News by Subject Medicine & Health

Sickle cell trait may not be associated with the occurrence of ischemic stroke (when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain) in African-Americans, according to a meta-analysis that combined the results of four studies with 19,464 African-American participants.

International research consortium led by researchers from the University of Helsinki, Finland, discovered new information related to a rare form of leukemia called aggressive NK-cell leukemia. Potential new treatment options were found which are highly warranted as currently this disease usually leads to rapid death of patients.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have discovered a fourth gene that can predispose carriers to the most common childhood cancer, expanding the list of genes to include in cancer screening.

Adolescents and young adults with acute leukemia have a survival advantage if they receive treatment at a pediatric cancer center versus an adult center, according to a new study.

Majority of patients with the most severe thalassemia are transfusion-free years after gene therapy that uses the patient's own stem cells.

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is a haematological malignancy. When infiltrating tissues, CLL cells come in contact with healthy cells, including immune cells. Researchers from the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) succeeded in characterising in depth the composition of immune cells and circulating cytokines of the CLL microenvironment in mouse models using mass cytometry. Based on this knowledge, they propose an immunotherapeutic strategy with two immune checkpoint inhibitors that efficiently blocks disease development in preclinical tests.

A University of British Columbia bioengineer has endowed platelets with extra powers to make the clotting process more resilient in the face of trauma. If it's proven to work in clinical situations, such 'superplatelets' might become a standard part of emergency department supplies, along with bandages, oxygen and saline.

A new type of cancer vaccine has yielded promising results in an initial clinical trial. The personalized vaccine is made from patients' own immune cells, which are exposed to the contents of the patients' tumor cells, and injected into the patients to initiate a wider immune response. The trial, conducted in advanced ovarian cancer patients, showed that about half of the vaccinated patients had signs of anti-tumor T-cell responses. The study is published today in Science Translational Medicine.

The so-called good cholesterol, HDL, is associated with infectious disease, new research from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital shows.