July 5, 2007, 9:46 PM CT

acetaminophen overdoses drop

The acetaminophen (paracetamol) overdose rate in Calgary, Canada dropped by over 40% in the decade to 2004, without a change to the smaller pack sizes that were credited with overdose reductions in the UK. The results published recently in the online open access journal BMC Public Health suggest that young women, Aboriginals and those on social security remain at greatest risk.

A University of Calgary, Canada team led by Dr. Robert Myers used administrative data to review over 1500 patients hospitalised for acetaminophen overdose between 1995 and 2004. Since 1995, the hospitalisation rate has dropped 41% from 19.6 per 100 000 population to 12.1 per 100 000 in 2004. Myers team found that although for under 50s the rate fell 46%, there was a 50% jump in hospitalisations for the over 50s. Female overdosing fell to a greater extent than it did for males (46% vs. 29%).

The majority of overdoses were intentional (85%), with the remainder made up of 13% accidental cases and 2% homicides or of unclear intent. Accidental overdoses fell between 1995 and 2002, but then began to rise again. Over 100 products are available over the counter, sometimes containing relatively large amounts of acetaminophen. The authors suggest that lack of patient and doctor awareness may account for at least part of the increase in accidental overdoses......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 4, 2007, 4:53 AM CT

Complementary therapy may reduce chances of pregnancy

Complementary therapies in assisted reproduction may diminish the effectiveness of medical therapy for infertility in women, a scientist will tell the 23rd annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lyon, France, (Wednesday 4 July). Dr. Jacky Boivin, from the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Wales, UK, will say that her research had also shown that women who used complementary therapies were more negatively affected by their fertility problems than non-users, and that this could account for the fact that they were willing to use complementary therapies that were not proven to improve fertility.

A number of women use complementary or alternative therapies (CATs) to resolve fertility problems, even though there is little evidence that they are effective. However, it is not clear whether people use these to reduce stress or to increase their chances of getting pregnant. So Dr. Boivin and a colleague from the University of Copenhagen, Dr. Lone Schmidt, set out to study why women made these choices, in the hope of being able to better inform them both of their effectiveness and of other options for achieving pregnancy and reducing the stress of infertility.

They examined the psychosocial and medical profiles of 818 Danish women at the start of their IVF therapy, and then looked at which women went on to use complementary treatment in the subsequent 12 months. The study was the first large scale prospective evaluation of CAT use in an infertile population......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 4, 2007, 4:50 AM CT

Germany's embryo protection law

Lyon, France: Instead of preserving life, Gera number ofs embryo protection law has had the unintended consequence of increasing the number of foetuses killed after fertility therapy as per new figures presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Wednesday). A representative of the German IVF registry has called for the law to be changed urgently to ensure that this situation does not continue.

The German embryo protection law, passed in 1991, stipulates that no more than three embryos can be created per cycle of IVF and all three, regardless of their quality, must be transferred to the patients womb at one time, and cannot be frozen or discarded.

For the first time, figures for 2004 from the ESHRE European IVF monitoring consortium show that out of 8,500 deliveries in Gera number of in 2004 there were 222 foetal reductions performed (representing 2.6%). Foetal reductions are performed when a woman has a multiple pregnancy and doctors consider it necessary to reduce the number of foetuses she is carrying in order to increase the chances of the remaining ones surviving. It is also performed when doctors discover that foetuses are abnormal.

Professor Ricardo Felberbaum, from the German IVF registry and a member of the ESHRE European IVF monitoring consortium, said: Gera number ofs embryo protection law is not in accordance with ART [artificial reproduction technology] practices now. Foetal reduction is being used in Gera number of much more than was expected and the German administration must face up to the situation that the 1991 law prevents optimal therapy of the patient and does not protect the embryo either. The law needs to be changed urgently to reflect the current state of the art......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 3, 2007, 9:50 PM CT

Reducing the cost of sleep disorders

Griffith University has been working with Queensland Health and the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) to reduce the cost of sleep disorders.

Griffith Senior Lecturer in Management Dr Don Kerr said the direct cost of sleep disorders on the Australian health system was estimated at $40 million per year.

In addition to direct costs, sleep disorders are also costing the nation a lot of money indirectly, through road accidents and accidents at work, Dr Kerr said.

Often general practitioners do not have enough information or are not well equipped to deal with the diagnosis of sleep disorders, so they err on the side of caution and refer patients to sleep centres.

Health departments spend nearly $300 per night at sleep centres diagnosing patients, which is a costly exercise and ties up valuable resources especially as a number of of these referrals are unnecessary.

Dr Kerr said his team was working on a project to develop a more effective system of diagnosing sleep disorders.

The project is investigating and developing a web-based intelligent decision support system to provide a cost effective solution to this problem, Dr Kerr said.

The software is designed to more accurately diagnose a sleep problem and help determine if a night at the sleep centre is needed. Sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnoea, periodic limb movement disorder and associated conditions will be identified by the software......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 3, 2007, 9:46 PM CT

Cloning the male genome may help infertile men

Lyon, France -- Artificially replicating the male genome could help men with very low sperm counts become fathers, a scientist told the 23rd annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Tuesday 3 July). Professor Takumi Takeuchi, of Weill Medical College, Cornell University, New York, USA, said that mouse experiments by his team, led by Professor Gianpiero D. Palermo, had shown that offspring born as a result of such replication had shown a level of abnormalities consistent with that shown in cloned animals.

