Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
New Brain Scan Technique Reveals Back Pain Severity
A new brain imaging technique may help doctors determine and monitor the severity of patients' low back pain, researchers say.
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They found that the method, called arterial spin labeling and performed during MRI scans, enabled them to observe changes in blood flow in specific areas of the brain as chronic back pain patients held uncomfortable positions, ABC News reported.
The study was conducted by scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and appears online and in the August print issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
"Normally, when you do studies with older techniques, you're not able to track the changes in people's chronic pain over time," study co-leader Dr. Ajay D. Wasan, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and psychiatry, told ABC News. "This provides a way to look at the physiology of the brain when someone has more or less chronic pain."
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Judge Dismisses Suit Barring Embryonic Stem Cell Research
The Obama administration will be able to continue funding embryonic stem cell research after a lawsuit challenging it was dismissed Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleged that a federal law that prohibits taxpayer financing of embryonic stem cell research that harms an embryo was being violated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. But the Obama administration argued that federal policy allows research using embryos that were harvested long ago through private funding, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled last year that the lawsuit was likely to succeed and ordered a stop to federally-funded embryonic research while the case continued. But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled that the lawsuit was likely to fail and overturned the injunction.
As a result, Lamberth released an opinion Wednesday in favor of the Obama administration, the AP reported.
Scientists hope that embryonic stem cells will one day provide cures for a number of ailments, including spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease.
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Little Evidence of 9/11 Cancer Link: Report
A U.S. government report released Tuesday says there isn't enough evidence at the moment to determine whether dust and smoke caused by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center caused cancer in rescue or recovery workers or New York City residents who lived near the site.
The finding means that people with cancer diagnoses they attribute to the 9/11 attack don't qualify for federal benefits to treat or compensate them for their disease, says The New York Times.
The report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was required by a new federal act that provides $4.3 billion over the next five years to monitor, treat and compensate people who were exposed to dust and fumes from the WTC attack.
The report is based on a review of available evidence, but there have been only 18 published research studies on the WTC attack that mentioned cancer. Only five of those studies were peer-reviewed and they yielded mixed findings, according to NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard, The Times reported.
A second review of a possible link between cancer and the WTC attack will be conducted in early to mid-2012, Howard said.
According to The Times, some physicians believe a link to cancer will emerge with time.
Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, head of a program devoted to 9/11 treatment, monitoring and research at Mount Sinai Medical Center, told the newspaper that the likelihood of malignancies tied to 9/11 increases as years go by. He pointed to his team's research into multiple myeloma, which seems to be occurring at a higher-than-usual rate and at an unusually young age in some responders.
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Source: http://www.medicinenet.com/guide.asp?s=rss&k=DailyHealth&a=147537
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