Scientists at Children?s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have identified a protein that is critical to the development of inflammation during lung infection in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). The identification of this protein, called interleukin-23 (IL-23), is an important finding that gives researchers a specific target for developing new therapies.
Using material similar to bathtub caulk, University of Utah engineers invented a tiny, inexpensive ?micropump? that could be used to move chemicals, blood or other samples through a card-sized medical laboratory known as a lab-on-a-chip.
Rising costs and coming demographic changes threaten the quality and future of health care in the United States and other developed countries.
That women with heart disease generally have worse outcomes than men is well known, but recent research is turning up some unusual and possibly very important new risk factors. Low testosterone levels, ?on-pump? bypass grafts, increased anxiety and under-treatment in secondary prevention may each have an independent, negative impact on women?s outcomes.
Cholesterol lowering ‘statin’ drugs are cost effective in far more people than current guidelines recommend and should be considered for a wider range of people, say researchers in a study published online by the BMJ today.
Genetic factors are poised to take a leading role in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Researchers are taking cardiac devices already in the operating room and using them in radically different applications as extracorporeal life support systems in cardiac arrest or traumatic hemorrhage.
A patient?s chance of survival falls 7 percent to 10 percent per minute when CPR is delayed after cardiac arrest, and post-arrest survival for out-of-hospital events is as low as 2 percent in one large Chicago hospital.
Dancing improves ability to function and quality of life among chronic heart failure patients and may be a good alternative to other aerobic exercises, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2006.
Women with systemic lupus who become pregnant are at significantly greater risk for death or other medical complications than are pregnant women without lupus, Duke University Medical Center researchers have found in a nationwide study of more than 18 million women.