Marketing Consultants to the Overlooked Disabled Community
| Home Page |
| About Us |
| We Are Able |
| Clients |
| Did you Know? |
| What's New! |
| Self Test |
| Disorders |
| Hot Links / Sites |
| Contact Us |
|
Either one will work
May 2009
DALLAS - Two non-surgical treatments most commonly used to correct clubfoot have similarly high levels of success, states a study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
While both strategies use different approaches, each brings positive outcomes for most children.
Clubfoot is a birth defect that occurs in approximately one in every1,000 births, with boys slightly outnumbering girls.
The exact cause isn’t known, but it seems to run in families.
When a baby has clubfoot, one or both feet are turned inward, some so severely that the sole of the foot seems to be facing upward.
The Ponseti and French Functional treatments have existed "for decades, but they hadn’t received wide acceptance," says Dr. B. Stephens Richards, primary author of the study.
He’s assistant chief of staff and medical director of inpatient services at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.
"With the emergence of the Internet, parents began researching treatment options for their children and found information about the Ponseti and French methods, so interest in these treatments began to spread, and we saw how successful they can be."
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Food & Drug Administration and Genentech notified healthcare professionals of the voluntary removal from the U.S. market of Raptiva to treat psoriasis, due to potential risk of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. As of June 8, Raptiva will no longer be available in the U.S. Prescribers were asked not to initiate Raptiva for any new patients and discuss with patients using Raptiva how to move to other therapies.
BALTIMORE - The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing is harnessing wireless technologies and online communities to help nurses worldwide "connect for health." Through faculty member Dr. Patricia A. Abbott, the school's Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery Community of Practice (GANM) is a teacher for the 21st century, speeding new health data and know-how to nurses from the most urbanized, high-tech cities to the most remote villages without electricity. Registered nurse Kitty Poon, a Hopkins master's of nursing candidate, joined GANM and is creating ways of using new media to save countless lives in Spanish-speaking areas everywhere. Poon, Abbott, colleague Kathleen Woodruff, and others are crafting a downloadable educational module about a low-cost, low-tech cervical cancer screen. Members of the GANM community will log on, download the module, and refresh their skills to conduct visual cervical cancer inspections using acetic acid (VIA). Because it requires no lab or biopsy, and can spot cervical cancer effectively and accurately in a single visit, this technique has been suggested as an alternative method of cervical cancer screening in low-resource areas.
BOSTON - Brothers and sisters of people with Down syndrome (DS) will face questions about the genetic disorder ranging from "What causes it?" to "How do you deal with people who say 'retard'?," and "Where will my brother live when he gets older?" Fasten Your Seatbelt: A Crash Course on Down Syndrome for Brothers and Sisters (Woodbine House, Feb. 2009), tackles dozens of medical/personal issues in a question-and-answer format. Geared for teenagers, and useful for siblings as young as 11, the queries are based on brother/sister workshops led by co-authors Dr. Brian Skotko, of Children's Hospital Boston (whose sister has DS) and Susan Levine, a social worker with Family Resource Associates Inc. Shrewsbury, NJ). For the past 10 years, both have done workshops for brothers/sisters of people with DS, and in their joint 34-year background have met more than 3,300 siblings. "Over the years, support networks and resources have developed for parents of children with (DS), but what is often overlooked is that siblings need access to information and support, too," said Skotko. "Oftentimes, siblings exist in emotional isolation - they have so many questions … and the feelings they’re experiencing toward a brother or sister. They wonder whether it's okay to feel not only love and joy toward their sibling but also frustration and embarrassment, at times."
CHICAGO - Unusually aggressive youth may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others, research using brain scans at the University of Chicago shows. Scans of such brains showed an area tied to rewards that was highlighted when the youth watched a video clip of someone inflicting pain on another person. Youth without the unusually aggressive behavior didn’t have that response, the study showed. "This is the first time fMRI scans have been used to study situations that could otherwise provoke empathy," said Jean Decety, professor in psychology and psychiatry. "This work will help us better understand ways to work with juveniles inclined to aggression and violence." Decety is an internationally-recognized expert on empathy and social neuroscience. The new research shows some aggressive youths’ natural empathetic impulse may be disrupted in ways that increase aggression. The results were in the journal Biological Psychology. Benjamin Lahey, professor of epidemiology and psychiatry, co-authored the paper, with students Kalina Michaslska and Yuko Akitsuki.
