Healthcare Update Satellite – 04-15-2015

You’ve heard of a CAT scan? Get ready for the dog sniff. Dogs can identify bladder and prostate cancer with a 98% accuracy rate when smelling male urine samples. Not into the whole dog sniffing thing as a screen for prostate cancer? A $1 screening test using gold nanoparticles 10,000 times smaller than a freckle is more accurate than PSA screenings and gives results in minutes. When blood is mixed with the nanoparticles, tumor biomarkers cling to the surface and cause clumping. I’m guessing the test will cost consumers several hundred dollars. Doctors are using scorpion venom to create “tumor paint” to help surgeons find brain tumors. The tumors literally glow green when viewed with near-infrared light. The good news is that plucking hairs in a specific pattern and density may cause an inflammatory response that will cause up to 1200 replacement hairs to grow in their places. Scientists are studying the phenomenon in mice, but touting the idea as a possible treatment for male baldness. The bad news is that if you don’t do it right, you’ll end up looking like you have mange. In Australia, parents aren’t forced to vaccinate their children. Then again, if those parents are receiving welfare benefits, they’ll soon start losing the benefits if their children remain unvaccinated. Really like this idea as a means to encourage healthy decisions and to determine the true motives of those who think vaccinations are “bad”. More...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs