New tool can detect deadly anthrax attack in 15 minutes |  |
- New tool can detect deadly anthrax attack in 15 minutes
- Mumbai hospital gets advanced surgical robot
- India to continue generic drugs for HIV patients
- Iraqi woman undergoes hip replacement in Delhi
- Asbestos-related cancer: NHRC notice to health, environment ministries
- Nordic study shows marginally higher but overall low risk of stillbirth in ART children
- Canada's Cancer Risk Management model is an important new health tool for policymakers
- Socioeconomic class and smoking linked to premature menopause
- Steps needed to reduce likelihood that pilot commuting practices could pose safety risk, but too little data now to support regulation
- Vertebrate jaw design locked early
| New tool can detect deadly anthrax attack in 15 minutes Posted: 07 Jul 2011 04:01 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, July 7 - A nano detector that takes just 15 minutes to analyze a sample suspected of anthrax contamination, is being developed by researchers. Bacillus anthracis, commonly known as anthrax, is a potentially lethal microbe that can be used by terrorists to infect victims through contamination of food and water supplies, aerosolized particles, or even dried powders. Nathaniel Cady of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering -, University at Albany, and colleagues at Cornell University, New York, have constructed nanofabricated fluidic cartridges that can be used to carry out detection of anthrax. The technology amplifies any anthrax DNA present in the sample and can reveal the presence of 40 microscopic cells of the deadly bacteria. Detection is crucial to preventing widespread fatalities in the event of an anthrax attack, according to a CNSE statement. However, the complexity of the microbe's biology has so far made it difficult to build a portable system that can be employed quickly, reports the International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. -Indo-Asian News service st/sak/vt http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Mumbai hospital gets advanced surgical robot Posted: 07 Jul 2011 12:12 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Mumbai, July 6 - The city's Asian Heart Institute - Wednesday acquired Asia's most advanced surgical robot - costing $2.5 million - following a tie-up with the Vattikuti Foundation in Michigan, US, an official said here. The latest in robotic surgery, the da Vinci Si Robotic Surgical System with simulator capabilities - billed as the most advanced and only one in Asia - was formally commissioned here. According to AHI head and heart surgeon Ramakant Panda, the robotic surgery facility would be available at Asian Vattikuti Institute of Robot Surgery -, which will be based at the Asian Hospital. Asian Hospital, to be based in the AHI existing complex at Bandra-Kurla Complex in central Mumbai, is a new multi-speciality hospital, launched by AHI, which will offer robotic surgery, minimal invasive surgery, orthopaedic treatment, cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, Panda told reporters here. AHI will continue to provide specialist heart care services, said Panda, who operated on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh two years ago. 'The AVIRS will offer the most advanced robotic surgery for multi-disciplines like cardio thoracic, urology, gynecology, ENT and oncology,' Panda said. The Vattikuti Foundation, headed by Raj and Padma Vattikuti, has established a network of robotic and other minimally invasive surgeries around the world to make the benefits of robotic technology available to the masses, an aide told IANS. The difference in the cost of opting for robotic surgery - could be nil for a simple procedure but between Rs.50,000-Rs.150,000 on the higher side, depending on the nature of the illness and related complications. Besides Mumbai, robotic surgery is available at New Delhi's Medanta Vattikutti Institute of Robotic Surgery), Pune's Galaxy Care Laparoscopy Institute, Ahmedabad's Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital, and Hyderabad's Asian Institute of Gastroenterology. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| India to continue generic drugs for HIV patients Posted: 06 Jul 2011 09:15 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, July 6 - India will not compromise on drug licensing norms and continue to produce generic drugs for free treatment to HIV positive patients, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said Wednesday. 'The government reaffirms its full commitment to ensure that quality generic medicines, including antiretroviral drugs, are seamlessly available,' Sharma said at a meeting with UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe. 'To make them available to all countries, India will also use the flexibilities allowed under TRIPS - to ensure that people living with HIV have access to all life-saving medicines,' Sharma added. The commitment was welcomed by UNAIDS, which said this would benefit HIV positive people in African nations as well. 'Millions of people will die if India cannot produce generic antiretroviral drugs, and Africa will be the most affected. For me, it is an issue of life or death,' Sidibe said. With over 2.5 million HIV positive people in the the country, the pharmaceutical industry produces more than 85 percent of the first-line antiretroviral - drugs used to treat people living with HIV. 'India, together with Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia, must forge an alliance with other high-income countries to ensure that no single person in the world dies because they could not afford to buy life-saving medicines or health care,' Sidibe added. The government ART centres currently provide free antiretroviral treatment to over 4 lakh people living with HIV in India. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Iraqi woman undergoes hip replacement in Delhi Posted: 06 Jul 2011 06:52 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, July 6 - For years Asmaa Fanar Mohammed could barely walk, squat or sit in one position for long. The excruciating pain was a part of her life. But a hip replacement surgery in a hospital here has now changed her life for ever. In a surgery that raises hopes for younger people required to undertake a hip replacement surgery, Asmaa, 20, an Iraqi, who suffered from dislocated hips since childhood, was successfully operated at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital here. 