Feature Channels: Blood

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Seven-year-old Rey Ahumada should be jumping and playing outside like most other children his age. Instead, he’s fighting leukemia and “stuck in a bubble,” says his mom, an admissions clerk at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. “That word, ‘cancer,’” she adds. “We need to put an end to it.” With that as a goal, UCLA Health is presenting sponsor of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Oct. 22 “Light the Night Walk” in Los Angeles. Jassmine will be carrying a red lantern in support of Rey and other patients with blood cancers who are hoping for a cure. Individuals who wish to commemorate a loved one lost to cancer will carry yellow lanterns, while cancer survivors will carry white, signifying the power of research.

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In a laboratory study, Upstate Medical University researcher Golam Mohi, Ph.D., his graduate student Yue Yang, and colleagues, have found that the loss of gene EZH2 promotes the development of Myelofibrosis (MF) in mice. The findings create a new pathway for study into the cause of MF and provide new therapeutic targets to block the progression of this rare form of blood cancer.

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SEATTLE – (Sept. 20, 2016) – Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) has opened a new Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic at their South Lake Union campus in Seattle. The specialty clinic will serve patients with prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate (metastatic) and/or who have a family history of the disease or a family history of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, lymphoma or leukemia. These men are more likely to have an inherited and more aggressive form of prostate cancer. Knowing a patient has a particular genetic mutation helps doctors choose the best treatment plan and can open doors for innovative clinical trials.

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In the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, UNC Lineberger researchers report that nearly a third of a group of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, and who have federally-funded Medicare health insurance, did not start treatment within six months of diagnosis with any of three targeted drugs that have led to dramatic improvements in survival for the disease.

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Knock Out Sepsis" campaign launched from the Harrisburg State Capitol Rotunda for Sepsis Awareness Month.

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Boosting a protective protein to stabilize blood vessels that are weakened by malaria showed improved survival, beyond that of antimalarial drugs alone in pre-clinical research. Toronto General Research Institute (TGRI) and the Sandra Rotman Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto and University Health Network (UHN) researchers describe in Science Translational Medicine how their approach bolsters the body’s own capabilities to protect itself against cerebral malaria, rather than solely targeting the malaria parasites in the blood.

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In a groundbreaking new study led by University of Minnesota biomedical engineers, artificial blood vessels bioengineered in the lab and implanted in young lambs are capable of growth within the recipient. If confirmed in humans, these new vessel grafts would prevent the need for repeated surgeries in some children with congenital heart defects.

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In an analysis that included nearly 1,300 patients with large-vessel ischemic stroke, earlier treatment with endovascular thrombectomy (intra-arterial use of a micro-catheter or other device to remove a blood clot) plus medical therapy (use of a clot dissolving agent) compared with medical therapy alone was associated with less disability at 3 months, according to a study appearing in the September 27 issue of JAMA.

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New NCCN Guidelines for Myeloproliferative Neoplasms focus on the treatment of Myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow cancer; the new recommendations are the most comprehensive treatment guidance available to U.S. clinicians today.

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The American Thyroid Association (ATA) is proud to announce that the 2016 Van Meter Award recipient is Robin P. Peeters, MD, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine and Head of the Thyroid Laboratory at Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and Director of the Rotterdam Thyroid Center, which he founded in 2011. Dr. Peeters presents the Van Meter Award Lecture, titled “How to define optimal thyroid function?” at the ATA's 86th Annual Meeting, on Saturday, September 24, 2016, in Denver, Colorado.

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The American Thyroid Association (ATA) has announced that the recipient of the 2016 Distinguished Service Award is Gregory A. Brent, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Physiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, and Chair, Department of Medicine at VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. The ATA will present the award to Dr. Brent at its 86th Annual Meeting, September 21-25, 2016, in Denver, Colorado.

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Leading clinicians and scientists from around the globe came together to share and discuss the most recent research data to help improve the care of patients with thyroid disease at the upcoming 86th Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association (ATA), September 21-25, 2016, in Denver, Colorado. Among the many oral and poster presentations delivered at the ATA meeting that highlighted advances in clinical research are a select few described below.

