April 13, 2009, 1:54 PM CT

Insights into progressive hearing loss

In parallel studies in human and mouse, two groups of scientists have come to the same conclusion: that a new kind of gene is linked to progressive hearing loss. The new gene - called a microRNA - is a tiny fragment of RNA that affects the production of hundreds of other molecules within sensory hair cells of the inner ear.

The research provides important new genetic understanding of a condition that is common in humans but remains poorly understood.

One team, led by scientists from the Hospital Ramn y Cajal, Madrid, Spain, followed families who showed hearing loss. The second team, led by scientists from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK, examined a new line of mice, called diminuendo, that showed progressive hearing loss from an early age. The two groups shared their emerging data.

"We were able quite quickly to show that if the mice carried one copy of the gene variant they suffered progressive hearing loss, if they carried two variants they were profoundly deaf," explains Professor Karen Steel, principal investigator of the programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "The important questions were could we determine what the variant is and how does it exert its effect on hearing?".

In their studies of families with progressive hearing loss, the Spanish team had proposed that the gene responsible lay on human chromosome 7. Both teams set about sequencing every gene in the equivalent genomic regions in human and mouse identified as implicated in hearing loss; the sequencing showed that most of the genes in the region could not be responsible for hearing loss......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

January 28, 2009, 6:20 AM CT

Sequential and alternating chemotherapy and radiatio

Larynx cancer patients treated with alternating cycles of chemotherapy and radiation have similar outcomes to patients treated with chemotherapy followed by radiation, as per data from a randomized controlled trial in the January 27 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Prior trials in patients with locally advanced larynx cancer showed that chemotherapy followed by radiation was as effective as total removal of the larynx, known as laryngectomy, in terms of overall and disease-free survival and that this sequential treatment provided better quality of life. Subsequent trials indicated that concurrent administration of chemotherapy and radiation resulted in a statistically significant improvement in larynx preservation but was linked to more serious acute toxicity and possibly long term side effects.

To try to improve patient survival without increasing side effects, Jean Lefebvre, M.D., of the Centre Oscar Lambret in Lille, France, and his colleagues in the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer enrolled 450 patients with larynx or hypopharynx cancer in a randomized controlled trial. Patients received either chemotherapy followed by radiation or alternating cycles of radiation and chemotherapy.

With a median follow-up of 6.5 years, there was no significant difference in clinical outcomes between the two therapy groups. Larynx preservation, overall survival, and progression-free survival were similar for patients treated with sequential and alternating chemotherapy and radiation......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

January 26, 2009, 6:23 AM CT

Feeling your words

The movement of facial skin and muscles around the mouth plays an important role not only in the way the sounds of speech are made, but also in the way they are heard as per a research studyby researchers at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory.

"How your own face is moving makes a difference in how you 'hear' what you hear," said first author Takayuki Ito, a senior scientist at Haskins.

When, Ito and colleagues used a robotic device to stretch the facial skin of "listeners" in a way that would normally accompany speech production they found it affected the way the subjects heard the speech sounds.

The subjects listened to words one at a time that were taken from a computer-produced continuum between the words "head" and "had." When the robot stretched the listener's facial skin upward, words sounded more like "head." With downward stretch, words sounded more like "had." A backward stretch had no perceptual effect.

And, timing of the skin stretch was critical perceptual changes were only observed when the stretch was similar to what occurs during speech production.

These effects of facial skin stretch indicate the involvement of the somatosensory system in the neural processing of speech sounds. This finding contributes in an important way to our understanding of the relationship between speech perception and production. It shows that there is a broad, non-auditory basis for "hearing" and that speech perception has important neural links to the mechanisms of speech production......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

December 19, 2008, 5:13 AM CT

Cough medicine ingredient could treat prostate cancer

A study published recently in the recent issue of the European medical journal Anticancer Research demonstrates that an ingredient used in a common cough suppressant may be useful in treating advanced prostate cancer. Scientists observed that noscapine, which has been used in cough medicine for nearly 50 years, reduced tumor growth in mice by 60% and limited the spread of tumors by 65% without causing harmful side effects.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates that 186,320 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008 and 28,660 will die from it. One man in 6 will get prostate cancer during his lifetime. Eventhough slow-growing in most men, the cancer is considered advanced when it spreads beyond the prostate. There is no known cure.

