A new technique to remove uterine fibroids without surgery will soon be available in the city. Jaslok Hospital in south Mumbai is set to launch Magnetic Resonance (MR)-focused ultrasound system to remove them. The non-invasive procedure uses high intensity ultrasound waves to ablate tissue in combination with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that guides, monitors and controls the treatment.

Uterine fibroids are non-cancerous tumours found in women aged between 30 and 40. "Submucosal fibroids develop just under the lining of the uterine cavity and causes heavy bleeding, infertility and even miscarriages. They need to be removed without harming other organs," said Dr Rishma Pai, obstetrician, gynaecologist and infertility specialist at Jaslok Hospital.

"This procedure will stop the fibroid to recur again in the same region and increases the chances of fertility."

"Ultrasound is a form of energy that can pass through skin, muscle, fat and other soft tissues. High intensity ultrasound waves focused on a small target raises the temperature and destroys the tissue. This procedure is called thermal ablation," said Dr W M Gedroye, consultant radiologist at St Mary's Hospital in London. Dr Gedroye has treated over 500 patients using this technology. "Success rate is about 80 per cent," he said.

Studies show that this procedure can even remove liver tumours. "Studies are under way in Japan to establish this procedure can successfully treat breast and prostrate cancer also," said Dr Gedroye.

New research at the University of Michigan suggests that every 1.1 pounds of birth weight reduces the possibility of developing tuberculosis later in life by almost 46percent in identical twins.

According to Eduardo Villamor, study author and associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health, tuberculosis risk came down by 87percent for each pound in males, whereas it was only about 16 percent for every 1.1 pounds of birth weight in girls.

Villamor, who worked with a team at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and began the research at Harvard, also pointed out that low birth weight of babies is widespread problem in developing countries, but prevalent elsewhere too.

Although Villamor said it is too early to conclude that insufficient prenatal growth leads to clinical tuberculosis, it may be the case.

He added: "Prenatal exposure to environmental insults, including maternal malnutrition, could program what happens later on in terms of our immune responses to infection, possibly through programming of the immune system. This study is an example of that."

The study, "Evidence for an effect of fetal growth on the risk of tuberculosis," will be published in the Feb. 1 edition of the Journal Infectious Disease. (ANI)

A new study has shed light on the role of stem cells in medulloblastomas, the most common type of children's brain tumor.

Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, studied equivalent cells taken from mouse brains. Principal investigator Silvia Marino, Professor of Neuropathology at Queen Mary, University of London, and her team showed that medulloblastomas can grow from a type of brain stem cell and that these cancers are a distinct form of the disease which may require a completely different approach to treatment.

She said "This type of brain tumour can pose a great challenge to doctors. In some children, treatment works well but in others the cancer is aggressive and far harder to treat. As scientists we have been trying to understand how these cancers which look the same can behave so differently. This study is a major advance for us because it shows for the first time that some of these tumours develop from endogenous stem cells."

She added " This is important for two reasons. First, it could help us to tell which cancers will respond well to treatment and which will need a more aggressive therapy. Second, this new understanding could help us to find much-needed new drugs for the disease."

Suffering from migraine? Fret not, slip on a pair of a shades, for a new study has revealed that sunglasses can help in easing the debilitating pain from the condition, even at night.

Previous researches have found that even at night, light intensifies a migraine headache but failed to explain the exact reason behind the cause.

Now, a team, led by Prof Rami Burstein of Harvard Medical School, has found the reason why light makes migraine worse - by identifying a new visual pathway which underlies sensitivity to light during migraine in both blind individuals and in individuals with normal eyesight.

In fact, migraine pain are believed to develop when the matter surrounding the brain and central nervous system becomes irritated and 85 per cent of sufferers become sensitive to light.

Prof Burstein said they should do anything to avoid light during an episode. "Patients may wear sunglasses, even at night. The dimmest of light can make migraine pain worse," the British media quoted him as saying.

In their study, the researchers showed that light increased the effects of migraines by recruiting two groups of people who suffered regular severe headaches.

Shorter people more are more likely to develop lung disease, says a new study. And they could hail from poorer backgrounds.

University of Nottingham researchers say those with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) were 1.12cm shorter on average.

In the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, they write this lack of height may be a "marker" that people have come from a poorer background.

A number of historical studies have suggested that early life deprivation increases the risk of developing COPD in adult life, but whether this is still true now that living conditions have improved is not known, they point out.

So they set out to quantify the current association between adult height (a maker of socioeconomic status in early life) and COPD, and to determine how this varies by age.

They examined data on 1,204,110 people (aged over 35yrs old) from The Health Improvement Network - a general practice database and concluded, "The risk of developing COPD is still strongly associated with adult height. This association is strongest in the youngest age category suggesting that early life experience will remain an important risk factor for COPD for some time to come and possibly that COPD related to early life deprivation is more severe and tends to present at a younger age."

The smallest height difference was in the over 90s where the average difference was only 0.51cm.

They say this could be because many of the older generation who suffered from the disease actually died from it in recent years.

People with COPD have permanent scarring to the lung tissue caused mostly be smoking.

It is estimated that 3.7 million people in the UK have the disease, but only 900,000 are currently diagnosed.

The researchers
think that people who came from poorer backgrounds were more likely to have had mothers who smoked, had poor nutrition during their early years affecting general growth and lung development, and were more likely to live in smoking households and smoke themselves.

Richard Hubbard, professor of respiratory epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, who co-authored the study said: "There's a double whammy associated with deprivation.

"Poorer nutrition in the 'womb' and when growing up as a child can affect general growth and lung development.

"This is combined with an increased likelihood to live with families and peers who smoke - influencing the chance of taking up and sticking with the habit.

"We know that smoking is the principal cause of COPD and all of these factors combined could increase the risk even more."

Professor Mike Morgan, chairman of the British Thoracic Society, said: "We need to make it easier for people from disadvantaged backgrounds to make positive life choices and improvements to their health - whether it be eating well or stopping smoking.

"GPs and primary care professionals could also look out for height alongside smoking status and other chronic lung disease symptoms, to ensure that the disease is caught early."