Month: January 2009

Categories
Diagnonistic Test

Skin Biopsy

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Definition:
A biopsy of a lesion of the skin, such as in mole removal or tumor removal, can help your doctor tell the difference between a skin cancer and a benign, or noncancerous, lesion. The skin sample obtained during a biopsy is sent to a laboratory for examination under a microscope.

For this test, abnormal areas of skin are removed to test for cancer or other skin diseases.

Doctors take biopsies of areas that look abnormal and use them to detect cancer, precancerous cells, infections, and other conditions. For some biopsies, the doctor inserts a needle into the skin and draws out a sample; in other cases, tissue is removed during a surgical procedure.

Your doctor may want to obtain a sample of skin in order to diagnose diseases of the skin, such as those caused by bacteria, fungi, or other chronic skin conditions. This procedure is called a skin biopsy.

.Skin Problem Slideshow->..
How the procedure is performed?
*In an excision biopsy, the entire area of suspect skin is cut out. Excision biopsy is normally done with a scalpel. Stitches are used to close the incision.

*In a punch biopsy, a sharp cookie cutter -like instrument is used to remove a small cylinder of skin. Sometimes stitches are necessary to close this type of biopsy wound.

*The outermost part of a lesion can also be shaved off with a scalpel. This is called a shave biopsy.

If you have a lesion on your skin that is fluid-filled and not solid, this can be evaluated with aspiration. Your doctor can put a small needle attached to a syringe into this lesion and suction out the fluid.

How do you prepare for the test?

*Skin biopsy is routinely done in the doctor’s office. You may be asked to change into a gown or remove an article of clothing so that the area of suspect skin can be more easily seen and removed.

*Tell your doctor if you have any allergies to medications, and especially if you have had any reactions to local anesthetics, such as lidocaine or Novocain, or to iodine cleaning solutions, such as Betadine.

*Inform your doctor if you are taking any medications, including over-the-counter drugs, street drugs, or herbal or nutritional supplements.

*Tell your doctor if you have any bleeding problems or if you are pregnant.

What risks are there from the test?
You should discuss with your doctor the following potential risks and complications of the biopsy procedure. You will need to sign a consent form before the procedure.

Possible risks include these:
*Bleeding from the biopsy site
*Pain
*Local reaction to the anesthetic
*If you had an excisional biopsy, you’ll have a scar shaped like a straight line.(Scars are rare following a punch biopsy.)
*Following any kind of incision into the skin, some people develop keloids-reddish lumps on the healing skin.
*Infection

Healing problems – If you tend to form large scars (keloids), you have an increased chance of forming a scar over the biopsy site. Smoking and some chronic medical conditions such as diabetes affect the healing ability of the skin.
What happens when the test is performed?
This procedure is done in a doctor’s office, often by a dermatologist. The doctor begins by injecting a local anesthetic near the biopsy site. Although the injection usually stings for a second, the rest of the procedure is painless. Depending on the size of the lesion, one of two methods will be used to remove or sample it.

For small lesions and tissue samples, your doctor might do a punch biopsy, in which he or she places an instrument shaped like a straw with a sharp end against your skin and twists it. The sharp end works like a cookie cutter to slice a small circle from the top layer of skin. The doctor lifts the tissue away with tweezers. A single stitch closes the opening in the skin.

Larger lesions and tissue samples are removed with an excisional biopsy. In this case, the doctor uses a blade to cut an oval opening around the area. The doctor will stop any bleeding with a cauterizer, a wand-shaped instrument that uses an electric current to seal the ends of bleeding blood vessels. You’ll also need stitches to close the incision.
The tissue that is removed is sent to the laboratory for analysis by a pathologist.

With both types of biopsies, the skin sample is then given to a pathologist and examined under a high-powered microscope.You’ll probably be able to go home right afterward.

For skin biopsies that are being tested for melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, your doctor will try to remove the entire area that looks abnormal. That way, the biopsy will not only determine if the lesion is malignant, it might also cure the cancer. The sample will be examined under a microscope to make sure the whole cancer has been removed. You might need additional skin surgery if the examination shows that the cancer extended to the margins of the skin sample.

After the Procedure:
*To Keep the healing wound clean and dry.Your doctor will put a bandage over your biopsy site. Keep this bandage dry. You may be advised to wash the wound, apply antibacterial ointment, and change the bandage daily.

*If you have stitches, you need to keep the area clean and dry. Follow instructions regarding when and how to wash the wound.
Stitches on the face are removed in 5-8 days. Stitches placed elsewhere on the body are removed in 10-14 days. Adhesive strips are left in place for 10-21 days.

*If you have pain at the biopsy site, talk with your doctor about medication to relieve it. In most cases, discomfort is minimal and requires nothing more than an over-the-counter pain medication.