The laboratory study was a joint effort by Dr. Israel Barken of the Prostate Cancer Research and Educational Foundation, Moshe Rogosnitzky of MedInsight Research Institute, and Dr. Jack Geller of The University of California San Diego. Noscapine has previously been studied as a therapy for breast, ovarian, colon, lung and brain cancer and for various lymphomas, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and melanoma. This study, however, is the first to demonstrate its effectiveness in treating prostate cancer......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

August 31, 2008, 8:39 PM CT

Professional guidelines for regarding earwax

The age-old advice to routinely clean out earwax is discouraged under the first published guidelines from health care professionals about removing wax from the ear.

"Unfortunately, a number of people feel the need to manually remove earwax, called cerumen, which serves an important protective function for the ear," said the guidelines' lead author, Dr. Peter Roland, chairman of otolaryngology head and neck surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "Cotton swabs and some other home remedies can push cerumen further into the canal, potentially foiling the natural removal process and instead cause build-up, known as impaction".

The guidelines recommend professionals use wax-dissolving agents, irrigation or ear syringing, or manually remove it with a suction device or other specialty instrument under supervised care to avoid damaging the ear or further impaction. The guidelines warn against using cotton-tipped swabs, and the home use of oral jet irrigators.

In addition, people with hearing aids should be checked for impaction during regular check-ups because cerumen can cause feedback, reduced sound intensity or damage the hearing aid, as per the guidelines.

The guidelines were created with input from family practitioners, pediatricians, internists, nurses, audiologists and emergency room doctors and have been endorsed by the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

August 20, 2008, 8:21 PM CT

Childhood ear infections may predispose to obesity later in life

Scientists are reporting new evidence of a possible link between a history of moderate to severe middle ear infections in childhood and a tendency to be overweight during the later part of life. Their study suggests that prompt diagnosis and therapy of middle ear infections one of the most common childhood conditions requiring medical attention may help fight obesity in some people. The findings were presented today at the 236th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Study leader Linda M. Bartoshuk, Ph.D., noted that chronic, repeated ear infections can damage the chorda tympani nerve, which passes through the middle ear and controls taste sensations. Damage to this nerve appears to intensify the desire for fatty or high-energy foods, which could result in obesity, she said.

Other research has shown that middle ear infections, or otitis media, are becoming more common in children. Childhood obesity is likewise on the rise and has reached epidemic levels, especially in the United States. Eventhough researchers have known for years that ear infections can lead to hearing loss in children that can result in speech and language impairment, a possible link between ear infections and obesity has been largely unexplored until now, said Bartoshuk, who is with the University of Florida's Center for Smell and Taste in Gainesville......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 13, 2008, 9:12 PM CT

Link between common cold and ear infection

A new five-year study at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston confirms the suspected close link between the two most common diseases of young children: colds and ear infections.

The study, which appears in the March 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Disease, confirmed the suspected close link between the two most common diseases of young children, viral colds and ear infections. It also identified the viruses linked to higher rates of ear infections.

Understanding how viruses and ear infections are linked will definitely help us find new ways to prevent ear infections, said Dr. Tasnee Chronmaitree, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who is the studys principal investigator. To break the link you must first understand it.

Ear infections are the driving force behind antibiotic resistance, a troubling medical issue, as physicians often administer antibiotics for the painful, persistent ailment.

Chonmaitree has studied otitis media (ear infection) for more than two decades. She said parents could best protect their children by avoiding exposure to sick children and to have their children vaccinated against influenza. She suggested that children in day care might face reduced exposure to viruses if they are enrolled in smaller day care facilities with fewer children......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

January 28, 2008, 10:50 PM CT

Over-the-counter eardrops may cause hearing loss

A new study, led by scientists at The Montreal Childrens Hospital (MCH) of the MUHC, has revealed that certain over-the-counter earwax softeners can cause severe inflammation and damage to the eardrum and inner ear. The results of the study, recently published in The Laryngoscope, suggest that use of these medications should be discouraged.

Patients often complain that wax is blocking their ears and is causing discomfort and sometimes deafness, says Dr. Sam Daniel principal investigator of the study and director of McGill Auditory Sciences Laboratory at The Childrens. Over-the-counter earwax softeners are used to breakup and disperse this excess wax. However, the effects of these medications on the cells of the ear had not been thoroughly analyzed.

Because some of these products are readily available to the public without a consultation with or prescription from a physician, it is important to make sure they are safe to use. Our study shows that in a well-established animal model, one such product, Cerumenex, is in fact, toxic to the cells of the ear, says Dr. Daniel.

