News by Subject Medicine & Health

Early surgery to repair tears of one of the shoulder rotator cuff muscles provides lasting improvement in strength, function, and other outcomes, reports a study in the Aug. 16, 2017 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.

Scientists have developed a new way to detect which areas of the brain contribute most greatly to epilepsy seizures, according to a PLOS Computational Biology study. The strategy, devised by Marinho Lopes of the University of Exeter and colleagues, could help surgeons select specific brain areas for removal to stop seizures.

Research led by the head of the Barrow Neurological Institute and published in the July 20, 2017 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine reveals that subarachnoid hemorrhages, which are caused by ruptured brain aneurysms, account for 5-10 percent of all strokes and are best managed by experienced and dedicated experts at high-volume centers with neurosurgeons, endovascular surgeons and stroke neurologists.

The design of airplane wings and storing organs for transplant could both become safer and more effective, thanks to a synthetic antifreeze which prevents the growth of ice crystals, developed by researchers at the University of Warwick.

Most of the events that led to sustained prescription opioid use were not hospital events and associated procedures, but diagnoses that were either nonspecific or associated with spinal or other conditions for which opioid administration is not considered standard of care, according to a study published by JAMA Surgery.

An analysis of drug-free interventions to reduce pain or opioid use after total knee replacement found modest but clinically significant evidence that acupuncture and electrotherapy can potentially reduce and delay opioid use; evidence for other interventions, such as cryotherapy and preoperative exercise, had less support, according to a study published by JAMA Surgery.