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The American Thyroid Association (ATA) has announced that the recipient of the 2016 Lewis E. Braverman Lectureship Award is P. Reed Larsen, M.D., a member of the Thyroid Section, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Dr. Larsen will deliver the Lewis E. Braverman Lecture, entitled "Deiodinases, Cofactors & the Low T3 Syndrome," at the ATA's 86th Annual Meeting, September 21-25, 2016, in Denver, Colorado. The Lewis E. Braverman Lectureship Award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated excellence and passion for mentoring fellows, students and junior faculty, has a long history of productive thyroid research, and is devoted to the ATA. The award is endowed by contributions to honor Dr. Lewis E. Braverman.

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Key opinion leaders, thyroid specialists, clinical and basic researchers, and young trainees will come together for five exciting and information-filled days of symposia, scientific presentations, and discussions on the latest advances in thyroidology and clinical management of thyroid disease as members of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) gather in Denver, Colorado for the 86th Annual Meeting of the ATA. With nearly 1300 registered attendees to date, and 395 regular abstracts and 77 late breaking abstracts submitted, the meeting promises to be an outstanding educational and networking opportunity.

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University of California researchers to hold meeting in San Diego to discuss hematologic malignancies as part of the University of California Hematologic Malignancies Consortium, a first-of-its-kind research group that brings together the five UC health campuses conducting clinical studies for cancer patients.

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The size of a grain of rice, the carotid body, located between two major arteries that feed the brain with blood, has been found to control your blood pressure.

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Every year in the United States, thousands of high-risk fracture patients who have been admitted to trauma centers will suffer life-threatening blood clots related to the fracture. To reduce this risk, doctors have prescribed low molecular weight heparin. But some researchers argue that aspirin may be just as effective. A comprehensive new study will try to resolve this question.

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Intensive treatment to lower systolic (top number) blood pressure to below 120 would save more than 100,000 lives per year in the United States. Two thirds of the lives saved would be men and two thirds would be aged 75 or older.

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Leukemia survivor Michael Beltrame, a 42-year-old father of three, owes his life to a complete stranger who altruistically donated bone marrow cells for Mr. Beltrame’s successful bone marrow transplant. Mr. Beltrame met his donor for the first time during Loyola Medicine’s annual Bone Marrow Transplant Celebration.

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Several large international groups of researchers report data that more than doubles the number of sites in the human genome tied to blood pressure regulation. One of the studies, by Johns Hopkins University scientists in collaboration with many other groups, turned up unexpected hints that biochemical signals controlling blood pressure may spring from within cells that line blood vessels themselves.

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A study conducted by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) scientists shows greatly improved protective antibody responses to a new mutant vaccine antigen for prevention of disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis - also known as meningococcus - that has the potential to improve the current vaccines for meningitis.

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UW engineers have developed HemaApp, which uses a smartphone camera and other lighting sources to estimate hemoglobin concentrations and screen for anemia without sticking patients with needles.

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Squirting a simple saline solution into the nose twice a day could alleviate chronic nosebleeds just as effectively as spraying with any one of three different medications, reports a study led by Kevin Whitehead, M.D., F.A.H.A., at the University of Utah School of Medicine and published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The research highlights that there could be benefit to even the simplest of interventions.

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Two studies appearing in the September 6 issue of JAMA examine the effectiveness of nasal sprays to reduce the frequency and duration of nosebleeds caused by hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia.

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ROCHESTER, Minn. – The glucocentric focus on lowering blood sugar in Type 2 diabetes may have short-circuited development of new diabetes therapies, according to a new paper published by Mayo Clinic researchers in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

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People with blood type O get sicker from cholera than people of other blood types. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that cholera toxin activates a key molecule more strongly in people with blood type O than type A, possibly worsening symptoms.

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Using a new mouse model, researchers have found that stiffer arteries can also negatively affect memory and other critical brain processes. The findings, which may eventually reveal how arterial stiffness leads to Alzheimer’s and other diseases involving dementia, will be presented at the American Physiological Society’s Inflammation, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease conference.

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There’s yet another reason to maintain a healthy weight as we age. An international team of researchers has identified eight additional types of cancer linked to excess weight and obesity: stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, ovary, meningioma (a type of brain tumor), thyroid cancer and the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

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Thanks to a two-year, $70,000 commitment from Embrace Kids Foundation, the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center housed at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey is expanding to include a Pediatric Sickle Cell and Hemoglobinopathies Nurse Navigator position.

