News by Subject Medicine & Health

An innovative and complex surgery involving nerve transfers at Hospital for Special Surgery is restoring movement to young patients with paralysis caused by acute flaccid myelitis.

Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have demonstrated that muscle stem cells may give rise to rhabdomyosarcoma that occurs during DMD--and identified two genes linked to the tumor's growth. The research, performed using a mouse model of severe DMD, helps scientists better understand how rhabdomyosarcoma develops in DMD--and indicates that ongoing efforts to develop treatments that stimulate muscle stem cells should consider potential cancer risk. The study was published in Cell Reports on January 15, 2019.

Scientists have made a step forward in understanding the evolution of human feet.

The gene editing technique known as CRISPR is a revolutionary approach to treating inherited diseases. However, the tool has yet to be used to effectively treat long-term, chronic conditions. A research team led by Dongsheng Duan, PhD, at the University of Missouri School of Medicine has identified and overcome a barrier in CRISPR gene editing that may lay the foundation for sustained treatments using the technique.

There is an ongoing debate regarding the relationship between knee osteoarthritis and hormone therapy (HT), with small-scale studies providing mixed results. A new large-scale study from Korea shows that women receiving HT had a significantly lower prevalence of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis compared with women who did not take hormones. Study results are published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

Children with life-threatening respiratory failure who require mechanical ventilation in a pediatric intensive care unit commonly experience rapid muscle atrophy, according to a study published online Dec. 19, 2018, in PLOS ONE.

The use of early physical therapy in a study of nearly 89,000 US adults with musculoskeletal pain of the shoulder, neck, knee and low back was associated with a lower likelihood of subsequent opioid use in an analysis of health insurance claims from 2007 to 2015. For patients who did use opioids, early physical therapy was associated with reduced opioid use for shoulder, knee and low back pain but not neck pain.