Next Steps:
Your doctor needs to see you again to remove the stitches and to give you the results of the pathology report.

When to Seek Medical Care:
Call your doctor if you have worsening pain, spreading redness around the site, bleeding from the wound, fever (temperature greater than 100.4°F), or other concerns.

Go to a hospital’s emergency department if you have bleeding from the site that will not stop with gentle pressure, if you have a thick discharge (pus) from the wound, or if you have a high fever.

How long is it before the result of the test is known?
It can take several days to get your results.

Resources:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diagnostic-tests/skin-biopsy.htm
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/skin_biopsy/article_em.htm

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Featured

Preventing Colds May be Easy

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Fluff up the pillows and pull up the covers. Preventing the common cold may be as easy as getting more sleep. Researchers paid healthy  adults $800 to have cold viruses sprayed up their noses, then wait five days in a hotel to see if they got sick. Habitual eight-hour sleepers were much less likely to get sick than those who slept less than seven hours or slept fitfully.

“The longer you sleep, the better off you are, the less susceptible you are to colds,” said lead author Sheldon Cohen, who studies the effects of stress on health at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University.

Prior research has suggested that sleep boosts the immune system at the cell level. This is the first study to show small sleep disturbances increasing the risk of getting sick, said Dr. Michael Irwin, who researches immune response at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The message is to maintain regular sleep habits because those are really critical for health,” Irwin said.

The people who slept less than seven hours a night in the weeks before they were exposed to the virus were three times more likely to catch a cold than those who slept eight hours or more. To find willing cold victims, researchers placed ads and recruited 78 men and 75 women, all healthy and willing to go one-on-one against the virus. They ranged in age from 21 to 55.

First, their sleep habits were recorded for two weeks. Every evening, researchers interviewed them by phone about their sleep the night before. Subjects were asked what time they went to bed, what time they got up, how much time they spent awake during the night and if they felt rested in the morning.

Then they checked into a hotel where the virus was squirted up their noses. After five days, the virus had done its work, infecting 135 of the 153 volunteers. But only 54 people got sick. Researchers measured their runny noses by weighing their used tissues. They tested for congestion by squirting dye in the subjects’ noses to see how long it took to get to the back of their throats.

Surprisingly, feeling rested was not linked to staying well. Cohen said he’s not sure why that is, other than feeling rested is more subjective than recalling bedtime and wake-up time. The researchers took into account other factors that make people more susceptible such as stress, smoking and drinking, and lack of exercise, and they still saw a connection between sleep and resisting a cold.

Dr Daniel Buysse, a sleep researcher at the University of Pittsburgh said, “Spending too much time in bed can lead to more interrupted sleep, which in this study “seems to be even worse than short sleep” for increasing the risk of catching a cold.”

Sources:The Times Of India

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Herbs & Plants

Dictamnus albus, Gas Plant(Burning Bush)

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Botanical Name: Dictamnus albus L.
Family:Rutaceae
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Sapindales
Genus: Dictamnus
Species: D. albus

Common Name:Burning-bush, False Dittany, White Dittany, and Gas-plant.

Habitat :Native to southern Europe, north Africa and southern and central Asia. It   grows in woodland margins and rocky scree, mainly on calcareous soils.

Description
It is a perennial herb and it grows about 60 cm high. Its flowers form a loose pyramidal spike and vary in colour from pale purple to white. It normally grows in woods in warm places. It is a popular garden plant both for its flowers and for its fragrance. It bears large elegant flowers of various colours: red, white, striped or blue. Its leaves resemble those of an Ash tree. Outside its natural range it is planted in gardens and grows well in warm places. It can also be found in sheltered places in woodlands.
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In the summer months, the whole plant is covered with a kind of flammable substance, which is gluey to the touch, and has a very fragrant smell; but if it takes fire, it goes off with a flash all over the plant.

The name “Burning-bush” derives from the volatile oils produced by the plant, which can catch fire readily in hot weather, leading to comparisons with the burning bush of the Bible, including the suggestion that this is the plant involved there.

The plant is inedible: the leaves have a bitter and unpalatable taste. Despite the lemon-like smell, the plant is acrid when eaten.

The plant is more commonly known today as the Burning Bush. It is the essential oil, which has a lemon-like smell, that is flammable. The daughter of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus is said to once ignite the air, at the end of a particularly hot, windless summer day, above Dictamnus plants, using a simple matchstick.

It grows best in full sun, but will tolerate some light shade during the hottest months.
The Burning Bush is easily grown in most well draining garden soils, but appreciates the addition of a small amount of lime at planting time. Once established, the plant is very drought tolerant.

A mature plant will grow to 24 to 36 inches in height, and produce an abundance of 1 inch diameter white, pink, or red flowers. Propagation may be accomplished by seed which should be sown as soon as they are ripe in the Fall. Dictamnus is a long lived plant which resents transplanting, so choose your planting spot carefully so you won’t have to move it later.

