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New 'more effective' stem cell transplant method could improve treatment of blood diseases

Researchers at UCL have developed a new way to make blood stem cells present in the umbilical cord 'more transplantable', a finding in mice which could improve the treatment of a wide range of blood diseases in children and adults.

26 Mar 2020

New type of immunotherapy shows promise for future treatment of ovarian cancer

Malignant ovarian cancer is insidious: Known and feared for vague and uncharacteristic symptoms that often mean the disease is discovered so late that on average only four out of six patients are still alive after five years.

26 Mar 2020

Mindfulness may naturally develop with time and life experience, study suggests

People say life gets better with age. Now research suggests this may be because older people have the wisdom and time to use mindfulness as a means to improve wellbeing.

26 Mar 2020

Study shows legal marijuana products too strong for pain relief

Most legal marijuana products supplied to medical dispensaries are stronger than recommended for treatment of chronic pain.

26 Mar 2020

Deleting a gene prevents Type 1 diabetes in mice by disguising insulin-producing cells

Scientists have innovated a potential method of preventing Type 1 diabetes in those at high risk.

26 Mar 2020

Insights into diagnosis and treatment of rare pediatric brain cancer

Ependymoma is a rare form of brain cancer that implicates children and is often tricky to diagnose.

26 Mar 2020

Intense and targeted radiotherapy could slow progression of certain prostate cancers

Targeted and strong doses of stereotactic ablative radiation (SABR) radiotherapy could slow progression in prostate cancer.

26 Mar 2020

Model that sheds light on severe Duchenne muscular dystrophy could pave the way for new therapies

Researchers have developed an experimental model of severe Duchenne muscular dystrophy that offers insight into the disease.

26 Mar 2020

Key protein in sperm production could aid male infertility treatments

Researchers have discovered that a key protein drives sperm production, knowledge that may help infertile couples conceive.

26 Mar 2020

Lipid aids healing of scratches on the cornea

A species of a lipid that naturally helps skin injuries heal appears to also aid repair of common corneal injuries, even when other conditions, like diabetes, make healing difficult, scientists report.

26 Mar 2020

Hyped claims that AI outdoes doctors at diagnosis could harm patient safety

A number of studies claim that artificial intelligence (AI) does as well or better than doctors at interpreting images and diagnosing medical conditions. However, a recent study published in The BMJ in March 2020 reveals that most of this research is flawed, and the results exaggerated. The outcome could be that the decision to adopt AI as part of patient care is based upon faulty premises, compromising the quality of patient care for millions of people.

25 Mar 2020

Finding new treatments for muscular dystrophy with CRISPR-Cas9

A new study out of Boston's Children's Hospital has used the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to explore the fatal genetic condition called facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD, one of the family of muscular dystrophies), and to test out the potential utility of various genes involved in this disorder. The research is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

25 Mar 2020

What happens when COVID-19 and cardiovascular diseases mix?

The world has been brought to a stand-still by the COVID-19 pandemic that has affected 197 countries, areas and territories, infected 467,594, and killed 21,181 individuals as of today. COVID-19 disease is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a single-stranded RNA virus, contagious in humans.

25 Mar 2020

Transmission of COVID-19 among cancer patients in China

Researchers from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in China in collaboration with those from the National Cancer Centre Singapore, have come up with a study that reveals the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 or novel coronavirus among patients with cancer in China.

25 Mar 2020

New app-based research program will evaluate wearable data to improve viral illness detection

The Scripps Research Translational Institute has launched an app-based research program that will analyze participants' wearable health data--including heart rates, sleep and activity levels--to more quickly detect the emergence of influenza, coronavirus and other fast-spreading viral illnesses.

25 Mar 2020

Study shows disparities in guideline-concordant treatment for NSCLC patients

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-associated deaths in the United States. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a group of lung cancers named for the kinds of cells found in the cancer, constitutes more than 80% of all lung cancer cases.

25 Mar 2020

Critical guidance to identify COVID-19 patients at risk of drug-induced sudden cardiac death

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to spread, leading to more than 20,000 deaths worldwide in less than four months. Efforts are progressing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, but it's still likely 12 to 18 months away.

25 Mar 2020

Researchers use ultrasound technique to accurately localize cardiac arrhythmias

Cardiac arrhythmias are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Currently, the 12-lead electrocardiogram is the noninvasive clinical gold standard used to diagnose and localize these conditions, but it has limited accuracy, cannot provide an anatomical tool to visually localize the source of the arrhythmia, and depending on which clinician is looking at the signals, there might be some interpretation variability.

25 Mar 2020

Despite failures, chemotherapy still promising against fatal pediatric brain cancer

The pediatric brain cancer known as diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma is almost uniformly fatal. In part, this is due to where and how it grows, forming as a diffuse net of cells in a part of the brainstem called the pons, which controls essential functions like breathing and swallowing.

25 Mar 2020

Hotter temperatures linked to bad mental health

Hot days increase the probability that an average adult in the U.S. will report bad mental health, according to a study published on March 25, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mengyao Li of the University of Georgia, and colleagues.

25 Mar 2020