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Strokes affecting people at younger ages

Michelle Nimmerrichter was only 20 years old when she suffered a stroke that left her in a coma and on a ventilator.

15 Nov 2012

Bleed size key to prognosis after childhood hemorrhagic stroke

Hemorrhage volume is an important predictor of long-term outcomes in children who survive hemorrhagic stroke, a study shows.

9 Nov 2012

$Most refractory status epilepticus patients have poor functional outcome$

Most refractory status epilepticus patients have poor functional outcome

Three-quarters of refractory status epilepticus patients have a poor functional outcome, which is linked to drug-induced coma and severe encephalographic suppression, say US scientists.

30 Oct 2012

New method of testing for West Nile virus

While the United States has largely been spared the scourge of mosquito-borne diseases endemic to the developing world-including yellow fever, malaria and dengue fever-mosquito-related illnesses in the US are on the rise. One pathogen of increasing concern in the U.S. is an arbovirus known as West Nile.

24 Oct 2012

Viewpoints: NYT's Kristof on the death of his friend; Obama, Romney fight for women

I wrote in my last column about my uninsured college roommate, Scott Androes, and his battle with Stage 4 prostate cancer - and a dysfunctional American health care system. I was taken aback by how many readers were savagely unsympathetic. "Your friend made a foolish choice, and actions have consequences," one reader said in a Twitter message.

19 Oct 2012

Visual clue to ICH outcomes

Persistent conjugate eye deviation predicts poor outcomes in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage, say researchers.

19 Sep 2012

Physician empathy has positive impact on patient outcomes

Patients of doctors who are more empathic have better outcomes and fewer complications, concludes a large, empirical study by a team of Thomas Jefferson University and Italian researchers who evaluated relationships between physician empathy and clinical outcomes among 20,961 diabetic patients and 242 physicians in Italy.

10 Sep 2012

NIH funded researchers identify and explore different aspects of anesthesia

Anesthesia helps many of us during our lives, whether we need a local painkiller at the dentist, numbing eye drops for laser vision correction or general anesthesia for major surgery. But even though anesthetics have been used in many procedures for more than 150 years, doctors and scientists still don't know exactly how these medicines work in the body.

5 Sep 2012

Predictors of early death after traumatic bleeding uncovered

The strongest predictors of early death after traumatic postinjury bleeding are Glasgow coma score, age, and systolic blood pressure, report researchers.

4 Sep 2012

CDC reports worst West Nile virus outbreak in the U.S.

This past year's mild winter and wet spring could be contributing to the worst West Nile virus outbreak since the disease was first detected in the United States in 1999. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been more cases of the virus so far this year than any year. As of August 14, almost 700 cases had been reported across the nation, including 26 deaths. This year also marks the earliest reported case of West Nile virus in New Jersey.

18 Aug 2012

$Thoracolumbar vertebrae fracture may be ‘silent’$

Thoracolumbar vertebrae fracture may be ‘silent’

Imaging is essential to avoid missing fractures to the thoracolumbar vertebrae in patients who have sustained blunt injury, UK researchers say.

10 Aug 2012

‘Narrow therapeutic window’ for oxygen in brain injury

Hyperoxia, as well as hypoxia, early after hospital admission is associated with poor outcomes and mortality in patients with traumatic brain injury, report researchers in the Archives of Surgery.

27 Jul 2012

GHB binds to GABAA-receptor in the brain under physiologically relevant conditions

Researchers are closer to understanding the biology behind GHB, a transmitter substance in the brain, best known in its synthetic form as the illegal drug fantasy. These findings have just been published in the scientific journal PNAS.

3 Jul 2012

Tips to avoid becoming a mosquito meal

Summer has barely begun but it's likely many people have already encountered one of the season's most ubiquitous pests - the mosquito. As is the case with many other insects, mosquitoes have made an early emergence after a mild winter and rainy spring. The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) warns that this might be one of the worst seasons yet, so break out the repellant.

18 Jun 2012

UCSF's ACT program helps amputees reach their athletic goals

Carlos Gonzalez stands out from an athletic group gathered on a grassy field at the UCSF Mission Bay campus. The gregarious 32-year-old sports a stylish fauxhawk and walks with a confident yet understated swagger. He's training to become a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter.

6 Jun 2012

Mimotopes can help develop new diagnostic tests for sleeping sickness

Each year many thousands of Africans contract sleeping sickness. The cause is a unicellular parasite, a trypanosome, which is transmitted by the bite of tsetse flies. First the parasite multiplies in blood and lymph, while evading the human immune system. It then lodges in organs like heart and kidneys and finally in the brain. Patients become disoriented, their sleeping pattern disintegrates and they get motor and mental problems.

23 May 2012

Biologists engineer algae to produce potential candidates for malarial vaccine

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in engineering algae to produce potential candidates for a vaccine that would prevent transmission of the parasite that causes malaria, an achievement that could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive way to protect billions of people from one of the world's most prevalent and debilitating diseases. Initial proof-of-principle experiments suggest that such a vaccine could prevent malaria transmission.

17 May 2012

Study compares three new methods to study disorders of consciousness

Disorders of consciousness such as coma or a vegetative state caused by severe brain injury are poorly understood and their diagnosis has relied mainly on patient responses and measures of brain activity. However, new functional and imaging-based diagnostic tests that measure communication and signaling between different brain regions may provide valuable information about the potential for consciousness in patients unable to communicate. These innovative approaches are described and compared in a Review article in the groundbreaking neuroscience journal Brain Connectivity, a bimonthly peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

10 May 2012

World Malaria Day observed

The 25th of April was observed as World Malaria Day. According to Ray Chambers, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for malaria, there has been a marked progress in reducing malaria deaths using bed nets, insecticide spray and drugs. He cited a World Health Organization report in December which used figures from 2010, saying malaria deaths had decreased by over one-third. Since then, he said at a news conference Monday, the world has delivered 160 million additional bed nets “so we expect the number of deaths to be much less now.”

25 Apr 2012

Scientists identify link between different strains of malaria parasites

Scientists have identified a link between different strains of malaria parasites that cause severe disease, which could help develop vaccines or drugs against life-threatening cases of the infection.

21 Apr 2012