French researchers say they have found a way of using
human embryonic stem cells to create new skin which could help serious
burns victims.
They say the stem cells grew into fully formed human skin 12 weeks after being grafted on to mice.
The researchers, writing in the Lancet journal, say the skin could
solve the problems of rejection that burns patients currently face.
One stem cell expert said they had made an important advance.
Burns techniques
For more than 20 years, patients with serious burns have benefited
from a technique which grows new skin in the laboratory using their own
skin cells.
But the technique takes three weeks, putting the patients at risk of deh
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KUALA
LUMPUR, Nov 19 — In order to expand medical tourism, "irritants”
impeding its growth must be removed and concrete measures taken to stem
the brain drain of highly skilled doctors, a senior minister has
acknowledged.
The establishment of the Malaysia Health Travel Council — helmed by
Ooi Say Chuan, the former deputy secretary-general of the Trade
Ministry — seeks to advance the sector which earned an estimated RM400
million last year, by acting as a one-stop centre and serving as a
platform for the private sector and government to iron out problems.
"With medical tourism, we cannot go wrong as we have very good
doctors,” Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Tan Sri Nor Mohamed
Yakcop said at a seminar on healthcare tourism here yesterday.
"Unfortunately some of our doctors are attracted to neighbouring
countries to work, but we will get them back. We must look at what the
irritants ar
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Joseph
Stubbs, president of the American College of Physicians -- the
second-largest doctors' group in the country -- confirms that "the
supply of doctors just won't be there" for the 30 million new patients
President Barack Obama wants to cover. Noting that the doctor shortage
is "already a catastrophic crisis," Stubbs noted that underserved areas
in the U.S. currently need almost 17,000 new primary care physicians
even before Obama's proposals are enacted.
In the meantime, according to Bloomberg News, a 2009 survey by Merritt
Hawkins & Associates, a recruiting and research firm in Irving,
Texas, found that "the average waiting time to see a family-medicine
doctor in Boston...is 63 days, the most among the 15 cities" surveyed.
By comparison, in Miami, it was only seven days. The study noted that
Boston's longer wait was "driven in part by the healthcare reform
initiative" passed in 2006 in Massachusetts, upon which the Obama
program is modeled. Bloomberg reported that
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Heart disease patients who practise Transcendental Meditation have reduced death rates, US researchers have said.
At a meeting of the American Heart Association they said they had
randomly assigned 201 African Americans to meditate or to make
lifestyle changes.
After nine years, the meditation group had a 47% reduction in deaths, heart attacks and strokes.
The research was carried out by the Medical College of Wisconsin with the Maharishi University in Iowa.
It was funded by a £2.3m grant from the National Institute of Health and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
'Significant benefits'
The African American men and women had an average age of 59 years
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DUBAI // Dubai hopes to attract some of the US$2 billion (Dh7.35bn)
that patients from the Gulf spend each year on medical treatment
overseas, but it will first have to develop its healthcare system.
"Medical tourism is a very competitive industry, especially in this
part of the region,” said Laila al Jassmi, the chief of the Clinical
Support Services Sector of the Dubai Health Authority.
Patients in the GCC surveyed by the McKinsey group in 2007
complained of inadequate specialist treatments, limited consultation
hours and long waiting periods for health services in their countries.
To attract some of the money that such patients spend elsewhere,
Dubai must first bring its hospitals up to international standards
through training its professionals, developing an accreditation system
and increasing patient trust and transparency, Ms al Jassmi said.
Dr Mounes Kawaali, the chairman of Clemenceau Medical International
in Lebanon, said that because of proxim
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BOSTON (TheStreet) --
Post-recession thrift, health care reform and the aging baby boom
generation will likely lead to a surge in overseas "medical tourism."
The weak economy has reigned in the number of U.S. citizens
travelling abroad for everything from facelifts to heart bypasses.
About 540,000 Americans sought medical care outside the U.S. in 2008, a
28% decrease from the previous year, according to a report released
last month by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. That number is
expected to rise 20% this year to a projected 648,000, and grow by 35%
annually starting in 2010.
"Outbound medical tourism could reach upwards of 1.6 million
patients by 2012," says Paul Keckley, executive director of the
Washington, D.C.-based Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. "Pent-up
consumer demand for elective procedures, especially outpatient dental
and cosmetic procedures, will help fuel increased demand for medical
tourism again."
The
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Patients who lack health insurance are more likely to die from car
accidents and other traumatic injuries than people who belong to a
health plan -- even though emergency rooms are required to care for all
comers regardless of ability to pay, according to a study published
today.
An analysis of 687,091 patients who visited trauma centers nationwide
from 2002 to 2006 found that the odds of dying from injuries were
almost twice as high for the uninsured than for patients with private
insurance, researchers reported in Archives of Surgery.
Trauma physicians said they were surprised by the findings, even though
a slew of studies had previously documented the ill effects of going
without health coverage. Uninsured patients are less likely to be
screened for certain cancers or to be admitted to specialty hospitals
for procedures such as heart bypass surgery. Overall, about 18,000
deaths each year have been traced to a lack of health insurance.
But insurance status
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