Cultivation:
Landscape Uses:Border, Foundation, Massing, Rock garden, Specimen, Woodland garden. An easily grown plant, succeeding in ordinary garden soil. It prefers a dry sunny position with some lime and is not suitable for heavy or damp soils. Established plants are drought tolerant. A very ornamental plant, it should be planted into its permanent position as soon as possible because it dislikes root disturbance. The whole plant contains a very aromatic essential oil, giving out a scent somewhat like lemon peel. When the plant is bruised, this smell becomes more like fine balsam. This essential oil is emitted from the plant in hot weather and, on a still day, can be ignited and will burn for a second or two without harming the plant, thus giving the plant its common name. Slugs are strongly attracted to this plant and can destroy it by eating all the young growth in spring. There are at least 2 named varieties, ‘Pink’ produces a tea with a less lemony flavour but with an added taste of almonds and vanilla, ‘White’ has a lemony fragrance and taste. The flowers are very attractive to bees. Special Features: Attractive foliage, Edible, Fragrant foliage, Not North American native, All or parts of this plant are poisonous, Suitable for cut flowers, Suitable for dried flowers, Fragrant flowers.

Propagation :
Seed – best sown in a cold frame as soon as it is ripe. Cold stratify stored seed for 6 weeks and sow in the spring in a cold frame. The seed usually germinates in 1 – 6 months at 15°c. As soon as they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Division in spring. Take care since the plant resents root disturbance. The plant can also be divided in autumn. We have found it best to tease out divisions from the side of the clump to avoid the need to dig up the main clump. Try to get divisions that already have formed roots. Pot them up in a greenhouse and grow them on for a year to make sure they are well established before planting them out. Root cuttings in November/December.
Edible Uses: Tea……A lemon-scented tea is made from the dried leaves. Refreshing and aromatic

Historical medical uses
Some use has been made of the plant (chiefly the powdered root) in herbalism. However, as the alternative name “False dittany” implies, it is unrelated to the Dittany found in Crete, which has a much more significant history of medicinal use. Like Dittany of Crete they were believed to be useful for cordial and cephalic ailments, to help resist poison and combat putrefaction, and to be useful in malignant and pestilential fevers. They were also used for cases of hysteria. While the volatile oil does have anti-inflammatory properties, it isn’t used for such ailments today.

An infusion of the tops of the plant was also used as a pleasant and efficacious medicine in the gravel. It was believed to work powerfully by provoking urine and easing colicky pains which frequently accompany that disorder. The root was considered a sure remedy for epilepsies, and other diseases of the head, opening obstructions of the womb and procuring the discharges of the uterus. The plant is known to have emmenagogic properties, but the use of such plants to procure onset of menses is generally considered obsolete today.

The burning bush has been used in Chinese herbal medicine for at least 1,500 years. A lemon-scented tea is made from the dried leaves.
D. albus also produces an oil that irritates some people’s skin. After several hours the oil creates a chemical burn that can produce blisters. The oil appears to be sunlight activated. If you wash the exposed skin before it receives too much direct sunlight, irritation won’t occur.

Dittany, a distillate of very volatile essential oils from the roots and flowers, is rarely used today. It is a diuretic, an anti-spasmodic (relaxes the muscles of the gastro-intestinal tract), an anti-helminthic (expels intestinal parasites), and a stimulant to the contraction of uterine muscle.

Modern medical uses
Today the plant is not used much, but is classified as a stomach tonic. A simple infusion of the leaves may be used as a substitute for tea and as a remedy for nervous complaints. The powdered root combined in equal parts with Peppermint has been administered in doses of 2 drams (4 g) for epilepsy. A homeopathic remedy is made from the fresh leaves. It is used in the treatment of female complaints and constipation

Other Uses:  The plant contains an essential oil. Yields from the fresh flowering plant are around 3% on a dry weight basis. This oil is used as a cosmetic

Known Hazards:…General poisoning notes:
Gas plant (Dictamnus albus) has caused phytophotodermatitis in humans. In one case in Ottawa, a gardener suffered recurring skin eruptions for several summers. The original diagnosis was poison-ivy, but subsequent testing proved that the gas plant was causing the skin reactions. The plant juices are absorbed by the skin and, in the presence of long-wave ultraviolet light, cell damage occurs. Once this cause is recognized, careful avoidance of contact with the gas plant prevents further problems (Henderson and DesGroseilliers 1984). This is an uncommon and colorful plant found in Canadian herbaceous borders.