Where the man in a couple has problems making any significant level of sperm, doctors are often confronted with the challenge of retrieving a single viable sperm to inject into each egg. Such a sperm is therefore precious to couples wishing to conceive, said Professor Takeuchi. If we were able to propagate it, while maintaining its normal chromosomal make-up, its ability to fertilise and to participate in full-term embryo development, we would be able to enhance the number of chances of conception of a number of couples, and hence improve the changes of an on-going pregnancy.

Professor Takeuchi and his team injected a single healthy mouse sperm into a mouse egg from which the nucleus had been removed, and by doing so cloned the male genome. The process worked well in almost all cases and the sperm genome was found to be chromosomally identical to its originator in over 80% of the clones analysed. The resulting cells were fused with an egg that had been previously chemically activated......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 01:04:28 GMT

How to manage a hospital in the future?

Have you ever been thinking about how hard (even harder, I mean) it’s going to be to manage a hospital in the future? Many more patients, physicians, policies, guidelines… Imagine a control-room from where you could get a clear overview on the whole system:

• who comes in
• who gets a medication
• who is in the operating room
• which room is full or emtpy

Everything! How? The Digg-like example could be useful:

Here is a video about how it works in real-time:

They may be interested:

• e
• Nick’s Blog (Hospital CEO)
• e
• Tom Quinn, Hospital CEO in Syracuse
• e

What do you think? The hospitals of the future will be managed by e experts? Posted by: Bertalan      Read more     Source

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:54:44 GMT

Watch surgeries ;LIVE!

OR-Live is a great website created for physicians to watch surgeries live. It’s not just a webcam as the broadcasts are full of interviews and clear explanations. You can read about the surgery itself while watching it. Posted by: Bertalan      Read more     Source

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:50:47 GMT

A great disturbance in the Force of medical blogs

We don’t know why, but many medical bloggers have stopped blogging. Here is a list of them:

• Fat Doctor
• Flea’s blog
• Flea’s blog

We’ll miss these great bloggers! The best commentaries can be found Flea’s blog and at Tales from the womb.

Why am I writing about it now? Let Neo of the Matrix say some words:

I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid. You’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin.

I don’t want to lose more incredible bloggers. So far, I’ve been using the NCurse nickname for my posts and comments (while I’ve been using my real name in the About me page). From now, I’m going to be Bertalan Mesko everywhere, in my posts, in my comments. Maybe, it’s not a big difference for you, dear readers, but it is for me. This week’s Flea’s blog:

With blogs being at the forefront of the Web 2.0 advance, traditional medical institutions are again slow to adapt to the openness that defines the heart of the blogosphere. Posted by: Bertalan      Read more     Source

July 2, 2007, 9:38 PM CT

How An Enzyme Plays A Key Role In Gene Copying?

Cornell scientists have answered a fundamental question about how two strands of DNA, known as a double helix, separate to start a process called replication, in which genes copy themselves.

The research, reported in the current issue of the journal Cell, examined the role of an enzyme called a helicase, which plays a major role in separating DNA strands so that replication of a single strand can occur.

Researchers have known that helicases bind to the area of a double helix where the two strands fork away from each other, like the free ends of two pieces of thread wound around each other. The forked area opens and closes very rapidly. But researchers have debated whether helicases actively separate the two strands at the fork or if they passively wait for the fork to widen on its own.

The research observed that the helicase appears to actively exert a force onto the fork and separate the two strands.

"A simple passive unwinding mechanism does not explain our data," said Michelle Wang, associate professor of physics and the paper's senior author.

"Defects in helicases are linked to a number of human diseases, ranging from predisposition to cancer to premature aging," said co-author Smita Patel, a biochemistry professor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J. "Helicases are involved in practically all DNA and RNA metabolic processes"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 2, 2007, 11:14 AM CT

Probiotic drinks can help reduce diarrhoea

Drinks containing probiotic bacteria can help reduce diarrhoea among older people, which may reduce length of stay in hospital and save the NHS money, say Imperial College scientists at Hammersmith Hospital as per a research findings published on bmj.com today.

Between 5% and 25% of patients experience diarrhoea, including Clostridium difficile associated diarrhoea, as a complication of therapy with antibiotics.

Scientists set out to find whether probiotic drinks, which contain live micro-organisms, are helpful in reducing diarrhoea correlation to antibiotic use.

They identified 135 people from three London hospitals who were all aged over 50 and receiving antibiotics for various reasons, such as for respiratory infection.

The patients were split at random into two groups. One was given a commercially available probiotic yoghurt drink while the other received a longlife, sterile milkshake. Neither group knew which drink they received.

Drinks were given twice a day, within 48 hours of the people starting antibiotic treatment and continued for one week after the antibiotics were stopped. The people were also contacted for follow up four weeks later.

Nursing staff monitored bowel movements and when there was evidence of diarrhoea, samples were taken for analysis......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source