'When Asmaa came to me, she had great pain in walking as well as sitting in one posture for long. We performed some tests and found out that she is a victim of developmental dysplasia of both hips. It means her hip joint had congenital or acquired deformation leading to instability of hips,' R.K. Sharma, senior consultant orthopedics and joint replacement surgeon at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, told IANS. The best part -- the new surgery technique now gives the new hip joints a life of nearly 30 years instead of the earlier eight to 15 years. Asmaa had unstable hips since childhood, leading to a waddling gait and she could squat only with pain. After thorough investigation, Sharma decided to perform a special surgery which involved osteotomy - breaking of hip bone and bringing down the hip centre and bilateral uncemented total hip replacement on the patient. This uncemented artificial limb has a fine mesh of holes on the surface area that touches the bone. This allows the bone to grow into the mesh and becomes a part of the bone. 'The special part of surgery was to bring down the hip centre which had up ridden by about four inches causing shortening of both lower limbs by about five inches and causing instability of the walking pattern,' said Sharma. With the patient being young, the risk of the joint wearing out and the need of a second surgery was a major concern. The doctors then decided to use a special ceramic and polymer surface joint which... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Asbestos-related cancer: NHRC notice to health, environment ministries Posted: 06 Jul 2011 03:26 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, July 6 - The National Human Rights Commission - Wednesday issued notice to the health and environment ministries on a report that asbestos-related cancer was on the rise in India. Toxics Watch Alliance, an NGO fighting for environmental protection, alleged that about 50,000 Indians die every year because of asbestos-related cancer. 'The complainant sought the commission's intervention for a ban on the use of Chrysotile Asbestos -, which is hazardous for the health of people and causes various incurable diseases,' an NHRC statement said. White asbestos is a fibrous material used for building roofs and walls. The NGO cited contradictory positions of the government on the issue, alleging that though the mining of asbestos has been technically banned by the government, it allows its import and 'that too from the countries which do not prefer its domestic use'. 'The commission has issued notice to the secretaries of ministries of chemicals and fertilizers, environment and forests, health and family welfare, industry and commerce and labour and the chief secretaries of all the states and union territories, calling for status reports within four weeks on the issues raised in the complaint,' the statement added. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Nordic study shows marginally higher but overall low risk of stillbirth in ART children Posted: 06 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The group looked at 60,650 singletons in a common Nordic database from ART registers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and compared these to a control group of 360,022 naturally conceived (NC) singletons. In both groups 0.4 % of singletons were stillborn, with a definition of stillbirth as a dead child after 22 weeks of gestation. After having been matched with the control group regarding mother's parity and year of birth, the overall risk of stillbirth was found to be marginally higher (1.1 fold) in ART children after adjusting for factors such as maternal age and the child's sex. Although the difference in risk of stillbirth is significant between the two groups and the risk is marginally higher with an overrepresentation of 8 per 1,000 pregnancies for singleton ART pregnancies, the overall risk of stillbirth is still low, said Anna-Karina Aaris Henningsen, leading author of the study from Righospitalet University Hospital of Copenhagen. This means that the individual woman need not be concerned about the risk of stillbirth during pregnancy. When analysing the stillbirth risk before and after term, no difference was found after 40 weeks of gestation between ART children and their naturally conceived peers. This was also the case when comparing the two cohorts after 37 weeks of gestation. However, until gestational week 40, the group found a 1.2 fold higher risk of stillbirth for ART singletons. We believe the difference in risk of stillbirth between ART and NC children seems to occur before 37 weeks of gestation, said Dr. Aaris Henningsen. It is likely, that some of the difference in risk of stillbirth is related to parental factors in the subfertile mother or father. When the researchers assessed the risk of total perinatal death (risk of stillbirth and risk of perinatal death until one year of age), children born after ART showed a 1.4 fold increased risk compared to naturally conceived babies. This remained 1.2... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Canada's Cancer Risk Management model is an important new health tool for policymakers Posted: 06 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) If Canada's smoking rates were cut by half to an average national rate of 11% within five years, it would result in 35,900 fewer cases of lung cancer by 2030 and save $656 million in treatment costs, according to analysis using a new web-enabled platform developed for the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC). The Cancer Risk Management simulation model developed for the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer simulates the demographic characteristics of the Canadian population and projects cancer occurrences, said the abstract's author, Dr. Bill Evans, M.D., president of the Juravinski Cancer Centre at Hamilton Health Sciences in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. For lung cancer, it can be used to explore the impact of smoking cessation on such things as downstream treatment costs, life-years gained and the impacts on tax revenue. It can also project the impact of introducing a population-based screening program or increasing the uptake of adjuvant chemotherapy for surgically resected lung cancer. The cost impacts of new systemic treatments, such as molecular targeted therapies, can be estimated for specific populations, such as stage IV non-small cell lung cancer, with the budget impact for individual provinces. These simulations can help to inform decision-makers as to the relative costs and benefits of proposed new cancer control strategies. The Cancer Risk Management (CRM) model uses dynamic, longitudinal microsimulation techniques to simulate and project realistic, representative Canadian populations, offering the potential to study changes in screening, prevention, and treatment. The impact of decreasing smoking rates is provided as an example. For this simulation, smoking rates were decreased over a 5-year time frame from a 22% national average in 2010 to 11%. Over 20 years, this... