Short News
PHL Conf. at Hyderabad
from Sept. 23-25, 2022
HYDERABAD: Pakistan Hypertension League is organizing its annual conference here from 23rd September to 25thSepteber 2022. According to the organizers, the scientific programme consists of State of the Art lectures, Scientific Sessions, Practical clinical case discussions, free paper sessions, Pre conference workshops, Clinical Grand Rounds. Prof. Feroz Memon is the Patron and Prof. Syed Fasih Hashmi is the Convener of the conference. For further details contact Prof. Fasih Hashmi, Department of Cardiology, Isra University Hospital, Halla Raod, Hyderabad. E mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Does fraud victimization affect a
person’s long-term blood pressure?
New research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggests that experiencing financial exploitation, fraudulent schemes, and scams may raise a person’s blood pressure. The study found that fraud victimization was linked with elevated blood pressure in men, but not in women.
The study included 1,200 older adults from the Rush Memory and Aging Project. During up to 11 years of annual observations, participants were asked about fraud victimization and underwent serial blood pressure measurements. Men showed post-fraud elevations in blood pressure that, compounded over time, may portend poor health.
“These findings show that fraud victimization has important public health consequences and underscore the need for efforts to prevent exploitation,” said lead author Melissa Lamar, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.17951
Tango provides fast, specific diagnosis
of prostate cancer from blood samples
Early detection of prostate cancer, one of the most common types of cancer in men, is often achieved with PSA tests. However, this blood test for prostate-specific antigens gives many false positive results, causing unnecessary biopsies and overtreatment. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a Chinese research team now introduces a highly specific, non-invasive alternative to biopsy: the “thermophoretic AND gate operation” assay, abbreviated as Tango, quickly and reliably detects prostate cancer directly in blood samples.
The Tango assay is based on the analysis of circulating extracellular vesicles, which are membrane-bound “nanobubbles.” These come from all cells of the body, circulate in the bloodstream, and contain numerous biomarkers typical of the cells in which they originated. Isolation and accumulation of the heterogeneous vesicles in complex samples requires complex and expensive pre-treatments. The new method developed by a team headed by Fei Tian, Bo Dai, and Jiashu Sun combines accumulation with a logical AND gate operation in a single step for the identification of the desired tumor vesicles. The Tango assay was able to identify patients with prostate cancer out of a group with inconclusive PSA results with 91 % accuracy in 15 minutes. It should also be possible to develop tango tests for other types of cancer, according to the team from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (Beijing) and Fudan University (Shanghai).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202207037