KOBE, JAPAN - AFP disclosed Japanese researchers created functioning human brain tissues from stem cells, a world first that has raised new hopes for the treatment of disease. Stem cells taken from human embryos have been used to form tissues of the cerebral cortex, the supreme control tower of the brain, say scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken. The tissues self-organized into four distinct zones very similar to the structure seen in human fetuses, and did neuro-activity such as transmitting electrical signals, the institute said. The team's previous studies showed stem cells differentiated into distinct cells, but until now they had never organized into functioning tissues. "Transplanting tissues could raise hopes for greater functional recovery," the institute stated. Findings online at the journal Cell note the tissues could also serve as "a mini organ" for studying the cause of Alzheimer's disease and developing vaccines. Research was led by Yoshiki Sasai at Riken Centre for Development Biology.
JACKSON, MS - Many schools don’t have anaphylaxis action plans for students with food allergies, researchers told MedPage Today. More than 40% of elementary and middle school nurses in and around Greenville, SC - where every school has its own nurse - said they had no plan on file for at least half their food-allergic students, said Dr. John M. Pulcini, of the University of Mississippi. Pediatricians should make sure food-allergic patients have a written plan to give to their schools, Dr. Pulcini told the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology annual meeting. He suggested physicians advocate in their communities for more effective anaphylaxis action policies. He and colleagues sent electronic and paper surveys to 67 school nurses in Greenville County; 43 responded. Topics covered included whether the school had allergic students, types of allergies, frequency of episodes in the past year, and whether there were plans for allergic students. Every respondent reported having at least one allergic student. The mean number of allergic students per school was nine (range one to 37).
ORLANDO – It’s unethical for doctors to self-refer to facilities where they have a financial stake unless they spell it all out to patients, stated an opinion adopted by the American Medical Association's policymaking House of Delegates released to MedPage Today. The opinion emerged from the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, chaired by Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, of the Bayou La Batre (AL) Rural Health Clinic. It moted that while business arrangements among physicians can benefit patients, they also "can be ethically challenging when they create opportunities for self-referral in which patients' medical interests can be in tension with the physicians' financial interests." Transparency is vital to keeping these relationships ethical, said Dr. Benjamin, a family physician. Dr. William Dolan, a Rochester, NY orthopedic surgeon and on AMA's board of trustees, agreed a physician "must tell the patient what his or her interest is" in order for self-referral to be ethical.
COLUMBUS, OH - Scientists identified a relationship between two brain proteins with links to nicotine addiction and Autism. The finding has led to speculation that existing drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might serve as the basis for potential therapies to alleviate the symptoms of Autism. The discovery identified a defining role for a protein made by the neurexin-1 gene in brain cells and assists in connecting neurons as part of the brain’s chemical communication system. The neurexin-1 beta protein’s job is to lure another protein, a specific type of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, to the synapses, where the receptor then has a role in helping neurons communicate signals among themselves and to the rest of the body. This function is important in Autism because previous research shows people with Autism have a shortage of these nicotinic receptors in their brains. Scientists also know people who are addicted to nicotine have too many of these receptors in their brains. "This is a novel way of thinking about how we might be able to use drugs to approach Autism treatment," said Rene Anand, associate professor of pharmacology in Ohio State University’s College of Medicine and principal investigator of the research.
