“We may be able to combine statins with antiviral drugs to provide better treatment for patients seriously ill with influenza.”?

In order to assess the connection between influenza-related mortality and patients who received statins, the team analyzed adult individuals hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza from 2007 to 2008.

33% of the 3,043 patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza received statins, either before hospitalization or during. After adjusting for several factors, they discovered that individuals who did not receive the medication were nearly two times as likely to die from flu compared to patients who received statins.

According to estimates from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 5% to 20% of individuals in the U.S. are infected with influenza each year, and over 20,000 people are hospitalized for complications related to influenza. Schaffner explains that getting the flu vaccine each year is still the optimal defense against influenza.

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Statins May Lower Flu Mortality Rates

The Porter Robotics Institute (PRI) now offers the latest in advanced surgical robotics available to patients with kidney tumors, allowing surgeons the ability to remove just a portion of the kidney.

Porter Adventist Hospital is among a handful of centers in the country with advanced fluorescence imaging technology, called Firefly, and only the second in the region. St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood also recently implemented the Firefly.

“The Firefly addition, along with our second da Vinci Si surgical system, will allow our surgeons even greater precision and flexibility in treating their patients with kidney cancer,” said Dr. Mark Jones, medical director of the PRI and the most experienced robotic kidney surgeon in the Rocky Mountain region. “The rapid growth of our robotic surgery program has helped us to acquire the latest advances in robotics to better serve our patients.”

Fluorescence imaging technology, coupled with real-time, 3D visualization and fully articulated instruments used by surgeons in the da Vinci Si Surgical System®, can result in a higher quality of life and documented long-term survival benefits for patients with kidney cancer.

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New Robotic-Assisted Technology Transforms Treatment Of Kidney Tumors

Scientists have discovered a missing link between the body’s biological clock and sugar metabolism system, a finding that may help avoid the serious side effects of drugs used for treating asthma, allergies and arthritis. In a paper published last week in Nature, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report finding that proteins that control the body’s biological rhythms, known as cryptochromes, also interact with metabolic switches that are targeted by certain anti-inflammatory drugs. The finding suggests that side effects of current drugs might be avoided by considering patients’ biological rhythms when administering drugs, or by developing new drugs that target the cryptochromes. “We knew that our sleep and wake cycle are tied to when our bodies process nutrients, but how this happened at the genetic and molecular level was a complete mystery,” says Ronald M. Evans, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, who led the research team. “Now we’ve found the link between these two important systems, which could serve as a model for how other cellular processes are linked and could hold promise for better therapies.” Linking Metabolic Disease to the Circadian Clock Image: Courtesy of Salk Institute for Biological Studies Glucocorticoids are steroid hormones that occur naturally in the body and help

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Discovery May Lead To Safer Treatments For Asthma, Allergies And Arthritis

According to an investigation being published Online First by the Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, in Asia, the prevalence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) – an eye disease connected with aging that gradually destroys sharp, central vision – is similar among individuals from India, China and Malay. Chui Ming Gemmy Cheung, F.R.C.Ophth, of the Singapore National Eye Centre, and colleagues carried out a population-based investigation of individuals of Indian, Chinese and Malay ethnicities in order to determine the prevalence of AMD as well as risk factors for the condition among the three Asian groups. 3,172 individuals were enrolled to participate in the study. They underwent comprehensive systemic and ocular analysis, laboratory examinations as well as retinal photography.

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AMD Prevalence In India, China and Malaysia Similar

A trial evaluating the intravenous infusion of salbutamol in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) was stopped after patients receiving the drug had increased mortality and showed no improvement in outcomes. According to the findings of the BALTI-2 study reported online in an article published Online First in The Lancet, the authors Professor Fang Gao Smith and Professor Gavin D Perkins from the University of Warwick in the UK and their team stated that routine treatment of ARDS using this class of drug (?-2 agonists) cannot be recommended.

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Trial With Salbutamol For Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Stopped – Mortality Rose, Outcomes No Better

A 41-year-old woman with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia received a bone marrow transplant and subsequent leukocyte infusion from her sister to control her leukemia, however seven years on, both sisters developed follicular lymphoma. Cases whereby donors pass on a malignancy to their recipients are well documented and usually of minimal risk to those in the transplant community, however this case presented scientists with the opportunity to study genetic abnormalities, which led to follicular lymphoma in both cases. Following standard chemotherapy, both sisters are currently in remission.

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How Lymphoma Evolves – A Study Of Two Sisters

Persistent or recurring chronic pain in children may result in missing school and withdrawing from social activities. They are also at risk of developing personalized symptoms like anxiety. A group of researchers has established that more children currently suffer from chronic pain and that chronic pain is more prevalent in girls than boys. The findings are the results of the first comprehensive review of chronic pain in children and adolescents in two decades.

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Prevalence Of Chronic Pain In Children And Teenagers Growing

THIN LLC has been warned, along with eight surgical centers in California, to stop misleading people in their advertising about the Lap-Band, a medical device approved by the FDA to help obese adults lose weight. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accused the advertisers of omitting important negative data on the Lap-Band, such as contraindications, warnings, precautions, and potential side-effects.
The following have been sent warning letters by the FDA:

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Stop Misbranding Lap-Band In Your Advertising, FDA Warns Companies

A report published by The American Psychological Association shows that mothers who maintain their jobs while their children are in infancy and pre-school years are happier and healthier than their more traditional stay at home peers.

Analyzing data starting in 1991 and spanning more than a decade, from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, lead author Cheryl Buehler, PhD, professor of human development and family studies, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro clarified that :

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Working Moms Are Happier And Healthier

According to a study published in the December issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, individuals who suffer with Parkinson disease-related dementia seem to have increased brain atrophy in the parietal, hippocampal, temporal lobes, as well as decreased prefrontal cortex volume than individuals with Parkinson disease without dementia.”Patients with Parkinson disease (PD) are at an increased risk of developing dementia (PDD), with cumulative prevalence rates of up to 80 percent.

Approximately 25 percent of non-demented PD patients meet neuropsychological criteria for mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI), which converts to PDD in many cases, and even mild cognitive deficits in PD are associated with functional impairments and worse quality of life.”

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Parkinsons’ – Brain Volume Decrease And Cognitive Decline Linked