http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (HealthDay)—Compared to clinical diagnosis of synovitis, ultrasound-detected synovitis provides either improved sensitivity or specificity when used with the American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism (ACR/EULAR) criteria for identifying patients with a disease requiring methotrexate (MTX) treatment, according to research published in the April issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-ultrasound-classification-ra.html Arthritis & Rheumatism Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:01 EST news287860933 New data from two clinical trials presented today at the International Liver Congress 2013 demonstrate substantial improvements in the detection of both hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CC) using diagnostic urine tests. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-screening-liver-cancer.html Cancer Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:03:08 EST news286164174 Young athletes who specialize in one sport and train intensively have a significantly higher risk of stress fractures and other severe overuse injuries, even when compared with other injured athletes, according to the largest clinical study of its kind. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-intense-specialized-young-athletes-linked.html Health Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:28:34 EST news285596902 Neuroscientists from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the University of Toronto have developed an efficient and reliable method of analyzing brain activity to detect autism in children. Their findings appear today in the online journal PLOS ONE. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-autism-brain.html Autism spectrum disorders Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:00:04 EST news285436064 An Australia-led study has identified a gene associated with a common form of epilepsy which could lead to earlier diagnosis, a researcher said Tuesday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-australia-led-epilepsy-breakthrough.html Genetics Tue, 02 Apr 2013 04:52:39 EST news284097130 Research published Online First in The Lancet provides new evidence that a substantial proportion of individuals with a clinical diagnosis of Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) inherit a combination of small-effect changes in several genes (polygenic) rather than a large-effect mutation in a single gene (monogenic). These findings have implications for the majority of national guidelines on family screening for FH, that advocate testing relatives of all individuals with a clinical diagnosis of FH, including those of the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-effectiveness-genetic-strategy-inherited-high.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:30:01 EST news280685172 A pair of commentaries to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy highlight a debate within the public health community surrounding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for treatment of exposed individuals during last year's fungal meningitis outbreak. Manuscripts of the commentaries were published ahead of print today on the journal's webpage. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-scientists-debate-cdc-meningitis-outbreak.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:10:01 EST news279298626 Researchers using sophisticated genetic testing techniques have identified a promising new biomarker for diagnosis of glioma—the most common type of malignant brain tumor, reports the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-biomarker-gliomas.html Cancer Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:01:20 EST news277563674 The presence of pain when travelling over speed bumps is associated with an increased likelihood of acute appendicitis, among patients coming into hospital with abdominal pain, finds a study in the BMJ Christmas issue and published online today. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-appendicitis.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:30:03 EST news274987075 (Medical Xpress)—Using multiple forms of media at the same time – such as playing a computer game while watching TV – is linked to symptoms of anxiety and depression, scientists have found for the first time. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-multiple-media-tied-depression-anxiety.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:05:34 EST news273845122 (Medical Xpress)—A software tool called PredictAD developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland promises to enable earlier diagnosis of the disease on the basis of patient measurements and large databases. Alzheimer's disease currently takes on average 20 months to diagnose in Europe. VTT has shown that the new method could allow as many as half of patients to get a diagnosis approximately a year earlier. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-method-diagnosis-early-alzheimer-disease.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 04 Dec 2012 07:02:28 EST news273826932 (Medical Xpress)—Psychological factors can have as much—or more—impact on pediatric chest pain as physical ones, a University of Georgia study found recently. UGA psychologists discovered pediatric patients diagnosed with noncardiac chest pain have higher levels of anxiety and depression than patients diagnosed with innocent heart murmurs–the noise of normal turbulent blood flow in a structurally normal heart. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-anxiety-linked-chest-pain-children.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:32:04 EST news272316716 Scientists have combined and translated two kinds of brain wave recordings into music, transforming one recording (EEG) to create the pitch and duration of a note, and the other (fMRI) to control the intensity of the music. The research, published November 14 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Jing Lu and colleagues from the University of Electronic Science and Technology, China, reveals an improved method to reflect the physiological processes of the scale-free brain in music. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-remixed-brain-reveal-soundtrack-human.html Neuroscience Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:10:06 EST news272130506 Research findings confirming that de novo mutations represent a major cause of previously unexplained intellectual disability were presented on Nov. 8 at the American Society of Human Genetics 2012 meeting in San Francisco. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-exome-sequencing-potential-diagnostic-assay.html Genetics Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:30:03 EST news271583263 Monozygotic twins have the same genome, that is, the same DNA molecule in both siblings. Despite being genetically identical, both twins may have different diseases at different times. This phenomenon is called "twin discordance". But how can people who have the same genetic sequence present different pathologies and at different ages? The explanation partly lies in the fact that the chemical signals added in the DNA to "switch off" or "switch on" genes can be different. These signals are known as epigenetic marks. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-epigenetic-difference-twins-breast-cancer.html Cancer Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:39:27 EST news269689161 The randomised trial, which is the first ever study evaluating the effect of type 2 diabetes screening programmes on overall mortality rates in a population, assessed the number of deaths over ten years in a group of more than 20 000 patients across 32 general practices in Eastern England. The patients were all aged between 40 and 69 years, and were assessed as being at high risk of diabetes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-diabetes-screening-reduction-mortality.html Diabetes Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:30:01 EST news268504830 (HealthDay) -- Aspirin is still the first line of therapy for patients with unstable angina or non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), and ticagrelor can be used in place of clopidogrel or prasugrel instead of aspirin or as a second antiplatelet agent, according to a report from the American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF)/American Heart Association (AHA) published online July 16 in Circulation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-aspirin-first-line-therapy-unstable-anginanstemi.html Cardiology Tue, 17 Jul 2012 03:31:44 EST news261714695 When a person is sick, there is a tell-tale sign in their blood: a different mix of the various types of immune cells called leukocytes. A group of scientists at several institutions including Brown University has discovered a way to determine that mix from the DNA in archival or fresh blood samples, potentially providing a practical new technology not only for medical research but also for clinical diagnosis and treatment monitoring of ailments including some cancers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-technique-disease-immune-cell-dna.html Medical research Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:58:21 EST news261057419 BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) today announced that they have jointly initiated the 1,000 Rare Diseases Project with the aim of accelerating the discovery of genetic variants underlying rare diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-bgi-children-hospital-philadelphia-rare.html Genetics Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:20:08 EST news259233597 On September 12, 2011, a Springfield, Virginia man arrived at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital (MGUH) in the early stages of liver failure. The man had mistakenly eaten poisonous mushrooms, handpicked from his yard. He would be the first of four patients in the course of two weeks to seek treatment at MGUH for mushroom (amanitin) poisoning. Their clinical course, management, and outcomes were presented today at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) in San Diego, the largest international gathering of physicians and researchers in the field of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-acute-mushroom-poisonings-weeks.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Sun, 20 May 2012 11:00:01 EST news256713648 Blood and urine markers can indicate which patients with an abrupt kidney injury following heart surgery will experience progressive kidney problems, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). Testing for these markers soon after surgery could help doctors protect the health of patients' kidneys. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-markers-kidney-problems-heart-surgery.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:28:15 EST news249845255 A new study by researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus and Pace University is critical of the widespread use of computerized neuropsychological tests (CNT) in decisions regarding when athletes can return to play after suffering a concussion. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-flags-over-reliance-return-to-plan-decisions-concussion.html Neuroscience Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:50:01 EST news247375905 A new diagnosis technique developed by researchers at the RIKEN Omics Science Center (OSC) has succeeded in detecting influenza virus infection in only 40 minutes and with one hundred times the sensitivity of conventional methods. Clinical research conducted in 2009 and 2010 confirms the new technique accurately identified the 2009 pandemic (pdm) influenza virus in Japanese patients less than 24 hours after fever onset, much faster than standard diagnostic tests. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-clinical-technique-standard-pandemic-infection.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:00:13 EST news246710709 In a study conducted at 12 university-based research sites, there was wide variation in how best-estimate clinical diagnoses within the autism spectrum were assigned to individual children, according to a study being published Online First by the Archives of General Psychiatry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-wide-variation-best-estimate-clinical-diagnosis.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:33:16 EST news239905986 Geneticists at Emory University School of Medicine have demonstrated a method that enables the routine amplification of all the genes on the X chromosome. The technology allows the rapid and highly accurate sequencing and identification of novel genetic variants affecting X chromosome genes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-technology-genetic-disorders-linked-chromosome.html Genetics Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:26:11 EST news238152358 The changing tide of Alzheimer's diagnosis presents new challenges to the public, physicians and lawmakers: if you could find out your Alzheimer's risk, would you want to know? How should doctors tell you your risk? And what does it mean for the many newly diagnosed Americans still in the workplace? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-safeguards-discrimination-early-alzheimer-patients.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:41:35 EST news235327271