CHICAGO - CT colonography has potential to screen for two diseases at once, researchers told MedPage Today. The modality - a.k.a. virtual colonoscopy - can calculate bone mineral density to help identify osteoporotic patients at the same time as they’re being screened for colon cancer, Dr. Rizwan Aslam, of the University of California/San Francisco, said at a Radiological Society of North America meeting. "These are two fairly common conditions and we thought we could [identify] both of them with this one test," he said, because CT colonography creates cross-sectional images of all structures in the abdomen, including the spine. Colon cancer screening is recommended for patients older than 50, a group also at a high-risk for osteoporosis, Dr. Aslam said. To analyze whether bone mineral density measurements from CT imaging are accurate, researchers did a retrospective study of 35 patients 54-79 at the San Francisco VA. Each patient underwent CT colonography and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans. There were 30 males and five females, with a mean age of 66 years.Researchers found "excellent correlation between both readers," Dr. Aslam said.
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Early detection of lung disease in Cystic Fibrosis (CF), with aggressive treatment in infants, may be key to controlling progression. A study shows contrary to prior opinion, progressive lung damage in CF patients can begin in infancy even though lung function shortly after diagnosis is normal. "We might be able to stop some of the lung function reduction we’re identifying in the first months of life," said Dr. Sarath Ranganathan, consultant respiratory physician at the Royal Children’s Hospital, and lead author of the paper in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "We don’t know what’s going to work, but we have to target those patients in the first six months of life if we’re going to be effective," he added. In the study, 68 infants with CF were compared to 49 infants without CF. The children were 6-30 months old. Forced expiratory volume measurements were obtained at baseline, and 16 children with CF were measured again one year later. FEV was equal for all children at baseline. By six months of age, the mean FEV was significantly lower in infants with CF versus controls - and the deficit rose with each month of age. "This indicates lung function declines sooner than previously thought," said Dr. Ranganathan.
BALTIMORE - Johns Hopkins University scientists determined how the characteristic shedding of fatty substances, or lipids, by ovarian tumors allows the cancer to evade the body's immune system, leaving the disease to spread unchecked. Ovarian cancer is considered to be one of the most aggressive malignancies, killing more than 70% of diagnosed women within five years, including an estimated 15,000 this year. In a two-year series of lab experiments, a team of researchers from the JHU School of Medicine and its Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center showed fluid secretions from tumors, called ascites - which contain lipids and collect in the space surrounding cancerous ovaries - can totally suppress the action of natural killer T-cells in the immune system. Known as NKTs, these special T-cells must be activated to jump-start the immune response and signal other kinds of white blood cells to rid the body of diseases or leave healthy tissue alone. In a report for the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the team found this evasive blocking tactic to be virtually exclusive to a specific protein, called CD1d, needed to activate the NKT cells.
PERUGIA, ITALY - Prophylactic treatment with a blood thinner can reduce by about 50% the rate of thromboembolism in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, scientists told MedPage Today. Currently, such prophylaxis is used rarely for ambulatory cancer patients, in whom the rate of thromboembolism is 4-10%, Dr. Giancarlo Agnelli, of the University of Perugia, said at the American Society of Hematology meeting. One reason is "there is no data," and published guidelines simply call for more studies, Dr. Agnelli said. He and colleagues at 62 centers in Italy enrolled 1,166 patients and randomized them to get placebo or the low-molecular weight heparin nadroparin for the duration of their chemotherapy. Nadroparin was chosen because there’s extensive clinical experience with the drug. "We know almost everything about it," Dr. Agnelli said. Scientists found the rate of clinical thrombosis among the placebo group was 3.9% versus 2% among those getting the blood-thinner. The 50% reduction was seen in all studied types of events.
