WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (UPI) — U.S. researchers say they’ve developed a new heart pump that could help infants born with congenital heart defects survive necessary surgeries.

Scientists at Purdue University have created a “viscous impeller pump” for children born with univentricular circulation, a congenital heart disease that is the leading cause of death from birth defects in the first year of a child’s life, a university release said Tuesday.

The normal human heart contains two pumping chambers, called ventricles.

One circulates oxygenated blood throughout the body, while the other less-powerful ventricle circulates deoxygenated blood to the lungs.

Children born with univentricular circulation have only one functioning ventricle but can survive if blood vessels in the heart are restructured in a series of open-heart surgeries.

At least 30 percent of babies do not survive the surgeries, called the Fontan procedures.

To improve the survival rate, Purdue engineers and researchers developed the new mechanical pump to assist the heart during surgeries.

“A big advantage of this pump is that it gets delivered through the skin with a catheter without open heart surgery,” Steven Frankel, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, said.

“It is designed to be in the body for two weeks at most, almost like a disposable item,” Frankel said.

The researchers have received a $2.1 million, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to continue developing the heart pump, Purdue said.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Unequal access drives fertility tourism, experts say

LONDON, Sep. 14, 2010 (Reuters) — Patients who cross borders in search of cheaper, more available fertility treatment can now choose from more than 100 countries but may be putting themselves and their babies at risk, experts said Tuesday.

Nurses display quadruplet baby girls born by caesarean section at Pringadi hospital in Medan, North Sumatra September 29, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer

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The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) said a survey of reproductive services showed wide disparities between laws and practice in many countries. As a result, patients returning home may face legal or medical problems.

“Although in principle the care of foreign and local patients should essentially be the same and fit the best possible standards, there is evidence that it is not always so,” ESHRE’s Francoise Shenfield told reporters at a briefing.

A survey of 105 countries by the IFFS found that cultural, religious and social differences in attitudes to fertility treatments such as using donated eggs, sperm or embryos mean there are wide variations in the number of clinics that offer treatment, and the services they provide.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) involves removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries and combining them with sperm in a lab. The strongest embryos are then implanted into a woman’s womb. In theory, the eggs, sperm and embryos can all be donated.

The IFFS survey found there are over 500 fertility clinics in India and about 615 in Japan, but only 66 in Britain, 120 in Germany, 200 in Spain and around 360 in Italy.

IFFS education director Ian Cooke said discrepancies in access prompted patients to travel abroad for treatment, but could leave them in medical, financial or legal difficulties.

LEGAL DIFFERENCES

One major problem is the rules on the maximum number of embryos that can be transferred to a woman’s womb after IVF.

In Britain and Scandinavia only one or two are allowed, but other countries have higher limits or none at all — a factor that can increase the number of multiple pregnancies that can pose risks for both mothers and babies.

Freezing embryos is banned in Germany, Italy and Croatia, but freezing eggs before they are fertilized is allowed. In Britain the removal of donors’ anonymity has led to a severe shortage in donated sperm.

Sperm and egg donation is banned completely in many Islamic countries, and in France lesbians are not allowed access to donated sperm. Turkey has recently banned anyone going abroad to receive donated sperm or eggs — a law which the experts said was almost completely unenforceable.

“If a woman goes on holiday and comes back pregnant, who is to tell exactly how or when she got pregnant?” said Shenfield.

Both IFFS and ESHRE support the rights of patients to travel to receive fertility treatment, but said in a joint statement that “ideally, this should take place in their home country.”

They urged national health authorities to try to harmonize standards to increase the safety of patients and offer equal treatment for all those who want it.

“The variation in international laws relating to infertility treatment is one of the reasons that cause couples to seek cross-border treatment,” said Cooke. “Whilst this is unavoidable we call for international standards to ensure these patients receive consistent advice and safe treatment.”

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

CHICAGO, Oct. 4, 2010 (Reuters) — Newborn babies whose mothers got a flu shot while pregnant are less likely to get the flu or to be admitted to the hospital with a respiratory illness in the first six months of life, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

During most flu seasons, babies under six months tend to have fewer cases of flu-like illnesses than those who are 6 to 12 months old, most likely because they are protected by their mothers’ natural antibodies.

But in severe flu seasons, such as the 2009 swine flu pandemic, these youngest children, who are too young to get flu shots themselves, are more likely to be hospitalized and die from flu than older babies.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has for years recommended that pregnant women be vaccinated against seasonal flu, but the study adds to other research showing that newborn babies benefit, too.

Researcher Angelia Eick, formerly of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and now of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, wanted to see if giving pregnant women flu shots could increase protection for babies under 6 months old.

Eick and colleagues studied children on Navajo and White Mountain Apache Indian reservations. In these communities, children are more prone to severe respiratory infections than those in the general population.

The team studied 1,160 mother-infant pairs over three flu seasons. The mothers and babies gave blood samples before and after the flu season and they were monitored for flu symptoms.

In the flu season following the child’s birth, babies whose mother had been vaccinated were 41 percent less likely to have a lab-confirmed flu infection and 39 percent less likely to be hospitalized for a flu-like illness.

They also found babies whose mothers had been vaccinated had higher levels of flu antibodies at birth and at 2 to 3 months of age compared with babies whose mothers did not get a flu shot.

