New breakthrough research shows that a simple blood test can flag symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease up to 15 years in advance.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 405
Surgically removing tumors from sensitive areas, such as the head and neck, poses significant challenges. The goal during surgery is to take out the cancerous tissue while saving as much healthy tissue as possible. This balance is crucial because leaving behind too much cancerous tissue can lead to the cancer’s return or spread. Doing a resection that has precise margins—specifically, a 5mm margin of healthy tissue—is essential but difficult. This margin, roughly the size of a pencil eraser, ensures that all cancerous cells are removed while minimizing damage. Tumors often have clear horizontal edges but unclear vertical boundaries, making depth assessment challenging despite careful pre-surgical planning. Surgeons can mark the horizontal borders but have limited ability to determine the appropriate depth for removal due to the inability to see beyond the surface. Additionally, surgeons face obstacles like fatigue and visual limitations, which can affect their performance. Now, a new robotic system has been designed to perform tumor removal from the tongue with precision levels that could match or surpass those of human surgeons.
The Autonomous System for Tumor Resection (ASTR) designed by researchers at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, MD, USA) translates human guidance into robotic precision. This system builds upon the technology from their Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR), which previously conducted the first fully autonomous laparoscopic surgery to connect the two intestinal ends. ASTR, an advanced dual-arm, vision-guided robotic system, is specifically designed for tissue removal in contrast to STAR’s focus on tissue connection. In tests using pig tongue tissue, the team demonstrated ASTR’s ability to accurately remove a tumor and the required 5mm of surrounding healthy tissue. After focusing on tongue tumors due to their accessibility and relevance to experimental surgery, the team now plans to extend ASTR’s application to internal organs like the kidney, which are more challenging to access.
Researchers at UCL and UCLH have successfully completed the first trial of a therapy designed to restore hearing loss. The REGAIN trial, the results of which were published in Nature Communications, was the first study of a treatment aimed at restoring lost hearing, focusing on a drug with the technical name gamma-secretase inhibitor LY3056480.
The researchers found that while the therapy did not restore hearing across the group of adults with mild to moderate hearing loss, a deeper analysis of the data showed changes in various hearing tests in some patients, suggesting the drug has some activity in the inner ear.
These so-called efficacy signals call for further development of LY3056480—using the learnings from this trial.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240320/Study-highlights-…idism.aspx Frontiers
In a recent study published in Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers explored the association between the microbial community of the gut and hypothyroidism.
Study: Cross-talk between the gut microbiota and hypothyroidism: a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization study. Image Credit: sdecoret/Shutterstock.com.
Background
Hypothyroidism is a hormonal imbalance characterized by diminished thyroid gland activity and insufficient thyroid hormone synthesis, which can lead to heart disease, infertility, and poor brain development in children.
New research presented early ahead of this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, 27–30 April) from a team of researchers in the Netherlands shows how the latest CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology can be used to eliminate all traces of the HIV virus from infected cells in the laboratory, raising hopes of a cure.
With the rise in gestational diabetes and metabolic disorders during pregnancy, metformin is also being prescribed more frequently. Although it is known that the oral antidiabetic agent can cross the placental barrier, the impacts on the brain development of the child are largely unknown. An interdisciplinary research team from the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE) have now been able to demonstrate in a mouse model that although metformin has positive effects in pregnant animals, it does not in the offspring. The results were published in the specialist journal Molecular Metabolism.
Current figures show that around one in six pregnant women worldwide are affected by a special form of diabetes known as gestational diabetes. According to the Robert Koch Institute, 63,000 women in Germany were affected by the disease in 2021, and the trend is increasing.
These numbers are alarming because excessively high blood sugar levels during pregnancy are associated with negative consequences for mother and child. This increases the risk of affected women developing type 2 diabetes later on and their children have a higher risk of developing metabolic disorders and being overweight.
Compared to healthy volunteers, affected U.S. government personnel did not exhibit MRI-detectable brain injury or biological abnormalities that would explain symptoms.
Using advanced imaging techniques and in-depth clinical assessments, a research team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found no significant evidence of MRI-detectable brain injury, nor differences in most clinical measures compared to controls, among a group of federal employees who experienced anomalous health incidents (AHIs).
These incidents, including hearing noise and experiencing head pressure followed by headache, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, and other symptoms, have been described in the news media as “Havana Syndrome” since U.S. government personnel stationed in Havana first reported the incidents. Scientists at the NIH Clinical Center conducted the research over the course of nearly five years and published their findings on March 18 in two papers in JAMA.
Google Research releases the Skin Condition Image Network (SCIN) dataset in collaboration with physicians at Stanford Med.
Designed to reflect the broad range of conditions searched for online, it’s freely available as a resource for researchers, educators, & devs → https://goo.gle/4amfMwW
#AI #medicine
Health datasets play a crucial role in research and medical education, but it can be challenging to create a dataset that represents the real world. For example, dermatology conditions are diverse in their appearance and severity and manifest differently across skin tones. Yet, existing dermatology image datasets often lack representation of everyday conditions (like rashes, allergies and infections) and skew towards lighter skin tones. Furthermore, race and ethnicity information is frequently missing, hindering our ability to assess disparities or create solutions.
To address these limitations, we are releasing the Skin Condition Image Network (SCIN) dataset in collaboration with physicians at Stanford Medicine. We designed SCIN to reflect the broad range of concerns that people search for online, supplementing the types of conditions typically found in clinical datasets. It contains images across various skin tones and body parts, helping to ensure that future AI tools work effectively for all. We’ve made the SCIN dataset freely available as an open-access resource for researchers, educators, and developers, and have taken careful steps to protect contributor privacy.
Essential tremor is a movement disorder that causes involuntary, rhythmic shaking (tremor), especially in the hands. It is distinguished from tremor that results from other disorders or known causes, such as Parkinson’s disease or head trauma. Essential tremor usually occurs alone, without other neurological signs or symptoms. However, some experts think that essential tremor can include additional features, such as mild balance problems.
Essential tremor usually occurs with movements and can occur during many different types of activities, such as eating, drinking, or writing. Essential tremor can also occur when the muscles are opposing gravity, such as when the hands are extended. It is usually not evident at rest.
In addition to the hands and arms, muscles of the trunk, face, head, and neck may also exhibit tremor in this disorder; the legs and feet are less often involved. Head tremor may appear as a “yes-yes” or “no-no” movement while the affected individual is seated or standing. In some people with essential tremor, the tremor may affect the voice (vocal tremor).
