Tag Archives: treatment

One-two punch could be key in treating blindness

Researchers have discovered that using two kinds of therapy in tandem may be a knockout combo against inherited disorders that cause blindness. While their study focused on man’s best friend, the treatment could help restore vision in people, too.

Published in the journal Molecular Therapy, the study builds on earlier work by Michigan State University veterinary ophthalmologist András Komáromy and colleagues. In 2010, they restored day vision in dogs suffering from achromatopsia, an inherited form of total color blindness, by replacing the mutant gene associated with the condition. (more…)

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Study Shows How Vitamin E Can Help Prevent Cancer

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have identified an elusive anti-cancer property of vitamin E that has long been presumed to exist, but difficult to find.

Many animal studies have suggested that vitamin E could prevent cancer, but human clinical trials following up on those findings have not shown the same benefits. (more…)

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Peer support shows promise in epilepsy fight

Peer support groups show promise for combating the debilitating stigma that surrounds epilepsy in much of the developing world, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University medical student.

The researchers report in the journal Epilepsy and Behavior that young people with the disease felt significantly less stigmatized after meeting regularly to discuss their illness. (more…)

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Few Pregnant Women Treated for Sexually Transmitted Infections

Many pregnant women with sexually transmitted infections aren’t getting the treatment they need when they visit emergency rooms, according to a new Michigan State University study that highlights a wholly preventable risk to unborn children and raises questions about current medical guidelines.

About half of the 735 women with gonorrhea or chlamydia who visited the ERs at three hospitals in Grand Rapids, Mich. from 2008 through 2010 did not get treatment there, despite the availability of effective and relatively inexpensive antibiotics. Of the 179 who were pregnant, only 20 percent received treatment in the ER. (more…)

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Costly Breast Cancer Screenings Don’t Add up to Better Outcomes

Even though Medicare spends over $1 billion per year on breast cancer screenings such as a mammography, there is no evidence that higher spending benefits older women, researchers at Yale School of Medicine found in a study published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Led by Dr. Cary Gross, associate professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy, and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) Center at Yale, the study sought to provide a comprehensive understanding of breast cancer expenditures that incorporate the cost of screening and associated work-up, as well as treatment. They assessed overall national costs, as well as variation in costs across geographic regions. (more…)

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Proves Effective at Reducing Depression in People Who Have not Responded to Antidepressants

Antidepressants are the most widely used treatment for people with moderate to severe depression.

However, up to two thirds of people with depression don’t respond fully to this type of treatment. New findings have shown cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), provided in addition to usual care, can reduce symptoms of depression and help improve patients’ quality of life.

This is the first large-scale trial to test the effectiveness of CBT – a type of talking psychotherapy- given in addition to usual care that includes antidepressants. The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA)-funded CoBalT study aimed to determine the best ‘next step’ treatment for people whose depression had not responded to medication alone. (more…)

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Promising Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology for drug delivery shows promise in treatment of pediatric leukemia

Nanotechnology developed by Delaware scientists could potentially deliver chemotherapy to children in a way that attacks cancer cells without harming healthy cells, greatly reducing side effects.

The work, conducted by researchers in the University of Delaware’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research, was published this month in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics. (more…)

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Old Habits Die Hard: Helping Cancer Patients Stop Smoking

ANN ARBOR — It’s a sad but familiar scene near the grounds of many medical campuses: hospital-gowned patients, some toting rolling IV poles, huddled in clumps under bus shelters or warming areas, smoking cigarettes.

Smoking causes 30 percent of all cancer deaths and 87 percent of all lung cancer deaths. Yet, roughly 50 percent to 83 percent of cancer patients keep smoking after a cancer diagnosis, through treatment and beyond, says Sonia Duffy, University of Michigan School of Nursing researcher. For patients who quit on their own, relapse rates (as in the general population) are as high as 85 percent. (more…)

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