Dr. Daniel and his team studied the impact of Cerumenex on hearing. In addition, overall toxicity in the outer ear and changes in the nerve cells of the inner ear were analyzed.

Harmful effects to a number of of the cells were observed after only one dose, says Dr. Melvin Schloss co-author and MCH Director of Otolaryngology. We observed reduced hearing, severe inflammation, and lesions to the nerve cells......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

January 21, 2008, 8:29 PM CT

Saline nasal wash helps improve children's cold symptoms

A saline nasal wash solution made from processed seawater appears to improve nasal symptoms and may help prevent the recurrence of respiratory infections when used by children with the common cold, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of Otolaryngology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Infections of the upper respiratory tract and sinus infections are common among children, as per background information in the article. Nasal irrigation with isotonic [balanced] saline solutions seems effective in such health conditions and is often used in a variety of indications as an adjunctive therapy, the authors write as background information in the article. Eventhough saline nasal wash is currently mentioned in several guidelines, scientific evidence of its efficacy is rather poor.

Ivo lapak, M.D., of Teaching Hospital Brno, Brno, Czech Republic, and his colleagues randomly assigned 401 children age 6 to 10 with cold or flu to two therapy groups, one receiving standard medicine and the other also receiving a nasal wash with a modified processed seawater solution. Patients were observed for a total of 12 weeks, from January to April 2006, during which health status, symptoms and medicine use were assessed at four visits over the course of the trial, the authors write. Acute illness was reviewed during the first two visits (up to three weeks), prevention during the following two visits (up to 12 weeks). The third visit, scheduled for week eight after study entry, could be conducted over the telephone......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

December 4, 2007, 10:32 PM CT

Common treatments for sinus infections may not work

A comparison of common therapys for acute sinusitis that included an antibiotic and a topical steroid found neither more effective than placebo, as per a research studyin the December 5 issue of JAMA.

Acute sinusitis (sinus infection) is a common clinical problem with symptoms similar to other illnesses, and is often diagnosed and treated without clinical confirmation. Despite the clinical uncertainty as to a bacterial cause, antibiotic prescribing rates remain as high as 92 percent in the United Kingdom and 85 percent to 98 percent in the United States, as per background information in the article. Because there are no satisfactory studies of microbiological etiology from typical primary care patient practices, wide-scale overtreatment is likely occurring, the authors write. Concerns about wide-spread antibacterial use include increasing antibiotic resistance in the community. Anti-inflammatory drugs such as topical steroids are also used as a therapy and may be beneficial, but there has been limited research.

Ian G. Williamson, M.D., of the University of Southampton, England, and his colleagues conducted a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of the antibiotic amoxicillin and topical steroid budesonide in acute maxillary sinusitis (rhinosinusitis; inflammation of the nasal cavity and sinuses). The study included 240 adults with acute nonrecurrent sinusitis treated at 58 family practices between November 2001 and November 2005. Patients were randomized to 1 of 4 therapy groups: antibiotic and nasal steroid (500 mg of amoxicillin 3 times per day for 7 days and 200 g of budesonide in each nostril once per day for 10 days); placebo antibiotic and nasal steroid; antibiotic and placebo nasal steroid; placebo antibiotic and placebo nasal steroid......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

November 14, 2007, 8:42 PM CT

Genes influence age-related hearing loss

Waltham, MAA new Brandeis University study of twins shows that genes play a significant role in the level of hearing loss that often appears in late middle age. The research, in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, examined genetic and environmental factors affecting hearing loss in the frequency range of speech recognition.

This research confirms the importance of genetic factors in age-associated hearing loss, and the need for vulnerable individuals and their families to take extra care to prevent further hearing damage, said lead author Brandeis neuroscientist Arthur Wingfield.

The research suggests that middle-aged and older people with a genetic vulnerability to hearing loss should be especially careful about environmental risk factors such as harmful noise and medications whose side-effects could be detrimental to hearing.

The study examined 179 identical and 150 fraternal male twin pairs, ranging in age from 52 to 60 years, as part of the Viet Nam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA). About two-thirds of the hearing loss in the individual subjects better ears could be accounted for by genetic factors. In the subjects poorer ears, about one-half of the hearing loss was due to genes, the study concluded.

