Posts Tagged ‘Tehran’

The skin gun is no longer science fiction. A doctor has created a prototype medical device that literally sprays skin cells onto burn victims to re-grow skin.

Once grafts took weeks, but now the skin gun does the work in under two hours and the burns heal within days. It has successfully treated over a dozen patients so far.

Doctor Jörg Gerlach, of the University of Pittsburgh’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, has discovered a method which regenerates healthy skin stem cells from the victim and sprays it on the burned skin.

Instead of a deep sleep, general anesthesia is more like a reversible drug-induced coma, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday, in findings that could lead to better treatments for coma and better anesthesia.

“General anesthesia is pharmacological coma, not sleep,” said Dr. Nicholas Schiff of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who worked on the study with Dr. Emery Brown of Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Ralph Lydic of the University of Michigan.

Their findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, represent a three-year exploration of the similarities and differences of sleep, anesthesia and coma.

They said while doctors and patients commonly describe general anesthesia as going to sleep, there are significant differences between the states, with only a bit of overlap between the deepest states of sleep and the very lightest phases of anesthesia.

While sleeping usually involves moving through a series of phases, in general anesthesia, patients are typically taken to a specific phase or state and kept there during the surgery. This phase most closely resembles a coma.

“The brain is becoming very, very quiet. The activity of the neurons is being dampened dramatically,” Schiff said in a telephone interview. “That is also true in coma.”

Schiff, an expert in coma recovery, said while no two brain injuries are alike, studying the way people come out of anesthesia could be used as a model for predicting the stages of emerging from a coma.

“Although recovery from anesthesia is much faster, there are hints that some of the circuit mechanisms have some overlap,” he said.

That could lead to monitoring tools and diagnostics to assess what stage of recovery a person with a coma is in, and it could be used to develop new strategies to help doctors bring patients back to consciousness.

Knowing more about the brain circuit mechanisms may also help researchers develop drugs to tweak specific brain circuits, Schiff said.

And the study should lend new insight into understanding general anesthesia, Brown, an expert in general anesthesia, said in a statement.

“Anesthesiologists know how to safely maintain their patients in the states of general anesthesia, but most are not familiar with the neural circuit mechanisms that allow them to carry out their life-sustaining work,” he said.

www.newsdaily.com

What’s better than reading a health news report about something good that happened in the world? Reading about a whole bunch of happy news. Here’s a recap of 10 of the most inspiring health stories from 2010, so that you can wrap up the year on a positive note.

Woman Who Had All Major Organs Removed Becomes Doctor
Although she’s had nearly every major organ in her body transplanted, including her liver, kidney, heart and lungs, over the span of 12 years, U.K. resident Allison John still managed to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor after 14 years in medical school. Needless to say, she’s happy to be entering the hospital as a healer rather than an ill patient, according to this report.

Grocery Customer Gives Kidney to Favorite Cashier
Most people just give supermarket cashiers money or a smile with the swipe of their credit card. But longtime customer Dan Coyne provided his favorite cashier at Jewel Osco Supermarket in Evanston, Ill., Myra de la Vega, with the gift of life by donating one of his kidneys. Once very sick and undergoing dialysis, de la Vega, a single mother of two, is now feeling much better after the successful March operation.

“Kangaroo Cuddle” Brought Baby Back to Life
After giving birth prematurely to twins at 27 weeks, Australian mom Kate Ogg didn’t give up when hospital officials declared that one twin was dead after unsuccessfully trying to resuscitate the infant for 20 minutes. Ogg placed the baby boy on her chest anyway, a skin-to-skin position known as the kangaroo cuddle, staying that way for two hours. The baby ultimately gasped and opened his eyes.

Doctors Save Life of Girl, 14, Replacing Her Esophagus With Stomach
When 14-year-old Brianna Ranzino was given just six months to live after being diagnosed with a rare trachea tumor, which was considered inoperable by several hospitals, doctors at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital took a chance. They removed the tumor and patched her damaged esophagus and trachea with tissue from her own stomach. According to this report, replacing esophagus with a patient’s own stomach has never been done before.

Afghan Teen Without Nose Has Surgery in California
Bibi Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghani teen who says her nose was cut off as punishment for running away from her violent husband, arrives in Southern California, where a local foundation arranged for her to get reconstructive surgery.

Man Who Tried to Cut Off Own Arm Saved His Own Life
Who can forget the courage and resourcefulness of Jonathan Metz, the 31-year-old from West Hartford, Conn., who used nearby tools to partially amputate his own arm after getting it caught in his basement furnace while trying to fix it? According to this report, Metz’s self-amputation saved his life by blocking the spread of toxins from his decaying limb. His surgeons say he is recovering.

Mom Finds Cure For Daughter After Doctors Fail
You can take control of your family’s health with the power of the Internet, as this story attests. When doctors couldn’t determine what was wrong with California teen Hayley Lairmore, who spent nine months vomiting and doubled over in pain, her mom, Christine, took to the Internet for hours to find answers. Her determination eventually led to Hayley’s diagnosis: POTS, a rare syndrome that affects the autonomic nervous system.

Baby Born From 20-Year-Old Frozen Embryo
The use-by date on frozen fertilized egg just got longer. According to a report about the published case study in the journal Fertility and Sterility, a 42-year-old woman gave birth to a baby in May. It’s the first successful live birth from an embryo frozen 20 years ago. The case study sheds new light on the shelf life of frozen embryos and offers child-bearing hope to young cancer patients who would like to preserve their fertility far into the future even though treatment will make them infertile.

All 33 Chilean Miners Survive Ordeal
After being trapped underground for more than two months, all 33 men were brought to safety. Of course, their trial is not completely over, as they now may undergo a variety of health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, respiratory problems and depression, all potential consequences of their lack of nourishment, sun exposure, dehydration, lengthy exposure to mine dust and loss of muscle mass. But you can’t help feel good about the fact that every one of the miners survived the collapsed mine, including the men with preexisting health conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

First U.S. Embryonic Stem Cell Treatments Begin on Spinal Injury Patient
Despite all the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells, research has begun that may ultimately help spinal injury patients. Geron Corp., a Menlo Park, Calif., biotech company is testing an embryonic stem-cell treatment on a patient with spinal-cord injuries. The drug, known as GRNOPC1 that contains embryonic stem cells, will be injected into the patient’s spine to hopefully reverse paralysis. It’s the first time such a drug will be tested in a human. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most versatile type of stem cells because they can morph into any type of cell. Geron doesn’t use federal funding to conduct its research, so it’s free of restrictions. The company plans to enroll eight to 10 patients in the study nationwide.

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