21 June 2013 Last updated at 07:00 ET By Caroline Parkinson Health editor, BBC News website Patients given a clot-busting drug within six hours of a stroke are more likely to have a good quality of life 18 months afterwards, an international study suggests. However, the review of more than 3,000 patients found the drug - alteplase - offered no improvement in survival rates. The drug is increasingly being used in specialist stroke units in the UK. The Stroke Association said the Lancet Neurology research was "encouraging". The treatment is given to patients who have had an ischaemic stroke, when the brain's blood supply is interrupted by a clot. The sooner patients receive treatment the more likely they are to make a better recovery A stroke can cause permanent damage such as paralysis and speech problems, and can be fatal. Without treatment, a third of people who suffer a stroke die, with another third left permanently dependent and disabled. This international trial, led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, followed patients from 12 different countries - half had the alteplase treatment, which is given intravenously, and half did not. Link: Stroke drug 'boosts quality of life' … Continue reading →

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) June 21, 2013 It is common knowledge that a person has a better chance of recovery after a stroke if medical attention is received quickly. UCLA reported on a new, major study in which researchers showed that treatment time significantly affects the outcome of a stroke. (2) We found that treatment time has a profound influence on outcome. The sooner treatment is started, the better. Beginning treatment earlier resulted in an improved ability to walk, the ability to remain living independently, less bleeding in the brain and reduced mortality. - Dr. Jeffrey Saver, Director, UCLA Stroke Center (2) The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) said that for every 15-minute faster interval of treatment, going home was 3 percent more likely, walking at the time of discharge was 4 percent more likely, having symptoms of hemorrhaging in the brain was 4 percent less likely to occur, and death was 4 percent less likely. In other words the faster a person is treated, the more likely they are to recover, and the less likely they will die. (2) In contrast, the longer a person waits, the more likely he to suffer significant brain damage and/or death. As … Continue reading →

-- CHIMES Society, a unique international partnership of experts in strokes undertakes first large-scale endeavour to investigate the use of a treatment derived from natural substances in stroke management -- Rigorous study shows ischemic stroke patients of intermediate severity who take NeuroAiD at acute stage had an 11 % increase in the odds of achieving independence and being able to perform daily activities at the end of three months -- Effect was even greater when NeuroAiD was started beyond 48 hours after stroke onset, with an increase of 39%. SINGAPORE, June 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --NeuroAiD, a stroke treatment based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, increases the odds of achieving a better functional outcome, according to research published online in the journal Stroke. The CHIMES study is an academic international double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial which included 1100 patients from several countries who had suffered an ischemic stroke of intermediate severity within 72 hours, treated and monitored for 3 months. Researchers found that patients who were taking NeuroAiD at acute stage had an 11% increase in the odds of achieving independence in function and being able to perform daily activities at the end of three months. This effect was even greater when NeuroAiD … Continue reading →

London, June 21 (ANI): Researchers believe that most of the variant genes responsible for deafness will be identified over the next decade and such knowledge will lead to the development of practical treatments. At least half of all cases of deafness that develop from birth through infancy in developed countries have a genetic basis, as do many cases of later onset progressive hearing loss. To date, at least 1,000 mutations occurring in 64 genes in the human genome have been linked to hearing loss. A new article has revealed that next-generation DNA sequencing technologies are enabling the identification of these deafness-causing genetic variants. In "Next-Generation Sequencing in Genetic Hearing Loss," Denise Yan and Xue Zhong Liu, University of Miami (Florida), and Mustafa Tekin and Susan Blanton, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, review the advances in high-throughput, massively parallel DNA sequencing that amplify and repeatedly sequence only specific regions of the human genome in which genes linked to deafness are likely to be found. This strategy, known as "targeted resequencing," allows researchers to find disease-related gene mutations much more quickly than searching through the entire genome. To date at least 1,000 DNA variants at more than 130 sites in … Continue reading →

Editor's Choice Academic Journal Main Category: Hearing / Deafness Also Included In: Genetics Article Date: 21 Jun 2013 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for: Deafness - Identifying All Genetic Causes Within Reach 5 (1 votes) According to WHO (World Health Organization), more than 360 million people worldwide live with disabling hearing loss. So far, geneticists have identified 1,000 mutations in 64 genes in the human genome that have been associated with deafness. The authors explained that next-generation DNA sequencing technologies are accelerating the identification of genetic variants that cause deafness. In this latest report - "Next Generation Sequencing in Genetic Hearing Loss" - Susan Blanton, Mustafa Tekin, Xue Zhong Liu and Denise Yan gathered and examined data on the advances in high-throughput, massively parallel DNA sequencing that amplify and repeatedly sequence only certain regions of the human genome where genes associated with hearing loss are probably located. This strategy is called "targeted resequencing". Scientists are able to locate disease-related gene mutations much faster than searching through the whole genome. So far, over 1,000 DNA variants at over 130 sites in the human genome that have been identified to cause hearing loss and are not linked to any other symptoms or … Continue reading →

R3 Video upload http://r3stemcell.com R3 Stem Cell Clinics offer stem cell injection treatments, such as platelet rich plasma therapy, bone marrow derived stem cells and amn... By: USPainNetwork … Continue reading →

Public release date: 21-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Cara Lasala cara.lasala@cshs.org 310-423-7798 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center LOS ANGELES (June 21, 2013) Corneal blindness affects roughly 8 million people worldwide, and traditional treatments and surgical interventions have seen little long-term success. With a new vision for stem cell corneal transplantation, and a $1.25 million grant from the National Eye Institute, Cedars-Sinai co-investigators Alexander V. Ljubimov, PhD, FARVO, and Clive Svendsen, PhD, hope to treat previously untreatable patients suffering with corneal blindness. "Our proposed and first-of-a-kind research deals with collecting human eye cells, reprograming them back in time to a stem cell state and then using them to create a corneal cell source for transplantation. If successful, this could result in future human clinical trials that may lead to improved vision and overall quality of life," said Ljubimov, principal investigator of the grant and director of the Eye Program at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute. "We are first experimenting with allogeneic cells from eye donors, but hope to use person's own cells in the near future." A common cause of corneal blindness is limbal epithelial stem cell deficiency, which means that a patient's history of genetics or eye injuries results … Continue reading →