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A surgery for quadriplegics called tendon transfer can significantly improve hand and elbow function, but the procedure is greatly underused, according to an article in the journal Hand Clinics.

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Monroe Clinic hospitalist, Kate Kinney, is one of three medical professionals to earn the 2016 Vasculitis Foundation V-RED Award honoring her early diagnosis of a rare, autoimmune vasculitis disease. Kinney and her team's early identification of the illness allowed the patient to begin critical treatment before any further organ damage could occur.

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Researchers at The University of Manchester have unlocked the potential of a new test which could revolutionise the way doctors diagnose and monitor a common childhood Leukaemia.

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Using a unique single-molecule force measurement tool, a research team has developed a clearer understanding of how platelets sense the mechanical forces they encounter during bleeding to initiate the cascading process that leads to blood clotting.

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A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and reduced in fats and saturated fats (the DASH diet), designed decades ago to reduce high blood pressure, also appears to significantly lower uric acid, the causative agent of gout. Further, the effect was so strong in some participants that it was nearly comparable to that achieved with drugs specifically prescribed to treat gout, a new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers shows.

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If you spend hours commuting to work and sitting at your desk all day, recent studies about the health hazards of too much sitting probably have hit home. Here are some tips to incorporate movement into your work day.

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• In long-term analyses of 2 clinical trials that included patients with chronic kidney disease, a lower blood pressure target than the currently guideline-recommended goal of 140/90 mm Hg was safe and associated with protection against premature death

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The risk of sports fans catching dengue fever during the Rio Olympics is very low, according to a new study involving mathematicians at the University of Strathclyde.

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Whether severe trauma occurs on the battlefield or the highway, saving lives often comes down to stopping the bleeding as quickly as possible. Many methods for controlling external bleeding exist, but at this point, only surgery can halt blood loss inside the body from injury to internal organs. Now, researchers have developed nanoparticles that congregate wherever injury occurs in the body to help it form blood clots, and they’ve validated these particles in test tubes and in vivo.

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The new testing method is a significant improvement for patients because it utilizes a simple blood sample, eliminating the need for a much more invasive lung biopsy that was previously required to test for the genetic mutation.

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Warfarin prescribed to prevent strokes in atrial fibrillation may not adequately control blood clotting over the long-term, even when patients have been historically stable on the drug, according to a study from the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

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On January 24, 2013, Iris Vega-Figueroa’s life changed completely.That’s the day she gave birth to her twin girls, Iris and Geraldine.

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Eliminating racial disparities in the outcomes of programs to control blood pressure can be accomplished with a few one-on-one coaching sessions delivered by health professionals —but not if the program requires people to get to a clinic, according to results of a new Johns Hopkins Medicine study. The finding, described in the current issue of the Ethnicity & Disease journal, adds to mounting evidence that health and wellness programs work best when medical practitioners go out to people in their communities.

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Ortho Clinical Diagnostics will present seven scientific posters on its assays and display six products at the 2016 American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) annual meeting. Ortho’s posters will address a range of important tests, both marketed and in-development for clinical labs.

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New research by University of Iowa scientists helps explain how a hormone system often targeted to treat cardiovascular disease can also lower metabolism and promote obesity.

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Australian researchers have made a world-first breakthrough in the early detection of patients' resistance to a common treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia.

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Research into Africa's first 'screen-and-treat' programme for hepatitis B suggests the initiative may reduce deadly complications of the virus.

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A University of Colorado Cancer Center study finds that three years post bone marrow transplant, the incidence of severe chronic graft-versus-host disease was 44 percent in patients who had received transplants from matched, unrelated donors (MUD) and 8 percent in patients who had received umbilical cord blood transplants (CBT).

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Personalized Medicine Leads to Better Outcomes; Phase 1 Study Results of Selinexor Combination Therapy for Multiple Myeloma Patients; and the Latest from ASCO Sessions in the Cancer News Source

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University of Washington researchers have developed the first simulator for duplex ultrasound scanning, a type of ultrasound used to assess the health of blood vessels.