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Researchers develop new tool to gauge young adult patient's firearm violence risk

Homicide is the third-leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24. More than 87 percent of those homicides are due to firearms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

12 Apr 2017

MUSC researchers provide first systemic evidence for safe use of tPA in stroke patients with SCD

Adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) who experience a stroke caused by a clot (i.e., ischemic strokes or IS) can be treated safely with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) if they qualify, report investigators at the Medical University of South Carolina and elsewhere in the March 2017 issue of Stroke.

12 Apr 2017

New study finds link between neural tube defects in infants and neurodegenerative diseases

A new study has found a link between neurological birth defects in infants commonly found in pregnant women with diabetes and several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.

10 Apr 2017

UTSA students awarded $50,000 grant NSF grant to develop infrared vein-finding camera

A student-led team from The University of Texas at San Antonio is the beneficiary of a $50,000 grant to UTSA's CITE program from the National Science Foundation to support the continued development of their infrared medical camera, InfraVein, which makes simple work of finding veins.

7 Apr 2017

Children's hands may carry significant levels of nicotine, study shows

Children may carry significant levels of nicotine on their hands just by coming into contact with items or surfaces contaminated with tobacco smoke residues, even when no one is actively smoking around them at the time.

6 Apr 2017

Hand-held EEG device can quickly assess brain bleeding in head injuries

In a clinical trial conducted among adults in 11 hospitals, researchers have shown that a hand-held EEG device approved in 2016 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that is commercially available can quickly and with 97 percent accuracy rule out whether a person with a head injury likely has brain bleeding and needs further evaluation and treatment.

5 Apr 2017

Adding anticoagulation medication use as EMS triage criteria could save lives of older adults

One change to field triage guidelines for emergency medical services responding to older adults with head trauma could make a "clinically important improvement over usual care," according to a study and accompanying editorial published earlier this month in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Out-of-Hospital Triage of Older Adults With Head Injury: A Retrospective Study of the Effect of Adding 'Anticoagulation or Antiplatelet Medication Use' as a Criterion" and "Can an Out-of-Hospital Medication History Save Lives for Injured Older Adults?").

30 Mar 2017

Study finds food scarcity, poor oral health to be major risk factors for malnutrition among older adults

UNC School of Medicine researchers led a study to determine risk factors associated with malnutrition among older adults receiving care in the emergency department.

24 Mar 2017

Sphere Medical introduces new functionality to Proxima platform for efficient critical care patient monitoring

Sphere Medical, an innovative company in critical care monitoring and diagnostics equipment, announces the introduction of new functionality to its Proxima™ bedside blood gas, electrolyte and metabolite analyser.

22 Mar 2017

Shortage of low blood pressure drug for patients with septic shock linked to elevated risk of death

Patients with septic shock admitted to hospitals affected by the 2011 shortage of the drug norepinephrine had a higher risk of in-hospital death, according to a study published online by JAMA.

21 Mar 2017

Many Canadian family doctors still use manual devices to measure blood pressure, study shows

A study by researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) shows that more than half of family doctors in Canada are still using manual devices to measure blood pressure, a dated technology that often leads to misdiagnosis.

20 Mar 2017

Clinical study to examine whether antibiotics can be safe, effective alternative to appendectomy

For 130 years, surgery has been the standard treatment for appendicitis — inflammation of the appendix, a short tube extending from the colon.

17 Mar 2017

Variation in hospital-level resources may impact diagnostic evaluation of children with appendicitis

At some hospitals, children receive better care in the daytime than they do at night for suspected appendicitis. This is the finding of a study to be published in the April 2017 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

15 Mar 2017

ER visits may serve as effective 'teachable moments' for drug use, study suggests

An emergency room visit for an illness or injury may seem like a strange time to try to motivate someone to cut back on using drugs.

13 Mar 2017

Promising new drug may offer effective treatment for heart failure patients

Heart failure patients who are getting by on existing drug therapies can look forward to a far more effective medicine in the next five years or so, thanks to University of Alberta researchers.

8 Mar 2017

Evaluation system for emergency medicine residents shines light on potential gender bias

Implicit gender bias has long been suspected in many medical training programs, but until recently has been difficult to study objectively.

8 Mar 2017

Study finds gender bias among emergency medicine residents during training programs

Although female doctors training to become emergency medicine specialists scored as well as their male colleagues during the first year of their three-year programs, by the end of the third year, male residents, on average, received higher evaluations on all 23 emergency medicine training categories - including medical knowledge, patient safety, team management and communication - than female residents.

7 Mar 2017

New prediction tool may be useful to allow safe discharge of heart failure patients in ED

More than one million patients are admitted to the hospital with heart failure each year. A prospective clinical validation found the Ottawa Heart Failure Risk Scale tool to be highly sensitive for serious adverse event in acute heart failure patients and can now be used in clinical practice to estimate the short-term risk of SAEs in acute heart failure patients.

6 Mar 2017

Community-based palliative care linked to reduction in ER visits for dying patients

Community-based palliative care -- care delivered at home, not the hospital -- was associated with a 50 percent reduction in emergency department visits for patients in their last year of life.

22 Feb 2017

Combination of drugs amplifies kill rates of brain cancer tumours in mice

A promising combination of immunotherapies delivers a one-two punch to brain cancer tumours with high cure rates in mice, scientific evidence published in Nature Communications today says.

15 Feb 2017