cells (MPCs) for non-surgical restoration of degenerated intervertebral discs and treatment of low back pain has enrolled 50% of the total study patients. This rapid rate of enrolment attests to the major unmet medical need and to the relative simplicity of Mesoblast’s non-surgical procedure. Mesoblast expects to complete full enrolment by early third quarter.

17 Apr 2012

Brainlab announces first patient procedures with Curve Image Guided Surgery at UCSF

Brainlab, a leader in software-driven medical technology, announced today the first patient procedures with Curve Image Guided Surgery at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center's Neuro-Oncology Clinic.

17 Apr 2012

Northwestern's Stone Institute launches new program to combat mental illnesses at first signs

Early symptoms of major mental illness can be subtle personality changes. Therefore, initial warning signs can often be missed, or even ignored due to conventional wisdom that suggests it's better to wait for true behavioral deterioration and prolonged patterns of abnormality before diagnosing and treating a mental illness. But experts warn that waiting until someone is so ill that the psychological sickness is unmistakable can be detrimental and can lead to long-term health concerns.

17 Apr 2012

MTR can prevent cell death in patients with TBI

17 Apr 2012

Hydrophilic carbon cluster HADES can selectively kill brain cancer cells

Nanomedicine researchers at the Methodist Neurological Institute and Rice University have developed a way to selectively kill brain cancer cells by using a tiny syringe to deliver a combination of chemotherapy drugs directly into the cells. These findings will be published in the April 24 issue of the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

17 Apr 2012

AANS commemorates National Neurosurgery Awareness Week in Miami

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) is commemorating National Neurosurgery Awareness Week (NNAW) April 15-21, 2012, in conjunction with its 80th Annual Scientific Meeting in Miami, held April 14-18, 2012.

17 Apr 2012

Men more likely to experience complications after brain or spinal surgery

Men are twice as likely as women to experience complications after brain or spinal surgery, reports a study in the April issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

16 Apr 2012

Neurosurgeons from NYU Langone to present at AANS annual meeting

Neurosurgeons from NYU Langone Medical Center will present research and discuss surgical approaches and use of new technologies to treat neurosurgical conditions at the annual meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), held April 14-18, 2012 in Miami Beach, FL.

16 Apr 2012

SMART Heart improves cardiovascular surgical outcomes

Two years ago, 57-year-old Allus Brown underwent a simultaneous heart-kidney transplant and spent months in and out of the hospital after battling dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition that enlarges and weakens the heart. Now fully recovered, Brown is still in and out of Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute each week. Only nowadays when he visits, he's laughing it up, playing board games, and sharing accounts of his own struggles with heart disease as part of the Bluhm Institute's new and innovative program, SMART Heart, stress management and recreational therapy for heart patients.

16 Apr 2012

People with PNES do not necessarily experience more frequent or severe stressful events

Based on their clinical experience and observations, a team of Johns Hopkins physicians and psychologists say that more than one-third of the patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital's inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit for treatment of intractable seizures have been discovered to have stress-triggered symptoms rather than a true seizure disorder.

12 Apr 2012

First Choice acquires FCMG

First Choice Healthcare Solutions, Inc. today announced its acquisition of First Choice Medical Group of Brevard, LLC, a multi-specialty medical group practice including orthopedics (both operative and non-operative), sports medicine, pain management and neurology located in Melbourne, Fla.

10 Apr 2012