Wingfield, an expert on the relationship between memory performance and hearing loss in elderly adults, said that even mild hearing loss can indirectly lead to declines in cognitive performance because intellectual energy normally reserved for higher-level comprehension must be directed toward perceptual effort for accurately hearing speech......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

October 31, 2007, 8:46 PM CT

Ears ringing?

Brain researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered how cells in the developing ear make their own noise, long before the ear is able to detect sound around them. The finding, reported in this weeks Nature, helps to explain how the developing auditory system generates brain activity in the absence of sound. It also may explain why people sometimes experience tinnitus and hear sounds that seem to come from nowhere.

The research team made their discovery while studying the properties of non-nerve cells in the ears of young rats. These so-called support cells were believed to be silent bystanders not directly involved in nerve communication. However, to the scientists surprise, these cells showed robust electrical activity, similar to nerve cells. Further, this activity occurred spontaneously, without sound or any external stimulus.

Its long been thought that nerve cells that connect auditory organs to the brain need to experience sound or other nerve activity to find their way to the part of the brain responsible for processing sound, says the studys lead author, Dwight Bergles, Ph.D., an associate professor of neuroscience at Hopkins. So when we saw that these supporting cells could generate their own electrical activity, we suspected they might somehow be involved in triggering the activity mandatory for proper nerve wiring......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

October 16, 2007, 7:21 PM CT

Ear infection superbug resistant to all pediatric antibiotics

Scientists have discovered a strain of bacteria resistant to all approved drugs used to fight ear infections in children, as per an article would be published tomorrow in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). A pair of pediatricians discovered the strain because it is their standard practice to perform an uncommon procedure called tympanocentesis (ear tap) on children when several antibiotics fail to clear up their ear infections. The procedure involves puncturing the childs eardrum and draining fluid to relieve pressure and pain. Analyzing the drained fluid is the only way to describe the bacterial strain causing the infection.

Even after the ear tap and additional rounds of antibiotics, infections persisted in a small group of children in a Rochester, New York, pediatric practice, leading to ear tube surgery and, in one case, to permanent hearing loss. The physicians realized they may be dealing with a superbug and tested the children's ear tap fluid at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The tests showed that the superbug, called the 19A strain, could be killed only by an antibiotic (levofloxacin, Levaquin) approved for adults that had a warning in its label against use in children. With no other choice, they treated the children with crushed, adult-approved pills, and it worked......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

October 10, 2007, 6:48 PM CT

MIT finds new hearing mechanism

MIT scientists have discovered a hearing mechanism that fundamentally changes the current understanding of inner ear function. This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds. Its discovery could eventually lead to improved systems for restoring hearing.

The research is described in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of October 8.

MIT Professor Dennis M. Freeman, working with graduate student Roozbeh Ghaffari and research scientist Alexander J. Aranyosi, observed that the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure inside the cochlea of the ear, is much more important to hearing than previously thought. It can selectively pick up and transmit energy to different parts of the cochlea via a kind of wave that is different from that usually linked to hearing.

Ghaffari, the lead author of the paper, is in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, as is Freeman. All three scientists are in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Freeman is also in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

It has been known for over half a century that inside the cochlea sound waves are translated into up-and-down waves that travel along a structure called the basilar membrane. But the team has now observed that a different kind of wave, a traveling wave that moves from side to side, can also carry sound energy. This wave moves along the tectorial membrane, which is situated directly above the sensory hair cells that transmit sounds to the brain. This second wave mechanism is poised to play a crucial role in delivering sound signals to these hair cells......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

October 8, 2007, 9:39 AM CT

Brain Center Responsible for Tinnitus

For the more than 50 million Americans who experience the phantom sounds of tinnitus -- ringing in the ears that can range from annoying to debilitating -- certain well-trained rats may be their best hope for finding relief.

Scientists at the University at Buffalo have studied the condition for more than 10 years and have developed these animal models, which can "tell" the scientists if they are experiencing tinnitus.

These researchers now have received a $2.9 million five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the brain signals responsible for creating the phantom sounds, using the animal models, and to test potential therapies to quiet the noise.

The research will take place at the Center for Hearing and Deafness, part of the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences in the university's College of Arts and Sciences. Richard Salvi, Ph.D., director of the center, is principal investigator. Researchers from UB's Department of Nuclear Medicine and from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo are major collaborators on portions of the project.

Tinnitus is caused by continued exposure to loud noise, by normal aging and, to a much lesser extent, as a side effect of taking certain anti-cancer drugs. It is a major concern in the military: 30 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans suffer from the condition......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

September 6, 2007, 9:37 PM CT

developing new method for hearing loss assessment

A Purdue University researcher is working on a new technique to diagnose hearing loss in a way that more accurately reflects real-world situations.