ATLANTA - MedPage Today disclosed prevalence of retinopathy, glaucoma, and other vision problems related to diabetes are projected to rise dramatically over the next four decades. With rising diabetes rates, the number of Americans 40 and older with diabetic retinopathy will triple by 2050, Dr. Jinan B. Saaddine, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and colleagues reported in the Archives of Ophthalmology. The number of diabetic patients with cataracts and glaucoma will likely double or triple, too, scientists said. Their projections, using National Health Interview Survey and census data, suggested higher rates than earlier predictions, which hadn’t accounted for recent changes in diabetes rates, Dr. Saaddine said. Factors contributing to this change include "a steady increase in the total U.S. population, an increase in the average age of the population, and disproportionate growth in the number of Hispanics and blacks, among whom the prevalence of diabetes is higher than among whites," scientists wrote. Improvements in diabetes management could curtail the growth rate of eye problems, but the benefits for survival would likely counteract this effect by prolonging the average duration of diabetes, they noted. The rise in diabetic eye complications will undoubtedly increase demand on the healthcare system and should add impetus to improving ophthalmologic screening among diabetes patients, Dr. Saaddine said.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Food & Drug Administration and Genentech notified healthcare professionals of the voluntary removal from the U.S. market of Raptiva to treat psoriasis, due to potential risk of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. As of June 8, Raptiva will no longer be available in the U.S. Prescribers were asked not to initiate Raptiva for any new patients and discuss with patients using Raptiva how to move to other therapies.
BALTIMORE - The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing is harnessing wireless technologies and online communities to help nurses worldwide "connect for health." Through faculty member Dr. Patricia A. Abbott, the school's Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery Community of Practice (GANM) is a teacher for the 21st century, speeding new health data and know-how to nurses from the most urbanized, high-tech cities to the most remote villages without electricity. Registered nurse Kitty Poon, a Hopkins master's of nursing candidate, joined GANM and is creating ways of using new media to save countless lives in Spanish-speaking areas everywhere. Poon, Abbott, colleague Kathleen Woodruff, and others are crafting a downloadable educational module about a low-cost, low-tech cervical cancer screen. Members of the GANM community will log on, download the module, and refresh their skills to conduct visual cervical cancer inspections using acetic acid (VIA). Because it requires no lab or biopsy, and can spot cervical cancer effectively and accurately in a single visit, this technique has been suggested as an alternative method of cervical cancer screening in low-resource areas.
BOSTON - Brothers and sisters of people with Down syndrome (DS) will face questions about the genetic disorder ranging from "What causes it?" to "How do you deal with people who say 'retard'?," and "Where will my brother live when he gets older?" Fasten Your Seatbelt: A Crash Course on Down Syndrome for Brothers and Sisters (Woodbine House, Feb. 2009), tackles dozens of medical/personal issues in a question-and-answer format. Geared for teenagers, and useful for siblings as young as 11, the queries are based on brother/sister workshops led by co-authors Dr. Brian Skotko, of Children's Hospital Boston (whose sister has DS) and Susan Levine, a social worker with Family Resource Associates Inc. Shrewsbury, NJ). For the past 10 years, both have done workshops for brothers/sisters of people with DS, and in their joint 34-year background have met more than 3,300 siblings. "Over the years, support networks and resources have developed for parents of children with (DS), but what is often overlooked is that siblings need access to information and support, too," said Skotko. "Oftentimes, siblings exist in emotional isolation - they have so many questions … and the feelings they’re experiencing toward a brother or sister. They wonder whether it's okay to feel not only love and joy toward their sibling but also frustration and embarrassment, at times."
CHICAGO - Unusually aggressive youth may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others, research using brain scans at the University of Chicago shows. Scans of such brains showed an area tied to rewards that was highlighted when the youth watched a video clip of someone inflicting pain on another person. Youth without the unusually aggressive behavior didn’t have that response, the study showed. "This is the first time fMRI scans have been used to study situations that could otherwise provoke empathy," said Jean Decety, professor in psychology and psychiatry. "This work will help us better understand ways to work with juveniles inclined to aggression and violence." Decety is an internationally-recognized expert on empathy and social neuroscience. The new research shows some aggressive youths’ natural empathetic impulse may be disrupted in ways that increase aggression. The results were in the journal Biological Psychology. Benjamin Lahey, professor of epidemiology and psychiatry, co-authored the paper, with students Kalina Michaslska and Yuko Akitsuki.
