news 2013

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have identified molecules in the blood that could help predict the risk of a patient developing liver injury eight hours after a paracetamol overdose. Paracetamol overdose is one of the most frequent cases of hospital admissions, accounting for approximately 90,000 hospital attendances per year in the UK and almost 47,000 bed days in England alone.

Based on a news release by Cancer Research UK A less invasive 'virtual colonoscopy' using CT scans is more effective for investigating patients with possible bowel cancer than the traditional X-ray test, according to a new study. The researchers say CT colonography (CTC) should now be considered alongside the 'gold standard' of colonoscopy.

Hospital performance on two Medicare quality measures are not strongly related, and are likely to reflect very different aspects of their clinical care, according to results published by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the Feb. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Facebook and other social networking technologies could serve as effective tools for preventing HIV infection among at-risk groups, new UCLA research suggests. In a study published in the February issue of the peer-reviewed journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, researchers found that African American and Latino men who have sex with men voluntarily used health-related Facebook groups, which were created by the study's investigators, to discuss such things as HIV knowledge, stigma and prevention and ultimately to request at-home HIV testing kits.

Australians decided not to gamble away last year's carbon tax compensation payments and hoarded them instead, a University of Melbourne study has found.

New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that men who take vitamin C supplements regularly run a higher risk of developing kidney stones. The study, which is published in the scientific periodical JAMA Internal Medicine, did not however observe an increased risk between kidney stones and multivitamins - which contain lower concentrations of vitamin C. The research is based on data from a large population-based study of men from Västmanland and Örebro counties, who were monitored for 11 years.

The introduction of smoke-free legislation in England was immediately followed by a fall in the number of children admitted to hospital with asthma symptoms, a new study has found. NHS statistics analysed by researchers at Imperial College London show a 12.3 per cent fall in admissions for childhood asthma in the first year after the law on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces came into effect in July 2007.

The research by the University's Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) shows the towns of Slough and Luton and the city of Leicester are now 'plural'. Birmingham could join them in the next seven years. The team, who also find that 23 of London's 33 boroughs are plural, say towns and cities labelled by politicians as 'segregated' are in reality the most diverse.

The results of a pioneering UK-wide clinical trial that compared treatments for patients with a common type of kidney disease has found one to be significantly more effective. The results of the study, published online in The Lancet today [9 Jan], will be recommended to clinicians worldwide as the most effective approach to treating the condition.

A major new report on joint commissioning in health and social care has found the perceived benefits of collaborative working, such as efficiency savings and improvements to services, often lagged behind the reality. The study, carried out by professors at the University of Birmingham for the National Institute of Health Research, warns that new financial pressures will make joint commissioning and joint working even harder in the future.

Roughly half of all black and Hispanic patients who enter publicly funded alcohol treatment programs do not complete treatment, compared to 62 percent of white patients, according to a new study from a team of researchers including the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Comparable disparities were also identified for drug treatment program completion rates.