April 16th 2008
This week in medicine
The following will be published in the April 19 issue of The Lancet:
Organ donation US doctors have carried out a six-way kidney transplantation after an altruistic donor triggered a chain of similar donations. The operations were carried out simultaneously to ensure that no one backed out of their donation, and involved a team of nearly 100 medical professionals at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland.
Fistula surgery The UN Population Fund has held a 3-day training session in Syhlet, Bangladesh, for health workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Timor-Leste to help boost training in treatment of obstetric fistula. As part of the session, 29 Bangladeshi women had their fistulae treated by experienced teams while local health workers observed.
Advice on alcoholism The US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has developed an online video-training programme to help clinicians to screen and manage patients who drink heavily. The new resource features four 10-min scenarios in different settings to help clinicians in primary care, mental health, and other specialties.
Burn guidance The UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has issued guidance to help health professionals identify abuse and recognise when a child has been burnt deliberately. Thermal Injuries on Children is the fourth leaflet in a series to help professionals diagnose and deal with different forms of child abuse.
Boat people The Somali consul in the port city of Aden, Yemen, has called for the international community to help stop the deaths of desperate migrants who are fleeing war-torn Somalia in flimsy boats. More than 1400 people drowned before they reached Yemen last year, many because they were thrown overboard by the smugglers taking them. 128 people have drowned in the past fortnight alone.
In the genes The Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, one of the largest and most successful collaborations to date, are to follow up on the biggest study of the genetics of common diseases with a seven-fold increase in sample size. Over 2 years, the £30 million study will analyse DNA samples from 120 000 people, bringing together at least 60 institutions internationally and allowing researchers to search for the genes underlying 25 diseases.
Exotic condoms The Government of Brazil is the world’s largest consumer of condoms, having recently purchased 1 billion packs to give away over the next 2 years in the fight against HIV. In a move towards self-sufficiency, a factory has now opened in Acre state that will produce 100 million condoms every year with rubber from trees in the Amazonian rainforest.
Hillbilly heroin An attorney general has taken legal action against the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because it has not acted on a 4-year-old petition to strengthen warnings against shorter doses of oxycodone. The FDA approves 12-h dosing, but prescriptions of 8-h dosing or less are common because of ignorance of the risk of addiction and side-effects.
Rice rustling The Haitian Prime Minister has been fired after seven people died in riots about food shortages and inflated rice prices. Cambodia and Egypt have banned all rice exports, and many major exporters, including India and Thailand, have introduced cuts after global stocks of rice reached their lowest since 1976. Farmers across Asia are guarding their fields after thieves stole harvest-ready crops overnight.
Eastern promise Vitespen, an autologous anticancer vaccine, has been registered in Russia for treatment of renal cell carcinoma patients at intermediate risk of recurrence after nephrectomy. A report at the recent Annual Congress of the European Association of Urology indicated that vitespen improves relapse-free survival, but on the basis of a sub-group analysis of 362 intermediate risk patients in a phase III trial.
Cancer screening Women in Tanzania will soon benefit from free breast-cancer screening thanks to the donation of mammography machines to five regional hospitals by the Medical Women Association of Tanzania. Free screening should allow all women to access the service, and facilitate earlier detection of cancer.
Spicing up studying Biomechanics expert Donal McNally, a lecturer at the University of Nottingham, UK, has created the Anatomy Cook Book. This unusual culinary guide aims to help students understand anatomy by encouraging them to study meat before cooking it, and includes recipes such as maple-glazed ribs which are described as “an ideal start to study the ribs and costal cartilages as well as the muscles of the thoracic wall”.
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