KOBE, JAPAN - AFP disclosed Japanese researchers created functioning human brain tissues from stem cells, a world first that has raised new hopes for the treatment of disease. Stem cells taken from human embryos have been used to form tissues of the cerebral cortex, the supreme control tower of the brain, say scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken. The tissues self-organized into four distinct zones very similar to the structure seen in human fetuses, and did neuro-activity such as transmitting electrical signals, the institute said. The team's previous studies showed stem cells differentiated into distinct cells, but until now they had never organized into functioning tissues. "Transplanting tissues could raise hopes for greater functional recovery," the institute stated. Findings online at the journal Cell note the tissues could also serve as "a mini organ" for studying the cause of Alzheimer's disease and developing vaccines. Research was led by Yoshiki Sasai at Riken Centre for Development Biology.
JACKSON, MS - Many schools don’t have anaphylaxis action plans for students with food allergies, researchers told MedPage Today. More than 40% of elementary and middle school nurses in and around Greenville, SC - where every school has its own nurse - said they had no plan on file for at least half their food-allergic students, said Dr. John M. Pulcini, of the University of Mississippi. Pediatricians should make sure food-allergic patients have a written plan to give to their schools, Dr. Pulcini told the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology annual meeting. He suggested physicians advocate in their communities for more effective anaphylaxis action policies. He and colleagues sent electronic and paper surveys to 67 school nurses in Greenville County; 43 responded. Topics covered included whether the school had allergic students, types of allergies, frequency of episodes in the past year, and whether there were plans for allergic students. Every respondent reported having at least one allergic student. The mean number of allergic students per school was nine (range one to 37).
ORLANDO – It’s unethical for doctors to self-refer to facilities where they have a financial stake unless they spell it all out to patients, stated an opinion adopted by the American Medical Association's policymaking House of Delegates released to MedPage Today. The opinion emerged from the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, chaired by Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, of the Bayou La Batre (AL) Rural Health Clinic. It moted that while business arrangements among physicians can benefit patients, they also "can be ethically challenging when they create opportunities for self-referral in which patients' medical interests can be in tension with the physicians' financial interests." Transparency is vital to keeping these relationships ethical, said Dr. Benjamin, a family physician. Dr. William Dolan, a Rochester, NY orthopedic surgeon and on AMA's board of trustees, agreed a physician "must tell the patient what his or her interest is" in order for self-referral to be ethical.
COLUMBUS, OH - Scientists identified a relationship between two brain proteins with links to nicotine addiction and Autism. The finding has led to speculation that existing drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might serve as the basis for potential therapies to alleviate the symptoms of Autism. The discovery identified a defining role for a protein made by the neurexin-1 gene in brain cells and assists in connecting neurons as part of the brain’s chemical communication system. The neurexin-1 beta protein’s job is to lure another protein, a specific type of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, to the synapses, where the receptor then has a role in helping neurons communicate signals among themselves and to the rest of the body. This function is important in Autism because previous research shows people with Autism have a shortage of these nicotinic receptors in their brains. Scientists also know people who are addicted to nicotine have too many of these receptors in their brains. "This is a novel way of thinking about how we might be able to use drugs to approach Autism treatment," said Rene Anand, associate professor of pharmacology in Ohio State University’s College of Medicine and principal investigator of the research.
CHICAGO - CT colonography has potential to screen for two diseases at once, researchers told MedPage Today. The modality - a.k.a. virtual colonoscopy - can calculate bone mineral density to help identify osteoporotic patients at the same time as they’re being screened for colon cancer, Dr. Rizwan Aslam, of the University of California/San Francisco, said at a Radiological Society of North America meeting. "These are two fairly common conditions and we thought we could [identify] both of them with this one test," he said, because CT colonography creates cross-sectional images of all structures in the abdomen, including the spine. Colon cancer screening is recommended for patients older than 50, a group also at a high-risk for osteoporosis, Dr. Aslam said. To analyze whether bone mineral density measurements from CT imaging are accurate, researchers did a retrospective study of 35 patients 54-79 at the San Francisco VA. Each patient underwent CT colonography and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans. There were 30 males and five females, with a mean age of 66 years.Researchers found "excellent correlation between both readers," Dr. Aslam said.
