Ovarian cancer — often an aggressive, silent killer of women — could soon be diagnosed much faster with new technology developed at the University of South Florida.
GeoPharma, a Florida-based firm, has acquired worldwide patent rights from the university’s research foundation for a test for early detection of ovarian cancer using a patient’s urine sample.
Right now, there’s no reliable early detection screening test for it, and almost no symptoms exist.
GeoPharma’s president said a diagnostic test that’s reliable, easy to use and that detects the cancer early could save thousands of women’s lives every year. The firm is seeking federal approval of the urine test.
Disorganized nerve fibers may cause a form of dyslexia
Disorganized, meandering tracts of nerve fibers in the brain may cause a form of dyslexia marked by slow and choppy reading fluency, U.S. researchers report.
There are different forms of dyslexia, which affects 5 percent to 15 percent of children.
In this study, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center used a special form of MRI called diffusion sensor imaging to study the brains of 10 people with dyslexia caused by a rare genetic disorder called periventricular nodular heterotopia, which disrupts brain structure.
People with PNH have normal intelligence but have trouble reading smoothly because they lack the rapid brain processing needed.
They compared the PNH patients to 10 people with dyslexia without neurological problems and to 10 people without dyslexia who were normal readers.
As reported in the Dec. 4 issue of Neurology, the scans revealed a disorganized, wandering pattern of white matter nerve fiber connections in the brains of the PNH patients. The more disordered a patient’s white matter nerve fiber connections, the less fluent or smooth the patient’s reading is, the team noted.
“We looked at dyslexia caused by a particular genetic disorder, but what we found could have implications for understanding the causes of dyslexia in other populations as well,” said study co-leader Dr. Christopher Walsh, chief of the division of genetics at Children’s Hospital Boston.
Star and news-service reports
