Tag Archives: society

Pneumococcal vaccine reduces antibiotic-resistant infections in children by 62 percent

The 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), first available in 2010 (replacing 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, PCV7), reduced the incidence of antibiotic-resistant invasive pneumococcal disease by 62 percent from 2009 to 2013 among children under five years old. The study is the first report of the effectiveness of PCV13 to combat antibiotic-resistant infections, a vaccination recommended for children under five years old. …

Hormone loss could be involved in colon cancer

The researchers at Thomas Jefferson University examined colon cancer samples from 281 patients and compared those tissues to nearby colon tissue that wasn’t cancerous. They found that guanylin production — measured by number of messenger RNAs for guanylin contained in each cell — decreased 100 to 1,000 times in more than 85 percent of colon cancers tested. They verified their results by also staining for the guanylin hormone production in slices of the tissue samples. …

Potential link between breast cancer genes, salivary gland cancer

Although salivary gland cancer is rare, this retrospective study suggests it occurs 17 times more often in people with inherited mutations in genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, than those in the general population. “Further study is needed to confirm this preliminary result, but I believe that a BRCA-positive patient with a lump in a salivary gland should have that lesion evaluated as soon as possible,” says co-author Theodoros Teknos, MD, professor and chair of otolaryngology, director of head and neck oncologic surgery, and the David E. Schuller, MD, and Carole H. Schuller Chair in Otolaryngology at the OSUCCC — James. …

Help explain ‘chemo brain’ through snail research

In an effort to solve this mystery, neuroscientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) conducted an experiment in an animal memory model and their results point to a possible explanation. Findings appeared in The Journal of Neuroscience. In the study involving a sea snail that shares many of the same memory mechanisms as humans and a drug used to treat a variety of cancers, the scientists identified memory mechanisms blocked by the drug. Then, they were able to counteract or unblock the mechanisms by administering another agent. …

New discovery in the microbiology of serious human disease

The scientists at the University’s Centre for Biomolecular Sciences have shed new light on how two proteins found on many human cells are targeted by the human pathogen Neisseria meningitidis which can cause life-threatening meningitis and septicaemia. The proteins, laminin receptor (LAMR1) and galectin-3 (Gal-3) are found in and on the surface of many human cells. Previous research has shown they play diverse roles in a variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases. For example, the LAMR1 is a key receptor targeted by disease-causing pathogens and their toxins and is also a receptor for the spread of cancer around the body and for the development of Alzheimer’s. …

‘Stealth’ nanoparticles could improve cancer vaccines

Hiroshi Shiku, Naozumi Harada and colleagues explain that most cancer vaccine candidates are designed to flag down immune cells, called macrophages and dendritic cells, that signal “killer” T cells to attack tumors. The problem is that approaches based on targeting these generally circulatingimmune cells have not been very successful. But recent research has suggested that a subset of macrophages only found deep inside lymph nodes could play a major role in slowing cancer. But how could one get a vaccine to these special immune cells without first being gobbled up by the macrophages and dendritic cells circulating in the body…

‘Virtual breast’ could improve cancer detection — ScienceDaily

That results in lots of needless worry for women and their families — not to mention the time, discomfort and expense of additional tests, including ultrasounds and biopsies. Recently, a different type of test, ultrasound elastography, has been used to pinpoint possible tumors throughout the body, including in the breast. “It uses imaging to measure the stiffness of tissue, and cancer tissues are stiff,” says Jingfeng Jiang, a biomedical engineer at Michigan Technological University…