Investing in Drug Safety Monitoring could Avoid Complications - and Save Medical Costs
Increased investment in "pharmacovigilance surveillance" - systems to proactively monitor safety problems with new medications - has the potential to avoid harmful drug effects while lowering healthcare costs, according to a study in the June issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
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Targeted, High-Energy Cancer Treatments Get a Supercomputing Boost
Radiation therapy shoots high-energy particles into the body to destroy or damage cancer cells. Over the last century, the technologies used have constantly improved and it has become a highly effective way to treat cancer. However, physicians must still walk a fine line between delivering enough radiation to kill tumors, while sparing surrounding healthy tissue.
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Compiling Big Data in a Human-Centric Way
When a group of researchers in the Undiagnosed Disease Network at Baylor College of Medicine realized they were spending days combing through databases searching for information regarding gene variants, they decided to do something about it. By creating MARRVEL (Model organism Aggregated Resources for Rare Variant ExpLoration) they are now able to help not only their own lab but also researchers everywhere search databases all at once and in a matter of minutes.
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Using a Smartphone to Screen for Male Infertility
More than 45 million couples worldwide grapple with infertility, but current standard methods for diagnosing male infertility can be expensive, labor-intensive and require testing in a clinical setting. Cultural and social stigma, and lack of access in resource-limited countries, may prevent men from seeking an evaluation. Investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) set out to develop a home-based diagnostic test that could be used to measure semen quality using a smartphone-based device.
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Virtual Support Groups Help Grieving Spouses with Depression
As the U.S. population ages, it's estimated that half of women older than 65 are widows, while one-sixth of men of the same age have lost their spouses. Support groups have proved to be a helpful resource for those dealing with grief, but for older individuals, obstacles such as geographic location and physical immobility can sometimes make it difficult to attend support groups in person.
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'Smart Contact Lens Sensor' for Diabetic and Glaucoma Diagnosis
A recent study, affiliated with Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea, has proposed the possibility of in situ human health monitoring simply by wearing a contact lens with built-in wireless smart sensors. This study has been jointly conducted by Professor Jang-Ung Park of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Chang Young Lee of Life Science, and Professor Franklin Bien of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UNIST in collaboration with
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Virtual Humans Help Aspiring Doctors Learn Empathy
For medical student Katie Goldrath, the first time delivering difficult health news came when she had to tell a young woman named Robin and her mom, Delmy, that Robin had leukemia. As she broke the news, Goldrath was conscious of not only her words but also her body language: Was she leaning in, looking the patient in the eye and expressing empathy?
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