Oncology & Hematology: Endosonography Plus Surgical Staging for NSCLC Halves Unneeded Thoracotomy

For patients with suspected non–small-cell lung cancer, adding endosonography before surgical staging improves detection of mediastinal nodal metastases, thus reducing unnecessary thoracotomies by more than half, according to a report in the Nov. 24th issue of JAMA.

In addition, because endosonography is minimally invasive, adding this step doesn’t raise the rate of complications for staging procedures, said Dr. Jouke T. Annema of Leiden (the Netherlands) University Medical Center and associates.

The researchers compared surgical staging alone to endosonography followed by surgical staging because "at present it is not known whether initial mediastinal tissue staging of lung cancer by endosonography improves the detection of nodal metastases." Failure to detect such metastases during staging results in patients undergoing thoracotomy for tumor resection, only to have the thoracotomy aborted when unresectable or metastatic lung disease is discovered.

New Tulsa crime lab to solve crime faster and teach students

TULSA - Tulsa crimes may get solved a lot quicker now that a new forensics lab is complete.

Located inside the new OSU Center for Health Sciences facility, the lab gives students and Tulsa police tools they've never had before.

The new facility is a unique partnership between the academic health center and the City of Tulsa. The building's first two floors house forensic labs and other Tulsa Police Department functions.

"The ability for us to help train interns and scientists, this truly is a very unique partnership and I think it's going to benefit the citizens of Tulsa for years to come." said Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan.

TPD's old forensic lab was outdated and out of room.

"In 1969 it was a great facility but we outgrew it. This (the new lab) was absolutely necessary for us to progress the way we wanted." said Chief Jordan.

Weights plus walking equals more fit in less time

(Health.com) -- Walkers who squeeze a bit of light weight training into their workout get more bang for their buck in terms of being fit and trim without increasing their total workout time, according to a new study of sedentary people with type 2 diabetes.

What's more, those who mixed up their workouts showed the greatest improvement in blood sugar control after nine months, says Timothy S. Church, MD, Ph.D., of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who led the study.

"Our findings really support the 2008 federal physical activity guidelines, and our findings support those guidelines for everybody," Church says.

These guidelines recommend people get at least 150 minutes of walking or 75 minutes of running a week, along with two or more days a week of resistance training.

Exercise Combo Best for Type 2 Diabetes

Variety in your workout routine may be key to optimal diabetes management, new research suggests.

The study found that when people with type 2 diabetes did aerobic exercise some days and resistance training on others, they had lower blood sugar levels after nine months than people who did either type of exercise alone.

"From a health perspective, the combination exercise program really outshined the others," said the study's lead author, Dr. Timothy Church, director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University System in Baton Rouge.

"We really thought that the walking group and the combination group would be similar, but the combination group was the only group that had significant improvement. They reduced their HbA1C levels, while also reducing the amount of diabetes medications," said Church.

40 South Florida Biotech Firms Receive Millions

More than 75 Florida firms are going to share more than $26 million in federal tax credits or grants, 40 of them in South Florida alone.

The awards were part of the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program and the national healthcare overhaul. That program encouraged companies with fewer than 250 employees to apply and who could show significant potential to produce new cost-saving therapies, create U.S. jobs and increase the nation's competitiveness while advancing the goal of curing cancer within the next 30 years, according to an Associated Press report.

The maximum credit is $5 million per firm with 250 or fewer employees.
The announcement was made by BioFlorida, an industry group which represents 200 companies and research organizations in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device fields.

8 in state receive $2.32M for biomed research

DERBY — Biomedical research into illnesses caused by tobacco use received a major boost from the state Department of Public Health.

State Sen. Joseph J. Crisco Jr., D-Woodbridge, announced recipients of grant awards for eight biomedical research projects in the state.

Crisco made the announcement in a press conference at Griffin Hospital recently. Several hospital and state officials attended, including Norma Gyle, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Health.

A total of $2.32 million from the Biomedical Research Trust Fund was awarded to eight researchers in Connecticut.

Clegg all heart at launch of appeal

DEPUTY Prime Minister Nick Clegg visited a Sheffield hospital to launch a new fundraising appeal for heart patients across the region.

The Hallam MP visited the Cardiothoracic Centre at the Northern General Hospital to officially get the Sheffield Hospitals Charitable Trust's South Yorkshire Heart Appeal off the ground.

It will raise funds for the centre - which serves 30,000 outpatients each year - and the National Institute of Health Services Research Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit.

He heard presentations from representatives from the charity and the facility, before taking a tour of the unit to meet patients.

Animal Cancer Center gets $3 million

A $3 million gift from the Shipley Foundation will allow the Animal Cancer Center at CSU to continue its groundbreaking research.

Dr. Rod Page, the center's director for the past three months, said the research center, which is part of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is "second to none in the world."

The gift from the foundation was 10 years in the making, said Dr. Steve Withrow, the founder of the Animal Cancer Center and its former director.

Three generations of the Shipley family have supported the cancer center. In 2000, Charles and Lucia Shipley gave $1 million to establish the Shipley Natural Healing Center, and their foundation also provided an additional $1.2 million to support its program.