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Socioeconomic class and smoking linked to premature menopause Posted: 06 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) POF is not only associated with infertility but also with significantly increased morbidity and mortality, as well as a decreased quality of life equivalent to that of people with type 2 diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis, said Dr. Rumana Islam, from Imperial College, London, UK. Previous studies of POF, defined as the onset of menopause before the age of 40, have assessed the small group of women who seek hospital care, and therefore there is little information about the risks and impacts of POF across a whole population, Dr. Islam explained. With her colleague Dr. Rufus Cartwright, she studied the records of nearly 5000 women who formed part of the 1958 Birth Cohort. This included all the women born in Britain in a single week, explained Dr. Islam. They have been followed up eight times, most recently at age 50, when they were asked about the date and cause of their menopause and also their quality of life. Out of the 4968 study participants, 370, or 7.4%, had either spontaneous or medically induced POF. In addition to the influence of social class, there was a strong independent association with smoking. Quality of life was measured using the SF-36 health survey, which produces a profile of physical and psychological health and well-being in eight areas. Women with POF were more than twice as likely to report poor quality of life, and this effect was not eliminated by taking confounding factors such as smoking, obesity, and physical exercise into account. There was also a profound impact on quality of life 10 years after POF, affecting vitality, physical function, mental health, and general health perceptions. However, social function was unaffected, said Dr. Islam. POF is characterised by amenorrhea (the absence of periods), infertility, and sex steroid deficiency leading to menopausal symptoms in women aged under 40. Almost 20% of the women in the study who had undergone POF had done so as a result of early removal of the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON -- Commuting practices among airline pilots could potentially contribute to their fatigue, and because fatigue can reduce performance, pilots, airlines, and the Federal Aviation Administration should take steps to reduce the likelihood that commuting will pose a safety risk, says a new report from the National Research Council. However, there are currently too little data to determine the extent to which it poses a safety risk or whether commuting should be regulated. The FAA should support a study to gather data on how commuting practices are related to risk factors for fatigue. The report offers guidance for how pilots should manage their sleep and awake time in order to avoid fatigue levels that could affect performance. Pilots should plan their commutes and other pre-duty activities so that they will have been awake no more than approximately 16 hours when their duty is scheduled to be completed, and they should endeavor to sleep for at least six hours prior to reporting for duty. Airlines should collect more data on their pilots' commuting practices and educate pilots about potentially fatiguing effects of commuting, said the committee that wrote the report. These companies should also consider policies to help pilots plan predictable, nonfatiguing commutes and minimize negative consequences when disrupted commutes lead to fatigue. Some commutes have the potential to contribute to fatigue in pilots, and fatigue can pose a safety risk, but at this point we simply don't know very much about actual pilots' commuting practices, said committee chair Clint Oster, a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington. Airlines and FAA should gather more information on pilots' commutes, and also work with pilots to lower the likelihood that fatigue from commuting will be a safety risk. The report was requested by Congress due to concerns about pilots' commuting... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Vertebrate jaw design locked early Posted: 06 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) More than 99 per cent of modern vertebrates (animals with a backbone, including humans) have jaws, yet 420 million years ago, jawless, toothless armour-plated fishes dominated the seas, lakes, and rivers. There were no vertebrates yet on land and the recently evolved jawed fishes were minor players in this alien world, some sporting unusual jaw shapes and structures that bear little physical resemblance to modern animals. The researchers, led by Dr Philip Anderson of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, applied concepts from physics and engineering to unravel the potential feeding functions of these unusual, early vertebrate jaw designs, and compared this data to patterns of diversity in both jawed and jawless fishes. While it has long been assumed that jawed fishes were better adapted, and therefore directly out-competed and replaced their jawless neighbours during this tumultuous time, this assertion has never been tested. Dr Anderson said: Surprisingly, our results indicate that long-held assumptions concerning the replacement of jawless fishes by newly evolved jawed forms are likely wrong. The variety of feeding mechanisms in early jawed animals appears to have had little to no affect on the diversity of jawless fishes, which shared ecological space with the jawed fishes for at least 30 million years before beginning to notably decline. When the jawless fishes do decline, we see no indication that their jawed cousins took up new functional roles, calling into question old ideas of ecological replacement. Furthermore, jawed vertebrates achieved a stable diversity in their feeding apparatus early in their evolution, and maintained this diversity in the face of major environmental changes during the Devonian period. Previous studies have suggested that the rise of major jawed vertebrate ecological diversity is tied to a documented oxygenation event 400 million years ago, but our results place the first burst of... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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