Early stage lung cancer patients, who have had surgery to remove their tumors, typically don’t receive chemotherapy due to considerable low risk of recurrence.  However, patients with stage I non small cell lung carcinoma have a significant higher recurrence rate. A Duke University Medical Center study found, relation between tumor-regulatory T (Treg) cells and total tumor-infiltrating T-cell lymphocytes (TIL) may indicate the possibility of tumor recurrence. Treg cells reduce the action of immune system TIL that fight cancer. The more Treg cells, the fewer TIL there are in the tumors of lung cancer patients. The team determined levels of Treg and TIL after immunohistochemical analyses performed on paraffin-embedded lung cancer tissue. They found that more than 50 percent of patients with higher Treg in proportion to TIL suffered from recurrence. With no markers available to predict cancer recurrence, determining Treg and TIL levels will identify patients requiring chemotherapy after tumor surgery.

Catheter-related blood stream infections, which are common hospital acquired infections, are costly and potentially lethal. Central venous catheters, used specially in Intensive care units, can cause up to 80,000 blood stream infections every year in the U.S. alone. These infections are followed by sepsis, acute respiratory failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation, acute renal failure or shock. However, nearly all of these infections can be made preventable. Researchers from John Hopkins University have found that simple measures can prevent or reduce these infections. They recommended five evidence-based procedures including hand washing, using full-barrier precautions during insertion of central venous catheters, cleaning the skin with chlorhexidine, avoiding the femoral site (as because, femoral artery in the groin area is difficult to keep sterile) and removing unnecessary catheter. The study indicated that, if the interventions to reduce catheter-related blood stream infections are introduced successfully, significant reductions in morbidity and health care costs can be achieved.

Researchers from John Hopkins and Yale University suggest, a simple blood test to measure uric acid may help predict cognitive problems in old people. Among 96 community-dwelling adults aged between 60 and 92 years, those with high normal uric acid levels (5.8-7.6 mg/dl in men and 4.8-7.1 mg/dl in women) had the lowest scores on tests of mental processing speed, verbal memory and working memory, regardless of age, sex, weight, race, education, diabetes, hypertension, smoking and alcohol abuse. Previous studies have shown that, uric acid has antioxidant properties and high uric acid levels were found reducing risk of Parkinson’s disease while lower levels associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Though the reason for the new finding is not clear, but higher levels of uric acid can be linked to high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, type II diabetes, insulin resistance, obesity, end-stage renal disease - all known risk factors for dementia. So it might be useful to ask elderly patients with high normal uric acid about problems they might be having with their memory.