Skin Cancer & You

In a case believed to be a United States first, the radiology team at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital has used prenatal magnetic resonance imaging to detect an often-misdiagnosed genetic disease. The disorder, congenital chloride diarrhea, can cause severe dehydration and serious metabolic disturbances in newborns if not treated quickly. "This is a disease where early diagnosis is the key to a good outcome," said Richard Barth, MD, the physician who recognized the unusual case...

ZymoGenetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZGEN), today announced the presentation of safety and immunogenicity data among pediatric burn patients at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Burn Association in Boston, MA. The study marks the first dedicated look at the safety and immunogenicity of any stand-alone thrombin in pediatric surgical patients. The investigators concluded that RECOTHROM did not appear to be associated with any treatment-related adverse events when used as an aid to hemostasis in pediatric patients undergoing synchronous burn wound excision and skin grafting...

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is urging residents across the country to contact their local elected officials and members of the media to draw attention to the problem of the nation's uninsured during "Cover the Uninsured Week," March 14-20. APTA is a supporting organization of the observance, designed to raise awareness of the plight of 46 million uninsured Americans, including 9 million children, and the effect it is having on the country's health care system...

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin empire plans to use its newly acquired network of polyclinics to co-ordinate GP services across the country, Pulse can reveal. Virgin Healthcare told Pulse its acquisition of Assura Medical Ltd last week had given it control of 15 'GP-led health centres' and a total of 30 GP companies - believed to make it the biggest private provider of GP services in the country...

Scientists in the US who undertook a large study to investigate what biological mechanisms might be behind the already established link between colorectal cancer and consumption of red and processed meat, confirmed that such a link exists and suggested the main players are three compounds: heme iron, nitrate/nitrite, and heterocyclic amines. You can read a paper on the research behind these findings in the published online first 9 March issue of Cancer Research...

Alison Walker, MD, has been selected to receive the ASH-AMFDP Award, and will begin her research in acute myeloid leukemia in July of this year. The award, designed to help increase the number of underrepresented minority scholars in the field of hematology, is the result of a partnership between the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program (AMFDP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It provides four years of support, including an annual stipend of up to $75,000 and an annual grant of $30,000 to support research activities...

Helping a man to stop smoking after 43 years and supporting a woman to quit cigarettes following 15 previous relapses are just two examples where a local pharmacy made the difference of a life time. This No Smoking Day on Wednesday 10 March the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) is advising the public to make a trip to their community pharmacy as the first step towards quitting for good. Every year thousands of people across the UK give up smoking on the national day and this year's campaign theme, Break free, we can help, has come from smokers themselves...

On March 16, 2010, an anticipated 1,000 advocates will band together for lupus in person and virtually by phone, email, and through social media networks, to share their personal stories with Members of Congress during the Lupus Foundation of America's, (LFA) Twelfth Annual Advocacy Day. Advocates' personal stories will demonstrate how the gaps in lupus research and understanding have a profound effect on the estimated 1.5 million people in the United States who are living with the disease. It has been more than 50 years since the U.S...

Consider this T-shirt: It can monitor your heart rate and breathing, analyze your sweat and even cool you off on a hot summer's day. What about a pillow that monitors your brain waves, or a solar-powered dress that can charge your ipod or MP4 player? This is not science fiction - this is cotton in 2010. Now, the laboratory of Juan Hinestroza, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, has developed cotton threads that can conduct electric current as well as a metal wire can, yet remain light and comfortable enough to give a whole new meaning to multi-use garments...

Men who engaged in domestic violence consistently overestimated how common such behavior is, and the more they overestimated it the more they engaged in abusing their partner in the previous 90 days, according to new research conducted at the University of Washington. Those men overestimated by two to three times the actual rates of seven behaviors ranging from throwing something at a partner to rape, according Clayton Neighbors, lead author of a paper to be published in a spring issue of the journal Violence Against Women...