An implantable pump can help heart-failure patients live and recover strength while they wait for a transplant. But an evaluation concludes that the UK’s National Health Service should continue to restrict the technology’s use — at least for now.
60 percent of Scottish doctors’ surgeries prescribe homeopathic remedies according to a study of nearly two million patients. Homeopathic prescribing is most prevalent among babies under 12 months and older people aged 81-90. The authors have called for a critical review of prescribing. The paper is published as leading UK scientific institutions voice concerns about changes to homeopathic labelling rules that came in in September 2006.
Researchers have demonstrated HIV replication within resident immune cells of the testis, providing an explanation for the persistence of virus in semen even after effective highly active antiretroviral therapy. The related report by Roulet et al., “Susceptibility of human testis to human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection in situ and in vitro,” appears in the December issue of the American Journal of Pathology.
Ultrasound-guided central venous catheterisation is easier, quicker and safer than the traditional method using landmarks, and should be the method of choice when treating critical care patients. In an article published today in the journal Critical Care, researchers report the results of a prospective randomised controlled trial comparing the use of ultrasound to guide catheterisation to the traditional method using physical landmarks. The researchers report a success rate of 100% for ultrasound-guided catheterisation of the internal jugular vein. They show that the method is less likely to result in blood stream infections or complications, such as puncture of an artery, than the normal catheterisation procedure.
In the third quarter, 96 people – 81 men and 15 women – tested HIV positive, bringing the cumulative number of infections to 3,100, the Centre for Health Protection says.
South Korea’s farm ministry said on Thursday it had discovered a suspected case of bird flu at a poultry farm in the southwest of the country, which could be the country’s first outbreak in about three years.
Recreating growth conditions in flea carriers and mammal hosts, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists have uncovered 176 proteins and likely proteins in the plague-bacterium Yersinia pestis whose numbers rise and fall according to the disease’s virulence.
Some 2.9 million people have died this year from AIDS-related illnesses, and 4.3 more million were infected with HIV, according to the U.N.’s AIDS epidemic update report. The disease’s spread was most notable in East Asia, eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Chinese state media said that reported cases of HIV/AIDS increased upto 30 percent in 2006, compared to the year previous, with intravenous drug use the main source of infection. Of the reported cases, 40,667 have developed into AIDS, it said.
Data from two 24-week analyses of the RESIST-1 and RESIST-2 studies, which evaluated Aptivus? (tipranavir) in treatment-experienced HIV-1 infected patients, were published in the 15 November issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Data demonstrate that at 24-weeks Aptivus, used with ritonavir (Aptivus/r) as part of combination antiretroviral therapy, achieved superior antiviral and immunological activity in treatment-experienced patients with multidrug-resistant HIV-1 infection.