Clinical Research

Blood and bone marrow transplants have been done for decades and have always had risks of complications, like virtually any treatment for serious diseases, but a new study has found an additional one for the list: sexual health. The authors confirm chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a serious complication that occurs when donor cells attack the recipient's cells, as a potential source of sexual dysfunction and say they are the first to demonstrate an association between total body irradiation and sexual dysfunction in men. They further say that this study is one of the longest and is…

A new paper has found a significant association between low dietary fiber intake and cardiometabolic risks including metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular inflammation, and obesity.  In the study, investigators used surveillance data from 23,168 subjects in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2010  to examine the role dietary fiber plays in heart health, coupled with possible sex, age, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in dietary fiber consumption. They also examined the association between dietary fiber intake and various cardiometabolic…

A new paper suggests that lifestyle advice for people with diabetes should be no different from that for the general public - but diabetes may benefit more from that same advice.  In the study, the researchers investigated whether the associations between lifestyle factors and mortality risk differ between individuals with and without diabetes. Within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), a cohort was formed of 6,384 persons with diabetes and 258,911 EPIC participants without known diabetes. Computer modelling was used to explore the relationship (in…

Discovery ‘could hold key to Alzheimer’s treatment’ New on the BBC web site today (10th October 2013).  The discovery of the first chemical to prevent the death of brain tissue in a neurodegenerative disease has been hailed as an exciting and historic moment in medical research.  In tests on mice, the University of Leicester showed all brain cell death from prion disease could be prevented.  Professor Giovanna Mallucci of the MRC Toxicology Unit at Leicester says the hope is to arrest the process of brain cell death.  This process is thought to take place in many forms…

Grey literature in medicine has some valuable insight, according to a new paper. The authors say that clinical trial outcomes are more complete in unpublished reports than in publicly available information. The results found that publicly available information contained less information about both the benefits and potential harms of an intervention than unpublished data. These findings highlight the importance of recent initiatives, such as the AllTrials initiative, that aim to make clinical trial outcome data publicly available, in order to provide complete and transparent information to…

A study to see whether narrowing of the veins from the brain to the heart could be a cause of multiple sclerosis has found that the condition is just as prevalent in people without the disease. The results call into question a controversial theory that MS is associated with a disorder proponents call chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI). The study used both ultrasound and catheter venography (an x-ray of the vein after injecting it with a dye) to examine the veins of people with MS, their unaffected siblings and unrelated healthy volunteers. Catheter venography is considered the…

A new paper details how methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) regulates the critical crosslinking of its cell wall in the face of beta-lactam antibiotics, the mechanistic basis for how the MRSA bacterium became such a difficult pathogen over the previous 50 years, in which time it spread rapidly across the world. MRSA has been a difficult hospital pathogen to control and has emerged in the broader community in the past several years, especially in such places as prisons, locker rooms and nurseries. In the United States alone, the disease infects about 100,000 people and claims…

The first Phase II study to investigate the use of the anti-cancer drug, everolimus, for the initial treatment of advanced papillary kidney cancer has shown that it is successful in slowing or preventing the spread of the disease, according to research to be presented today (Sunday) at the 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC2013) [1]. Dr Bernard Escudier, Head of the French Group of Immunotherapy and chairman of the Genitourinary tumour board at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France will say: "Our results showed that for 59% of patients who received everolimus as their first-line…

Working with cells in vitro and in mice, researchers have discovered that an antioxidant called ethoxyquin, a chemical commonly used as a dog food preservative, may prevent the kind of painful nerve damage found in the hands and feet of four out of five cancer patients taking the chemotherapy drug Taxol. Ethoxyquin is a Food and Drug Administration-approved preservative and was shown in the new experiments to bind to certain cell proteins in a way that limits their exposure to the damaging effects of Taxol, the researchers say. The hope, they say, is to build on the protective…

A multi-center study has determined that wearing back braces would prevent the need for spinal correction surgery in children with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) - early results were overwhelmingly in favor of bracing. Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis  is a curvature of the spine with no clear underlying cause. In mild cases, monitoring over time by a physician may be all that is needed. However, in more severe cases - especially when the child is still growing - the use of a brace, or even surgery, may be recommended. Left untreated, more serious curves can be painful and…