Medical News

Doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee have discovered the healing power of light with the help of technology developed for NASA’s Space Shuttle. Using powerful light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, originally designed for commercial plant growth research in space, scientists have found a way to help patients here on Earth.
   

Doctors are examining how this special lighting technology helps hard-to-heal wounds, such as diabetic skin ulcers, serious burns, and severe oral sores caused by chemotherapy and radiation. The project includes laboratory and human trials, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and funded by a NASA Small Business Innovation Research contract through the Technology Transfer Department at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
   

“So far, what we’ve seen in patients and what we’ve seen in laboratory cell cultures, all point to one conclusion,” said Dr. Harry Whelan, professor of pediatric neurology and director of hyperbaric medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “The near-infrared light emitted by these LEDs seems to be perfect for increasing energy inside cells. This means whether you’re on Earth in a hospital, working in a submarine under the sea or on your way to Mars inside a spaceship, the LEDs boost energy to the cells and accelerate healing.”
   

Dr. Whelan’s findings will be summarized in upcoming issues of Space Technology and Applications International Forum 2001 and in The Journal of Clinical Laser Medicine and Surgery. Other related peer-reviewed journals have published articles on Whelan’s medical research with light-emitting diodes.
Dr. Whelan’s NASA-funded research has already seen remarkable results using the light-emitting diodes to promote healing of painful mouth ulcers caused by cancer therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy. The treatment is quick and painless.
   

The wound-healing device is a small, 3.5-inch by 4.5-inch (89-millimeter by 114-millimeter), portable flat array of LEDs, arranged in rows on the top of a small box. A nurse practitioner places the box of LEDs on the outside of the patient’s cheek about one minute each day. The red light penetrates to the inside of the mouth, where it seems to promote wound healing and prevent further sores in the patient’s mouth.
   

“Some children who probably would have had to be fed intravenously because of the severe sores in their mouths have been able to eat solid food, ” said Dr. David Margolis, an oncologist at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Margolis, whose pediatric cancer patients are participating in the study, explained that, “Preventing oral mucositis improves the patients’ ability to eat and drink and also may reduce the risk of infections in patients with compromised immune systems.”
   

Dr. Whelan’s collaboration with NASA began when Ronald Ignatius, owner of Quantum Devices Inc. in Barneveld, Wis., learned about Dr. Whelan’s brain cancer surgery technique using drugs stimulated by laser lights. Laser-light surgical probes are costly and cumbersome in the operating room because they are heavy, with refrigerator-size optical, electrical and cooling systems.
   

Ignatius originally designed the lights for plant growth experiments through the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics, a NASA commercial space center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
   

“The LEDs needed to grow plants in space produced the same wavelengths of light the doctor needed to remove brain tumors,” said Ignatius. “Plus, when we developed the LEDs for NASA, they had to be lightweight to fly aboard the shuttle and have small cooling systems. These traits make the LED surgery probes easier to use in the operating room and thousands of dollars cheaper than laser systems.”
   

Quantum Devices altered the surgical probe to emit longer wavelengths of red light that stimulate a photodynamic drug called Benzoporphyrin Derivative?. Doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin recently completed the first-ever surgery with the improved probe and medicine. The drug also has fewer side effects after surgery. The ongoing brain surgery study is described in a 1999 peer-reviewed journal article in Pediatric Neurosurgery.
“At NASA, we work with companies like Quantum Devices to take technologies developed for use in space and bring the benefits back home to Earth,” said Helen Stinson of Marshall’s Technology Transfer Department. “NASA is proud to support a program that helps children with brain cancer — and promises to help even greater numbers of people with technology to accelerate the healing process.”

In the laboratory, Whelan and his team have shown that skin and muscle cells grown in cultures and exposed to the LED infrared light grow 150 to 200 percent faster than ground control cultures not stimulated by the light. Scientists are trying to learn how cells convert light into energy, and identify which wavelengths of light are most effective at stimulating growth in different kinds of cells.

To expand the wound healing study, Whelan — a commander and diving medical officer in the U.S. Navy reserve assigned to Naval Special Warfare Command (Naval Special Warfare Group TWO) — is working with doctors at Navy Special Warfare Command centers in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego, Calif. They reported a 40 percent improvement in patients who had musculoskeletal training injuries treated with the light-emitting diodes.

A wound-healing device was placed on the USS Salt Lake City submarine, and doctors reported 50-percent faster healing of crewmember’s lacerations when exposed to the LED light. Injuries treated with the LEDs healed in seven days, while untreated injuries took 14 days.

The LED research project will continue for the next 18 months, with doctors studying 100 patients at two major teaching affiliates of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Researchers will continue to examine the influence of LEDs on cells grown in the laboratory, and will explore the benefits that LEDs might provide to counteract possible cell damage caused by exposure to harmful radiation and weightlessness during long space missions.
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Waltham, Mass March 6, 2004–The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) today announced the completion of its Patient Safety Curriculum, a comprehensive continuing medical education course designed to educate physicians and health care professionals about improvements in patient safety.

The MMS Patient Safety Curriculum, developed under the direction of the Medical Society?s Committee on Quality of Medical Practice, is a three-module course offering patient safety concepts, ways to illustrate the scope and magnitude of medical errors, and information on the nature, distribution, prevention and control of medical errors. The curriculum has become a cornerstone of the Society?s wide-ranging activities on the topic of patient safety.
   

