http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Johns Hopkins researchers have developed new guidelines—the first in more than 35 years—to govern the amount of blood ordered for surgical patients. The recommendations, based on a lengthy study of blood use at The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH), can potentially save the medical center more than $200,000 a year and improve patient safety, researchers say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-rewrite-obsolete-blood-ordering.html Surgery Wed, 22 May 2013 13:50:20 EST news288449413 Minimally invasive autopsies, using a combination of MRI scans and other techniques, such as blood tests, can accurately determine the cause of death in fetuses and babies nearly as well as conventional autopsies, according to new research published in The Lancet. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-mri-autopsies-alternative-conventional-techniques.html Other Wed, 15 May 2013 18:30:02 EST news287856721 When a biologic aortic valve prosthesis fails, the patient often faces a high risk valve replacement through repeat open heart surgery. A new technique, known as Valve-in-Valve, uses minimally invasive techniques to introduce a collapsible aortic heart valve into the damaged valve in order to restore function. This procedure avoids the need to open the chest or use cardiopulmonary bypass (heart-lung machine), according to Leo Ihlberg, MD, PhD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Heart and Lung Center of Helsinki University Hospital, Finland, who will be presenting the results of a new study at the 93rd AATS Annual Meeting in Minneapolis on May 6, 2013. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-minimally-invasive-biological-aortic-valve-successful.html Cardiology Mon, 06 May 2013 12:00:04 EST news287057200 According to a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, patients with Barrett's esophagus and early or pre-cancerous cells have been shown to significantly benefit from minimally invasive therapy delivered through an endoscope – a medical instrument used to look inside an organ or cavity in the body. Until recently, patients with these conditions were treated by surgery to remove the whole esophagus. Study results show that endoscope-based therapies have a high success rate; all of the damaged cells were removed in up to 95 percent of cases, greatly reducing the chances of cancer progression. Additionally, in over two-thirds of cases, patients had no biological signs of the return of disease for years. The study appears in the February issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-long-term-efficacy-minimally-invasive-therapy.html Cancer Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:09:44 EST news280591775 (Medical Xpress)—With demand for unresolved back pain relief growing as the U.S. population ages, Rush University Medical Center is doing more minimally invasive spine surgery procedures that allow patients to return to normal, day-to-day activities faster than if they undergo conventional surgery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-minimally-invasive-spine-surgery-real-time.html Surgery Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:30:01 EST news277460037 Humans and other animals learn by making mistakes. They can also learn from observing the mistakes of others. The brain processes self-generated errors in a region called the medial frontal cortex (MFC) but little is known about how it processes the observed errors of others. A Japanese research team led by Masaki Isoda and Atsushi Iriki of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has now demonstrated that the MFC is also involved in processing observed errors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-brain-monkeys.html Neuroscience Fri, 11 Jan 2013 07:13:19 EST news277110790 A study by researchers at Stanford University Medical Center has found that a popular weight-loss operation is safer and reduces hospital bills when done with minimally invasive techniques rather than open surgery, which requires a large abdominal incision. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-minimally-invasive-approach-weight-loss-surgery.html Surgery Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:00:06 EST news259249184 Researchers are increasingly aware that fat in some parts of the body is more harmful than fat in other places. To help determine how obesity works, scientists turn to animal models and now, they are able to visualize how much fat their lab rats are carrying and where they are storing it. The method will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-fat-lab-mice.html Medical research Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:35:08 EST news252761690 Until relatively recently, most colon and rectal surgeries, whether elective or unplanned, required a large abdominal incision to achieve. This would typically result in a moderate degree of postoperative discomfort, and would routinely result in an average of five to seven days in the hospital after surgery, with several additional weeks required after hospital discharge for complete recovery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-medical-minute-advances-laparoscopic-colorectal.html Surgery Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:56:07 EST news251967356 Fusion plasma researchers at the University of Warwick have teamed up with Cambridge neuroscientists to apply their expertise developed to study inaccessible fusion plasmas in order to significantly improve the understanding of the data obtained from non-invasive study of the fast dynamics of networks in the human brain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-fusion-plasma-neurologists-noise.html Neuroscience Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:00:01 EST news245414034 As a noninvasive method of determining the sex of a fetus, tests using cell-free fetal DNA obtained from the mother's blood after 7 weeks gestation performed well, while urine-based tests appear to be unreliable, according to a review and analysis of previous studies, reported in the August 10 issue of JAMA. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-dna-motherrsquos-blood-sex-fetus.html Health Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:30:01 EST news232123673 A working group of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) has issued a literature review of prospective controlled studies comparing the efficacy and safety of two minimally invasive techniques for vertebral augmentation after spine fracture: vertebroplasty (VP) and balloon kyphoplasty (BKP). The review also lists important recommendations to facilitate the comparison of future studies and highlights research questions still unresolved. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-iof-urges-systematic-osteoporosis-vertebral.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:40:05 EST news231416117 Surgery and all its implications can be scary, especially so for pediatric patients and their parents who dread sometimes disfiguring scars. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-pediatric-urologist-procedure-scarring-kidney.html Other Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:31:47 EST news228738689 Physicians at Rush University Medical Center are offering a new and effective treatment to patients suffering from complex brain aneurysms. The recently FDA-approved technology called the Pipeline Embolization Device (PED gives doctors the ability for the very first time to treat some of the most complex and dangerous brain aneurysms using minimally invasive techniques. The treatment is focused on reconstruction or remodeling of the weak blood vessel harboring the brain aneurysm. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-device-revolutionary-treatment-difficult-to-treat-brain.html Other Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:22:02 EST news226743619 (Medical Xpress) -- New research presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Urology Association (AUA) in Washington, DC demonstrates that holmium laser therapy is a safe and durable treatment option for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) - an enlargement of the prostate that affects most men as they age. The study, conducted by researchers from the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), is the longest comprehensive assessment of this technology to date, and researchers suggest it may now safely be considered the new, size independent, gold standard for treatment of BPH. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-enlarged-prostate-decade-long-long-term-benefits.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Fri, 20 May 2011 07:40:40 EST news225096008