Author: Lala Trute

Scientists from Stanford University have developed a new blood test, that could be a game changer for doctors to monitor and detect early stage cancers.  The paper published in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, describes how the cancer test referred to as a single color digital PCR only needs very small blood draw sample.  The highly sensitive test can detect at least three mutation-bearing molecules in a single reaction. The blood test is designed in such a way that it can be customized, so it recognizes mutations unique to individual cancers. The current blood tests available for doctors to monitor their patients...

The UK’s Daily Mail Online has a really interesting story though lacking a few vital details about breakthrough surgery to restore movement and feeling in limbs for those that have been paralyzed by a severed nerve.  The procedure starts with taking sections of nerve cells from deceased donors.  The nerve cells are treated with enzymes to clean them up, sterilized and frozen, reducing the risk that they will be rejected when grafted to the patient.  The surgery itself is described like it is outpatient with one small incision and no general anesthesia. Without this new procedure, doctors had to perform much...

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), sometimes known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is a disease characterized by extreme exhaustion, achiness, brain fog and difficulties sleeping among other symptoms that are exasperated by physical activity. More than 1 million people in the United States are estimated to suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, with three out of every four patients being women. Doctors have struggled for decades to know how to diagnose or treat the symptoms adequately and there is no known cure. There has even been controversy about whether CFS is even a legitimate separate disease and the added frustration that doctors...