"The traditional way to assess speech understanding in people with hearing loss is to put them in a quiet room and ask them to repeat words produced by one person they can't see," said Karen Iler Kirk, a professor of speech, language and hearing sciences. "The goal of our research is to develop new tests that reflect more natural listening situations with visual cues, different background noises, voice quality, dialects and speaking rates. This is a more accurate way to predict how people perceive speech in the real world and, therefore, can help us determine appropriate treatment and interventions, such as cochlear implants.

"The better the diagnostic tool we have to make such decisions, the better we can serve our patients".

Kirk received a $2.8 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders for the five-year project to develop two new audiovisual and multi-talker sentence tests that expand upon the traditional spoken word recognition format that has been used since the 1950s. One test is for adults and the other for children. More than 1,000 people ages 4-65 will participate in the study......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

July 31, 2007, 9:44 PM CT

Research Focuses On Vocal Cords

Damaged or diseased vocal cords can forever change and even silence the voices we love, from a family member's to a famous personality's.

Julie Andrews, who starred in such classics as The Sound of Music, is among the professional singers who have undergone surgery to remove callus-like growths that can form from overuse of these two small, stretchy bands of tissue housed in the larynx, or voice box. Sadly, Andrews may never fully recover her singing voice after surgery on her vocal cords in 1997.

Engineering pliable, new vocal cord tissue to replace scarred, rigid tissue in these petite, yet powerful organs is the goal of a new University of Delaware research project. It is funded by a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Xinqiao Jia, UD assistant professor of materials science and engineering, is leading the project. Jia's research focuses on developing intelligent biomaterials that closely mimic the molecular composition, mechanical responsiveness and nanoscale organization of natural extracellular matrices--the structural materials that serve as scaffolding for cells. These novel biomaterials, combined with defined biophysical cues and biological factors, are being used for functional tissue regeneration......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

July 25, 2007, 10:23 PM CT

Improving Accuracy Of Thyroid Hormone Testing

Scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have developed a fast and accurate way to measure a major hormone released by the thyroid gland ? an advance they say may help in the therapy of a number of women who have overactive or underactive thyroid glands.

As per the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, approximately 27 million Americans have thyroid glands that produce too little of the hormone, thyroxine, a condition known as hypothyroidism, or else the gland produces too much, known as hyperthyroidism. Thyroxine regulates the body's metabolism, and hypothyroidism, linked to fatigue and weight gain, is much more common than hyperthyroidism, characterized by weight loss. More than eight out of 10 patients with thyroid disease are women, and nearly one out of 50 women in the United States is diagnosed with hypothyroidism during pregnancy.

In order to treat these conditions, physicians need to know how much synthetic thyroxine to either give patients or how much natural hormone should be blocked, and there have long been concerns that the common "immunoassay" test now in use worldwide is neither specific nor very accurate. To date, the immunoassay test has been used to measure those levels in women known to have abnormal levels of thyroid function based on a screening test......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

July 23, 2007, 5:17 PM CT

After Implant Of Cochlear Device

Cochlear implantselectronic devices inserted surgically in the ear to allow deaf people to hearmay restore normal auditory pathways in the brain even after a number of years of deafness.

The results imply that the brain can reorganize sound processing centers or press into service latent ones based on sound stimulation. Jeanne Guiraud, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Lyon, Edouard Herriot University Hospital, and Advanced Bionics, a firm that makes cochlear implants, worked with deaf subjects from 16 to 74 years old and observed that younger subjects and those with a shorter history of deafness showed changes that mirrored patterns in people with normal hearing more closely. The results were reported in the July 18 Journal of Neuroscience

"The results imply a restoration to some extent of the normal organization through the use of the cochlear implant, says Manuel Don, PhD, of the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles. They also claim to find ties between the degree of restored organization and a hearing task. Such ties are of enormous importance in evaluating cochlear implant benefits. Don was not involved in this study.

Guiraud and her team studied 13 profoundly deaf adults who had received cochlear implants, on average, eight months before the study. Electrical stimulation to the ear allowed the team to locate where in the brains auditory cortex various frequencies were processed and come up with a map for these tones. Their results demonstrated that in people who had cochlear implants for at least three months, normal frequency organization was somewhat restored......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source