MMS President Thomas E. Sullivan, M.D. said patient safety has been and remains a top priority for his organization and its 18,000 physician members. ?The Society?s focus on improving the communication among health care professionals and between patients, their families and physicians is a giant step forward to preventing medical errors,? said Sullivan. ?We are pleased to be taking a leadership role in this critical medical area by offering this comprehensive program along with our other patient safety efforts.?

The first module in the program, ?Medical Error Scenarios and Perspectives on Patient Safety,? was made available last March and focuses on patient safety perspectives, identifying errors, designing systems for safety, and Federal mandates for quality improvement.

The final two modules were posted on the Society?s website within the last two weeks, bringing about the announcement of the completed curriculum in observance of National Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 7-13.

The second module, ?Medication Safety, Systems and Communications,? concentrates on such areas as methods to reduce errors in clinical practices, packaging and labeling issues, dangers of handwritten prescriptions, doctor-patient communication, transcultural issues, and medication errors, including those that happen at home.

The third program, ?Case Studies and Root Cause Analysis of Adverse Events,? presents cases that describe adverse events and medical errors to illustrate how to conduct a root cause analysis - an important tool for understanding and addressing adverse events in health care.

Health care professionals may download the curriculum free from the Medical Society?s website at www.massmed.org. The curriculum comes with an instructors? guide and is designed to be taught by practicing clinicians as well as experts in the patient safety field.
   

In addition to the curriculum, Sullivan cited the Medical Society?s other major developments and their progress that will add significantly to patient safety efforts, most notably in the arena of information technology with electronic prescribing and electronic medical records.

?The use of information technology and clinical decision support, such as checking for drug allergies and drug interaction, will have a huge impact on patient safety,? said Sullivan. ?The Massachusetts Medical Society is in the forefront of these innovative efforts nationally and locally. We are beginning to offer advanced electronic prescribing to our members, and we are coming ever closer to setting standards for the use of electronic medical records. Both of these activities will add immeasurably to improving patient safety and the quality of care.?

Sullivan also called attention to the Society?s collaboration with the Ford Hall Forum, presenter of the country?s oldest free public lecture series, in conducting a forum entitled ?Medical Errors and Patient Safety: Where are we now?? Featuring some the nation?s leading experts on the topic, the forum will take place Tuesday, May 11, 2004 at 6:30 p.m. at the Massachusetts Medical Society, 860 Winter Street, Waltham, in the Waltham Woods Corporate Center. The session is part of the Ford Hall Forum?s Winter/Spring 2004 Lecture and Discussion Series and is free and open to the public.

The collaborative effort with the Ford Hall Forum will be the MMS?s third symposium on patient safety this year. Last month, MMS conducted a forum in concert with the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors. That forum, attracting some 200 physicians and health care providers, focused on medication errors. And on April 26, MMS will sponsor another continuing medical education course, ?The Human Factor: the Critical Importance of Effective Communication and Teamwork in Patient Safety.?

MMS also offers on its website a wealth of other patient safety information, for patients as well as health care professionals.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, with more than 18,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the physicians and patients of Massachusetts. Founded in 1781, the MMS is the oldest continuously operating medical society in the country. The Society owns and publishes The New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal Watch family of professional newsletters, and AIDS Clinical Care, and produces HealthNews, a consumer health publication. For more information, visit www.massmed.org

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For Immediate Release November 28, 2007 (TORONTO) Pedophilia might be the result of faulty connections in the brain, as per new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study used MRIs and a sophisticated computer analysis technique to compare a group of pedophiles with a group of non-sexual criminals. The pedophiles had significantly less of a substance called white matter which is responsible for wiring the different parts of the brain together……..

Original post by Health news from medicineworld.org

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An international team of experts has published the first comprehensive review of evidence on pneumococcal conjugate vaccination (PCV) for children with HIV infection. Now available in the on-line edition of the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, the review shows that HIV increases the risk of pneumococcal infection by up to 40 fold, that the disease is commonly due to serotypes in the PCV, and that the vaccine can protect HIV-infected infants. The authors conclude that PCV can improve the lives of HIV-infected children and should be considered a potentially valuable complement to existing therapy strategies for HIV-infected children (1)…….

Original post by Health news from medicineworld.org

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Live kidney donors suffer minimal health problems and 90 per cent would strongly encourage other people to a become a donor if a partner or family member needed a transplant, as per a research studyof more than 300 people reported in the recent issue of the UK-based urology journal BJU International……..

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Scientists from the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, UK, have concluded a study that proves a direct link between levels of physical activity in middle age and physical ability during the later part of life regardless of body weight. Dr. Iain Lang headed the research team from the Epidemiology and Public Health Group at the Peninsula Medical School. The team observed that middle-aged people who maintained a reasonable level of physical activity were less likely to become unable to walk distances, climb stairs, maintain their sense of balance, stand from a seated position with their arms folded, or sustain their hand grip as they get older……..

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Eventhough a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe.an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. With these words, Charles Darwin proposed an evolutionary explanation for morality and pro-social behaviors individuals behaving for the good of their group, often at their own expensethat anticipated the future discipline of Sociobiology. A century after this famous passage was published in The Descent of Man (1871), however, Darwins explanation based on group selection had become taboo and has not recovered since. In a landmark article for The Quarterly Review of Biology, Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology, eminent evolutionary researchers David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilsonwhose book Sociobiology:The New Synthesis brought widespread attention to the field in 1975call for an end to forty years of confusion and divergent theories. They propose a new consensus and theoretical foundation that affirms Darwins original conjecture and is supported by the latest biological findings……..

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