Blood Vessels are tubes through which the blood circulates in the body. Blood vessels include a network of arteries, arterioles, capillaries, venules, and veins.
Invasive procedures, often given to patients as soon as they are admitted to hospital with a life-threatening heart condition, do not necessarily improve survival, finds a study published on bmj.com today.
Physicians are challenged in treating heart patients who may be at high-risk for gastrointestinal bleeding from aspirin or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Factors that place patients at high-risk include a history of ulcers or gastrointestinal complications such as bleeding, increased age and congestive heart failure.
Scientists have uncovered critical information that may lead to an urgently needed method for effective monitoring of antiangiogenic cancer therapies.
Oncologists from USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center are running tests on a new pancreatic cancer drug that targets the cancer from two directions.
A 12-hour self-management program for individuals with advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) leads to lasting improvements in mood and function, especially in depressed patients, and decreases the development of clinical depression in AMD patients over time, according to a University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Shiley Eye Center study published in the January 2005 Archives of Ophthalmology.
Each year more than 45,000 Americans suffer burns serious enough to require a hospital stay, according to the American Burn Association. While the traditional therapy of using skin grafts to cover burn sites has improved, a number of problems including scarring, infection and poor adhesion remain.
Results from two concurrent, prospective, double-blind, multi-center clinical trials show that pegaptanib (Macugen), an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy, is an effective treatment for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a paper in the Dec. 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Macugen was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 17.
A 90-minute walk lowered triglycerides and improved blood vessel function in a small group of lean and obese men, and the benefits persisted into the following day, even after participants ate a fatty meal, according to a new study in the Dec. 21, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Agents designed to attack blood vessels that feed a growing tumor are effective against tumor growth in laboratory experiments. However, results of early clinical trials with these inhibitors have not yet exhibited the same success observed in animal models.
Eyetech Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer have announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Macugen (pegaptanib sodium injection) for the treatment of neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye disease associated with aging that destroys central vision.
The investigators found that compared to the saline control group, the embryos exposed to ethanol experienced increases in tumor size, tumor blood vessel density, cancer cell infiltration of blood vessels, and VEGF levels.
Long-term follow up with heart bypass patients treated in Veterans Affairs hospitals shows that 85 percent of left internal mammary artery grafts and 61 percent of vein grafts remain open (patent) after 10 years, and that these grafts are more likely to offer long-term success when they are attached to larger arteries on the heart, according to a new study in the Dec. 7, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Chest pain patients who have abnormal coronary blood vessel function also have less responsive blood vessels in their fingertips, suggesting that a type of fingertip probe could become a useful screening tool, according to a new study in the Dec. 7, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
University of Rochester scientists studying a vital protein called Serum Response Factor (SRF) in mice have learned new and unexpected facts about SRF's role in early cardiovascular development, and how a defect in this gene may be an underlying cause in human miscarriages.
Anticoagulation therapies, or treatments that reduce the amount of clotting factors in the blood, are quite common and used for a variety of reasons.
Excruciating pain episodes, recurrent pneumonias, strokes, severe infections, chronic hemolytic anemia, and secondary pulmonary hypertension are common complications of sickle cell disease, a life-threatening inherited defect in blood that causes normally disc-shaped red blood cells to take on a sickle shape.
“This important study shows the value of continuing periodic blood transfusions in preventing the serious and debilitating consequences of stroke,” says NHLBI Acting Director Barbara Alving. “At the same time, there are risks of chronic transfusions and the decision to continue with this treatment must be made on a case-by-case basis.”
As many as 28,000 patients die each year in the U.S. because of catheter-related bloodstream infections, but doctors and nurses who implement simple and inexpensive interventions can cut the number of deaths to nearly zero, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
Our eyes may become more than windows of the soul if a multidisciplinary team of University of Michigan researchers succeeds with a clever combination of nanoparticles and ultrafast pulsed laser to see individual cells as they zip past in the bloodstream.
Bypass surgery on a beating heart is an excellent option for many patients with blocked heart arteries, according to a study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.