December 16th, 2011 by GruntDoc in Opinion, Research
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I read this headline and said, “Wow!, finally I won’t need to CT all those patients’ heads!”
FDA permits marketing of the first hand-held device to aid in the detection of bleeding in the skull
Helps to determine if immediate CT scan is needed
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of the first hand-held device intended to aid in the detection of life-threatening bleeding in the skull called intracranial hematomas, using near-infrared spectroscopy.
via Press Announcements > FDA permits marketing of the first hand-held device to aid in the detection of bleeding in the skull.
But then, wait, said I, is it any good? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
December 14th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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The investigation of a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC) that sickened 77 people and hospitalized 35 was traced back to ready-to-bake cookie dough, prompting infectious disease specialists to ask for stronger pasteurization and more consumer warnings.
A report in Clinical Infectious Diseases outlined the outbreak and the work done by national and local health officials to track down the source.
No single source could be identified for certain for the outbreak. But one brand of dough was present in 94% of cases, and three nonoutbreak STEC strains were isolated from it, leading to a recall of 3.6 million packages of the cookie dough.
The detective work began with May 19, 2009, through PulseNet, the network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by the CDC. It identified Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
December 14th, 2011 by PJSkerrett in Research
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It’s hard to imagine what it was like to live with type 1 diabetes 80 years ago. Insulin was a brand new and relatively untested drug, the only way to check blood sugar levels was by testing boiled urine, syringes had to be sterilized, and needles sharpened by hand. Couple those challenges with the common complications of diabetes—heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, blindness, and more—and life expectancy for someone with type 1 diabetes wasn’t that long.
Spencer M. Wallace, Jr., was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1931, at age 7. He’s now an active 87-year-old who plays golf several times a week. He isn’t alone as a long-term survivor. Since 1970, almost 3,500 men and women who have lived with the disease for a half century have been recognized by the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston with bronze 50-year medals. Forty-five of them Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
December 13th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Research
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A study published in the journal Academic Pediatrics reveals that 93% of California children’s hospitals offered unhealthy food to outpatients, visitors and staff in the cafeteria and snack bars. Said another way, only 7% offered healthy food. What did these foods consist of to be called “unhealthy”? Try fried food, sweetened beverages, burgers and lots of sugary sweets.
The study found that 81% of the cafeterias placed high-calorie, high-sugar items like ice cream right by the cash register, a well known marketing plan to tantalize and increase selection. Forty four percent didn’t even offer low calorie salad dressing and fewer than 1/3 had no nutrition information.
Health care workers, like the rest of America, suffer from increasing obesity. One study showed over 54% of Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
December 4th, 2011 by Medgadget in Expert Interviews, Research
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Two months ago we reported on the first ovarian cancer surgeries performed with fluorescence guidance. As described in the Nature Medicine paper, the international team of researchers from The Netherlands, Germany, and Indiana used folate coupled to fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) to make ovarian cancer cells glow so they could be easily identified.
Now, in this week’s issue of Science Translational Medicine, another international team from Japan and Maryland reports their development of a spray-on probe that may provide even better sensitivity and fluorescent contrast than the folate-FITC counterpart. The editors of STM summarize this work well in the following note: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
