Medical News May 14th, 2008
Child-killing virus hits Beijing
BEIJING, China (CNN) — The death toll in China’s outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease has risen to 42 children, with the capital Beijing reporting its first case Wednesday, state media said.
The child died on the way to a hospital Sunday, health authorities told the Xinhua news agency.
Another child died of the virus at a Beijing hospital, but that death was counted in the child’s home province of Hebei, which neighbors Beijing, the news agency said.
So far, the virus has sickened 24,934 children on the Chinese mainland, authorities said. All 42 people who died have been children.
DNA Fingerprinting Could ID Viable Embryos
TUESDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) — Researchers say DNA tests may be able to tell doctors which embryos tabbed for in vitro fertilization (IVF) are most likely to result in the births of healthy babies.
The technique, discussed in a report published online May 14 in Human Reproduction, could also help fertility experts prevent accidental multiple pregnancies in their IVF patients.
A woman’s eggs are fertilized with sperm during IVF and then allowed to develop in the laboratory for about five days until they reach the blastocyst, or very early embryo, stage. Doctors then decide which blastocysts look most likely to develop successfully and how many to put into the woman’s womb.
Is mammogram alone enough for most women?
BREAST CANCER | X-ray plus ultrasound might be best for some
Combining a mammogram with an ultrasound exam is more effective than mammography alone at detecting breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease, according to a study published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
But there’s also a significant chance of false positives with ultrasounds, researchers found, which could lead to unnecessary biospies. And radiologists say the time and expertise needed to analyze an ultrasound make it an unrealistic choice for many patients.
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Gene Therapy Found to Slow Progression of Fatal Brain Condition
An experimental gene therapy had positive effects in slowing the progression of Batten disease, or Late Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (LINCL), a team of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medicine Center physician-scientists showed.
LINCL is an autosomal recessive disease caused by mutations in the CLN2 gene resulting in functional defects of the gene product tripeptidyl-peptidase I. This disease is associated with a progressive neurodegenerative course beginning at the age of two years with developmental stagnation, finally leading to a complete loss of motor function, vision and speech by the age of 10 years.
The disease is diagnosed via DNA testing and strikes two to four of every 100,000 babies in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health. Because the disease is fatal early in life, there are only about 200 cases of the disease in the world at a given time.
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Rodent Virus Infected-Kidney Kills Transplant Recipient
Health authorities said a 70-year-old woman died and a 57-year-old man is critically ill in a Boston hospital after each was given a kidney from an infected donor, reports The Boston Globe.
The kidney was infected with a hard-to-detect virus, health officials said, which came from a 49-year-old homeless man who suffered irreversible brain damage and cardiac arrest.
The donor carried a germ called lymphocytic choriomenigitis virus, which is most often transmitted by rodents and usually unnoticed by healthy people who do not suffer anything more than flu-like symptoms, according to the newspaper.
The virus also killed three transplants patients in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 2005.
Organs perish quickly and they are tested for diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis and herpes, but not usually viruses such as lymphocytic choriomenigitis. And, since the demand for organs is so great, recipients will often take the organs of homeless people, the newspaper said.
14 more people implicated in UCLA medical records snooping
Los Angeles (CA) – The California Department of Public Health has issued its findings in the UCLA celebrity medical records snooping case. The department found 14 more people snooped into the records of famous people including Farrah Fawcett, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver. This brings the total to 68 people including physicians, nurses, administrative staff and one volunteer.
At the center of this controversy is former UCLA Medical Center administrative assistant Lawanda Jackson. The DPH says she illegally accessed records for 104 days from July 1 2006 to May 21 2007. She also received a written reprimand back in 2005 for snooping into the medical records of her coworker. Jackson also tried to hide her snooping by using a co-workers login on numerous occasions.
Last month we reported on Jackson’s case. She was indicted for illegally accessing computerized medical records and is due to be arraigned in federal court on June 9th. Jackson faces up to 10 years in prison.
Death Gap Widens Between Educated and Those Not
WEDNESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) — Being well-educated can lengthen your life span, according to new study.
The research, published in the May 14 issue of PLoS ONE, shows that the gap in overall death rates between Americans with less than a high school education and college graduates increased rapidly from 1993 to 2001.
The widening resulted from significant drops in mortality from all causes among the most educated men (totaling 36 percent in black men and 25 percent in white men over the study period). This came in great part to decreases in their death rates from HIV infection, cancer and heart disease.
In contrast, the all-cause death rate rose among people with less than a high school education. The greatest annual percent increase was among white women who did not complete high school (3.2 percent per year), but it was also notable (0.7 percent per year) in white women who had completed high school.
Cancer Support Still Strong
LIVESTRONG Ohio State.
Hundreds of people packed the Ohio State University Medical Center Plaza in front of Rhodes Hall Tuesday to hear Lance Armstrong, who owns seven Tour de France victories, speak about his latest movement to raise cancer awareness.
Yellow LIVESTRONG bracelets, T -shirts and hats were plentiful at the rally.
May 13th was LIVESTRONG day at Ohio State and around the country. More than 600 events were scheduled to raise cancer awareness and funds to help with cancer research.
