Accelerating Medicines Partnership launches data knowledge portal for Parkinson’s disease

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) program for Parkinson’s disease (PD) has launched a data portal to provide de-identified information collected from 4,298 PD patients and healthy controls to researchers working to develop effective therapies for the disease. The portal enables researchers to study complex data sets and perform genome-wide analyses at a scale previously impossible.…

Predicting vulnerability to Alzheimer’s disease and delirium

Boston, Mass. – Marked by acute temporary confusion, disorientation and/or agitation, postoperative delirium is the most common post-surgical complication in older adults, striking as many as half of adults older than 65 who undergo high-risk procedures such as cardiac surgery or hip replacements. Postoperative delirium is also tightly linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Although each…

Breast cancer recurrence after lumpectomy & RT is treatable with localized RT without mastectomy

Approximately 10% of breast cancer patients treated with lumpectomy (breast-conserving surgery [BCS]) and whole-breast radiation (WBI) will have a subsequent in-breast local recurrence of cancer (IBTR) when followed long term. The surgical standard of care has been to perform mastectomy if breast cancer recurs following such breast-preserving treatment. However, a new multi-center study led by…

Virtual reality would make attending therapy easier for stroke survivors

Researchers have created a virtual reality clinic to make it easier for stroke survivors to attend their physical and occupational therapy sessions. Results from a proof-of-concept study suggest that the technology – and the social connection it facilitates – are effective at encouraging therapy participation. “Physical and occupational therapy are important parts of stroke recovery,…