Prostatis device out

A new ultrasound medical device for prostatitis - inflammation of the prostate gland - has been developed by Guorui Huihuang Medical Devices Co Ltd.

Chen Jiachuan, a professor at the Institute of Acoustics of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the principal inventor, says the mechanism uses controlled ultrasound to help blood circulation and metabolism, thereby boosting regeneration of damaged tissue.

A dozen prostate disease specialists, including Cao Zeyi, former deputy minister of the Ministry of Health and current vice-president of the School of Medicines of Tsinghua University, approve of the device.

HVC can reach brain

Scientists at the University of Birmingham recently found that human brain cells can become infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Working with the Manhattan Brain Bank in New York City, researchers of the University's School of Immunity and Infection detected genomic material in the brains of four out of 10 infected patients who posthumously donated brain and liver tissue.

Scientists say the findings indicate that HCV infected brain endothelial cells may provide a reservoir for the virus and persist during antiviral treatment.

Since endothelial cells make up the security system, if the barrier is compromised, all kinds of substances can enter the brain, which may explain the fatigue and other symptoms reported by HCV patients.

Cancer on the rise

The mainland has 2.8 million new cancer cases a year, and the number is expected to exceed 3.8 million in 10 years, says He Jie, president of the Cancer Institute and Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Risk factors of the rising epidemic include smoking, unhealthy diets, obesity, less exercise and environmental pollution, he says. Lung cancer has the highest prevalence and mortality rate in the country.

He urges people 40 and older to receive the low-dose spiral computed tomography every year to ensure early detection and treatment. Currently, most lung cancer is detected in the late stage.

China's first national cancer institute will open at He's hospital within a year.

TB poses threats

China is facing huge tuberculosis (TB) intervention challenges, particularly with the multi-drug-resistant TB, Minister of Health Chen Zhu says.

About 120,000 new cases of multi-drug-resistant TB are diagnosed in the country every year. That's 25 percent of the world's total, government figures show.

Chen warned insufficient intervention will seriously burden families and the government, and could upset social stability.

Multi-drug-resistant TB can be cured by long-term treatments using second-line drugs, which are more expensive than first-line drugs and have more adverse side effects, experts say.

The mortality rate is up to 80 percent. The ministry pledges to increase diagnosis and treatment coverage to 50 percent by 2015, Chen says.

Stools help CPR

Amid all the technology used in hospitals to keep critically ill people alive, doctors are looking at whether the low-tech step stool can make a difference in performing the lifesaving move cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

The process includes chest compressions that need to be deep enough to move blood out of the heart and toward the rest of the body. But when a rescuer is short and the victim is on a hospital bed, it can be hard to get enough leverage to press down on the chest.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center looked at whether using sturdy step stools helped improve the quality of CPR.

They found that the step stool worked best if the rescuer was about 1.67 meters or shorter, Edelson and her colleagues reported in the journal Resuscitation.

The study involved 50 people at their hospital, all trained in CPR, who performed chest compressions on a mannequin. Each did two two-minute rounds while standing on the floor and two while on a 23-cm-high step stool.

The mannequin was outfitted with a sensor that recorded the depth of chest compressions and other measures of CPR quality.

On average, the depth of their chest compressions increased by about a centimeter, which is significant, Edelson says.

It suggests that shorter rescuers "may get a big benefit" from using a step stool.

China Daily - Reuters

(China Daily 04/05/2012 page19)