Disclaimer:The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://chestofbooks.com/gardening-horticulture/Trees-Shrubs-Vines-Herbaceous-Perennials/Dictamnus-albus-Gas-Plant.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/226464/5635/Gas-plant
http://www.piam.com/mms_garden/plants.html

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/farnorth/gal0623523010608.html


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Anti-Aging Herbs and Spices

 

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The typical American diet that is high in simple carbohydrates—white flour, white salt, and processed food–is aging us. We are getting all the bulk without the nutrients, plus adding to our propensity for developing real food cravings. So whether you are a vegetarian or an omnivore, you can start to reverse aging by simply choosing to eat the right foods to keep you full of vim, vigor, and vitality, especially over the holidays.

The easiest way to make sure you are getting more nutrients into every meal.

Every time you flavor your meals with herbs or spices you are literally “upgrading” your food without adding a single calorie. You are taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary by adding color, flavor, vitamins, and often medicinal properties.

Here’s why:

* Spices and herbs maximize nutrient density. Herbs and spices contain antioxidants, minerals and multivitamins. At the cocktail party, choose the Thai chicken satay stick over the tried and true fried chicken strip.

* Spices and herbs create a more thermogenic diet. Because spices are nutrient dense, they are thermogenic, which means they naturally increase your metabolism.

* Some spices and herbs increase your overall feeling of fullness and satiety, so you’ll eat less. One study conducted at Maanstricht University in the Netherlands showed that when one consumes an appetizer with half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes before each meal, it decreased their calorie intake by 10-16 percent.

* Spices and herbs have real medicinal properties. Study after study shows the benefits of distinct herbs and spices. For example, one 2003 trial of 60 people with type 2 diabetes reported that consuming as little as two teaspoons of cinnamon daily for six weeks reduced blood-glucose levels significantly. It also improved blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, perhaps because insulin plays a key role in regulating fats in your body.

Choose flavor over blandness every time, and try to incorporate these specific herbs and spices into your diet if you have the following health concerns:

*rosemary and basil for their anti-inflammatory power
*cumin and sage for their dementia-fighting power
*cayenne and cinnamon for their obesity-fighting power
*coriander and cinnamon for their sugar regulating powers
*lemon grass, nutmeg, bay leaves and saffron for their calming effects on your mood
*turmeric for its cancer fighting power
*oregano for its fungus-beating power
*garlic, mustard seed and chicory for their heart-pumping power
*basil and thyme for their skin-saving power
*turmeric, basil, cinnamon, thyme, saffron, and ginger for their immune-boosting power
*coriander, rosemary, cayenne, allspice and black pepper for their depression-busting power

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Sources: The Huffington Post December 20, 2008

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News on Health & Science

New Drug Makers: Goats

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They have four legs, fuzzy faces and udders full of milk. To the uninitiated, they look like dairy goats. To GTC Biotherapeutics Inc, they’re  cutting-edge drug-making machines.

The goats being raised on a farm in central Massachusetts are genetically engineered to make a human protein in their milk that prevents dangerous blood clots from forming. The company extracts the protein and turns it into a medicine that fights strokes, pulmonary embolisms and other life-threatening conditions.

GTC has asked the Food and Drug Administration to clear the drug, called ATryn. An expert panel voted overwhelmingly on Friday that it is safe and effective, putting it on the verge of becoming the first drug from a genetically engineered animal to be approved in the US. The agency is expected to make a final decision in February, said the Los Angeles Times.

If approved, the drug would be followed by hundreds of others made from milk produced by genetically engineered goats, cows, rabbits and other animals. Other products in the pipeline are designed to treat people with haemophilia, respiratory diseases and debilitating swollen tissues.

“As soon as we were able to make genetically engineered animals, this was an obvious thing to do,” said James Murray, a geneticist and professor of animal science at UC Davis. “It’s totally cut-and-paste. This is kindergarten stuff with molecular scissors.”

The biotechnology industry is rooting for ATryn. The FDA’s endorsement would signal to Americans that they have nothing to fear from the futuristic technology—and suggest that the millions they’ve invested in the technology could soon begin to pay off.

If the drug is approved, “it takes a big question mark off the table in terms of products that are developed from this technology,” said Samir Singh, president of US operations for Pharming Group, which is developing medicines using milk from genetically engineered cows and rabbits.

The public has had misgivings about eating food from genetically modified animals, and some vocal critics of such technology say the wariness could extend to medicines. “I think many people are going to have the same revulsion,” said Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group that opposes genetic manipulation of food and animals.

For scientists, the appeal is obvious. Many drugs are now synthesized in bioreactors by bacteria or Chinese hamster ovary cells, and they require extensive processing to be suitable for humans. Genetically engineering animals is a better alternative for producing proteins, which form the basis of all biological drugs. “We’re taking advantage of the fact that the mammary gland was designed by nature to make proteins,” said Tom Newberry, GTC’s vice president for government relations.

Sources: The Times Of India

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