Over the past 3 decades, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, or balloon angioplasty) has significantly changed the treatment of coronary artery disease (narrowing of the arteries supplying the heart muscle). Unlike the more invasive coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, angioplasty is a nonsurgical procedure in which a tiny catheter with a balloon is inserted into the coronary artery.
Experiments on mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease suggest that treatment with male sex hormones might slow its progression. The findings, published in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, provide new insight into the relationship between testosterone loss and AD, which affects 4.5 million Americans.
Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer today issued a timely reminder to elderly and vulnerable people to stock up on prescriptions, register for the free flu jab and wrap up warm over the festive period.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore will begin a clinical trial in January to test the first cell culture-based pandemic influenza vaccine to see if it will provide immunity faster and more reliably than a vaccine produced in eggs. The new study is also the first test in the United States of a whole virus vaccine for avian influenza, which could produce a stronger response by the immune system.
A study of settlement decisions in workers’ compensation claims for low back pain has found almost no relationship between the rating of the disability’s severity when the claim was settlement and reported pain and disability 21 months later.
Whether reopening narrowed kidney arteries benefits patients is a $1.7 billion question a North American study hopes to answer.
Viewing prior mammograms in association with current mammograms significantly improves radiologist performance and may decrease unnecessary recalls by up to 44 percent, according to a study in the January issue of Radiology.
People with low levels of LDL cholesterol are more likely to have Parkinson’s disease than people with high LDL levels, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers.
While the benefits of regular physical activity are well documented, public health officials struggle for methods to promote increased physical activity that will work in American society. In a study published in the January 2007 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers examine the challenges in promoting physical activity in a society less and less inclined to walk, run or exercise.
A tiny, six-legged critter that suspends all biological activity when the going gets tough may hold answers to a better way to cryopreserve human eggs, researchers say.