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Early detection of lung disease in Cystic Fibrosis (CF), with aggressive treatment in infants, may be key to controlling progression. A study shows contrary to prior opinion, progressive lung damage in CF patients can begin in infancy even though lung function shortly after diagnosis is normal. "We might be able to stop some of the lung function reduction we’re identifying in the first months of life," said Dr. Sarath Ranganathan, consultant respiratory physician at the Royal Children’s Hospital, and lead author of the paper in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "We don’t know what’s going to work, but we have to target those patients in the first six months of life if we’re going to be effective," he added. In the study, 68 infants with CF were compared to 49 infants without CF. The children were 6-30 months old. Forced expiratory volume measurements were obtained at baseline, and 16 children with CF were measured again one year later. FEV was equal for all children at baseline. By six months of age, the mean FEV was significantly lower in infants with CF versus controls - and the deficit rose with each month of age. "This indicates lung function declines sooner than previously thought," said Dr. Ranganathan.
BALTIMORE - Johns Hopkins University scientists determined how the characteristic shedding of fatty substances, or lipids, by ovarian tumors allows the cancer to evade the body's immune system, leaving the disease to spread unchecked. Ovarian cancer is considered to be one of the most aggressive malignancies, killing more than 70% of diagnosed women within five years, including an estimated 15,000 this year. In a two-year series of lab experiments, a team of researchers from the JHU School of Medicine and its Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center showed fluid secretions from tumors, called ascites - which contain lipids and collect in the space surrounding cancerous ovaries - can totally suppress the action of natural killer T-cells in the immune system. Known as NKTs, these special T-cells must be activated to jump-start the immune response and signal other kinds of white blood cells to rid the body of diseases or leave healthy tissue alone. In a report for the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the team found this evasive blocking tactic to be virtually exclusive to a specific protein, called CD1d, needed to activate the NKT cells.
PERUGIA, ITALY - Prophylactic treatment with a blood thinner can reduce by about 50% the rate of thromboembolism in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, scientists told MedPage Today. Currently, such prophylaxis is used rarely for ambulatory cancer patients, in whom the rate of thromboembolism is 4-10%, Dr. Giancarlo Agnelli, of the University of Perugia, said at the American Society of Hematology meeting. One reason is "there is no data," and published guidelines simply call for more studies, Dr. Agnelli said. He and colleagues at 62 centers in Italy enrolled 1,166 patients and randomized them to get placebo or the low-molecular weight heparin nadroparin for the duration of their chemotherapy. Nadroparin was chosen because there’s extensive clinical experience with the drug. "We know almost everything about it," Dr. Agnelli said. Scientists found the rate of clinical thrombosis among the placebo group was 3.9% versus 2% among those getting the blood-thinner. The 50% reduction was seen in all studied types of events.
ATLANTA - MedPage Today disclosed prevalence of retinopathy, glaucoma, and other vision problems related to diabetes are projected to rise dramatically over the next four decades. With rising diabetes rates, the number of Americans 40 and older with diabetic retinopathy will triple by 2050, Dr. Jinan B. Saaddine, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and colleagues reported in the Archives of Ophthalmology. The number of diabetic patients with cataracts and glaucoma will likely double or triple, too, scientists said. Their projections, using National Health Interview Survey and census data, suggested higher rates than earlier predictions, which hadn’t accounted for recent changes in diabetes rates, Dr. Saaddine said. Factors contributing to this change include "a steady increase in the total U.S. population, an increase in the average age of the population, and disproportionate growth in the number of Hispanics and blacks, among whom the prevalence of diabetes is higher than among whites," scientists wrote. Improvements in diabetes management could curtail the growth rate of eye problems, but the benefits for survival would likely counteract this effect by prolonging the average duration of diabetes, they noted. The rise in diabetic eye complications will undoubtedly increase demand on the healthcare system and should add impetus to improving ophthalmologic screening among diabetes patients, Dr. Saaddine said.