“Although influenza vaccination is recommended for pregnant women to reduce their risk of influenza complications, these findings provide support for the added benefit of protecting infants from influenza virus infection up to six months,” Eick and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The findings are particularly relevant with the 2009 H1N1 flu virus, which hit pregnant women and young babies especially hard, the team wrote.

Current flu vaccines protect against the H1N1 virus as well as two other strains of the flu.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Simple Urine Test for the Condition

Science (June 5, 2010) — Children with autism have a different chemical fingerprint in their urine than non-autistic children, according to new research published tomorrow in the print edition of the Journal of Proteome Research.

The researchers behind the study, from Imperial College London and the University of South Australia, suggest that their findings could ultimately lead to a simple urine test to determine whether or not a young child has autism.

Autism affects an estimated one in every 100 people in the UK. People with autism have a range of different symptoms, but they commonly experience problems with communication and social skills, such as understanding other people’s emotions and making conversation and eye contact.

People with autism are also known to suffer from gastrointestinal disorders and they have a different makeup of bacteria in their guts from non-autistic people.

Today’s research shows that it is possible to distinguish between autistic and non-autistic children by looking at the by-products of gut bacteria and the body’s metabolic processes in the children’s urine. The exact biological significance of gastrointestinal disorders in the development of autism is unknown.

The distinctive urinary metabolic fingerprint for autism identified in today’s study could form the basis of a non-invasive test that might help diagnose autism earlier. This would enable autistic children to receive assistance, such as advanced behavioural therapy, earlier in their development than is currently possible.

At present, children are assessed for autism through a lengthy process involving a range of tests that explore the child’s social interaction, communication and imaginative skills.

Early intervention can greatly improve the progress of children with autism but it is currently difficult to establish a firm diagnosis when children are under 18 months of age, although it is likely that changes may occur much earlier than this.

The researchers suggest that their new understanding of the makeup of bacteria in autistic children’s guts could also help scientists to develop treatments to tackle autistic people’s gastrointestinal problems.

Professor Jeremy Nicholson, the corresponding author of the study, who is the Head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London, said: “Autism is a condition that affects a person’s social skills, so at first it might seem strange that there’s a relationship between autism and what’s happening in someone’s gut. However, your metabolism and the makeup of your gut bacteria reflect all sorts of things, including your lifestyle and your genes. Autism affects many different parts of a person’s system and our study shows that you can see how it disrupts their system by looking at their metabolism and their gut bacteria.

“We hope our findings might be the first step towards creating a simple urine test to diagnose autism at a really young age, although this is a long way off — such a test could take many years to develop and we’re just beginning to explore the possibilities. We know that giving therapy to children with autism when they are very young can make a huge difference to their progress. A urine test might enable professionals to quickly identify children with autism and help them early on,” he added.

The researchers are now keen to investigate whether metabolic differences in people with autism are related to the causes of the condition or are a consequence of its progression.

The researchers reached their conclusions by using H NMR Spectroscopy to analyse the urine of three groups of children aged between 3 and 9: 39 children who had previously been diagnosed with autism, 28 non-autistic siblings of children with autism, and 34 children who did not have autism who did not have an autistic sibling.

They found that each of the three groups had a distinct chemical fingerprint. Non-autistic children with autistic siblings had a different chemical fingerprint than those without any autistic siblings, and autistic children had a different chemical fingerprint than the other two groups.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 7th June 2010

How can we avoid it?

Any involvement with  cystic fibrosis,? Then you understand and appreciate the difficulties that come with living with this disease.

So what exactly is it and how does it affect the body?

Cystic fibrosis is a chronic disease of the lungs and digestive system that is inherited and affects tens of thousands of people throughout the world ever year, both adults and children. This condition is caused by a defective gene which causes the body to produce thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs, making it difficult to breathe and causing life-threatening lung infections.

Cystic fibrosis symptoms

The symptoms of cystic fibrosis may include salty-tasting skin, persistent cough with phlegm, wheezing and shortness of breath, lung infections, poor growth and weight gain, difficulty with bowell movements, etc.

Statistics show that around 1,000 plus cases in the USA alone new cases of CF are discovered each year and most people are diagnosed before the age of two.

New testing techniques allow people to get a diagnosis at an earlier age, making it easier to seek proper treatment and maintenance of the condition.

Back about 50 years ago or before, people with cystic fibrosis would be expected to not make it into their teens. In fact, most children with the disease would not make it to elementary school. But today new advancements have made it possible for people with cystic fibrosis to live much longer lives and in many cases even live fairly normal lives, even with the condition.

Over 40% of the cystic fibrosis population today is over the age of 18 with the average life span reaching 37 years old. This may seem grim to some but when compared to the statistics of a few years ago, that is a major advancement. Advancements also include better treatments to help with CF in children and adults.

Cystic fibrosis treatment

Some treatments include causing cough to help loosen the mucus in the airways to increase breathing. There are also new therapies to help increase longevity and there are many organizations to help people with cystic fibrosis and their families. If you or someone in your family has cystic fibrosis, don’t be afraid to seek all the help you can get. You don’t have to live with this disease alone.

The more you learn about lung health and how to increase your lung health, the longer and happier you will live.

Learn this lesson quickly and add quality years to your life.

Published by Henry Sapiecha 24th August 2009