HEALTH BRIEFING:A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Public poisons helpline opens
THE NATIONAL Poisons Information Centre (NPIC) at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital has opened a public information helpline to advise people on how to respond to accidents involving poisons.
The NPIC provides advice to doctors and healthcare professionals, but it says in recent years it has experienced a growth in demand for advice from the public. The service will operate from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. The public poisons information helpline number is (01) 809 2166.
Infusion helping women at risk of miscarriage
WOMEN AT risk of miscarriage are becoming pregnant following treatment with an inexpensive intravenous infusion, a major fertility conference in Dublin has heard.
A new study carried out by Care Fertility in Nottingham has shown that use of the special infusion resulted in 50 per cent positive pregnancy tests in a group of women with recurrent embryo implantation failure following IVF.
Dr George Ndukwe, medical director of Care Fertility, told the Fertility 2011conference in Dublin that 20-25 per cent of women trying to have a baby could have faulty immune systems.
“Every day in my clinic, I see women who have endured numerous IVF cycles, all with the same negative outcome,” said Dr Ndukwe. “I also regularly see couples who have suffered the misery of repeated miscarriage.
“We are devoting our attention to finding answers when nature goes wrong. This infusion is inexpensive, well tolerated and easy to administer.”
The average age of the 50 women in the study was 37 and the mean number of failed cycles was six. A matched cohort of 46 women who had no therapy had a clinical pregnancy rate of just 8.7 per cent compared with 50 per cent.
“Previous studies had treated the condition with Humira, a drug used in the management of rheumatoid arthritis. Humira is expensive [a prescription costs up to £2,000], it has risks and is unsuccessful in about 20 per cent of patients, ” Dr Ndukwe said.
He found that intravenous Intralipid was more effective, and cheaper at £200. Intralipid is a fat emulsion containing egg extract and soya oil, used for patients requiring intravenous feeding.
Device offers relief from sound of dentist's drill
NERVOUS PATIENTS who cannot stand the sound of the dentist’s drill could be offered relief by a new device.
Scientists at a number of London universities have developed a gadget which, they say, cancels out the sound of the drill, leaving people free to enjoy their own music.
Patients simply unplug their headphones, plug the device into their MP3 player or mobile phone and then plug their headphones into the device.
People can still hear dentists and other staff speak to them – the tool filters out the high-pitched sound of the drill only.
The gadget contains a microphone and a chip which analyses the incoming sound wave and produces an inverted wave to cancel out the unwanted noise.
It also uses technology called adaptive filtering to “lock on” to sound waves and remove them, even if the amplitude and frequency change as the drill is being used.
Experts from King’s College London, Brunel University and London South Bank University are hoping to attract funding from an investor to develop the device further.
It was initially the idea of Prof Brian Millar at King’s College London.
Prof Millar said: “Many people put off going to the dentist because of anxiety associated with the noise of the dentist’s drill.
“But this device has the potential to make fear of the drill a thing of the
past.
“The beauty of this gadget is that it would be fairly cost-effective for dentists to buy, and any patient with an MP3 player would be able to benefit from it, at no extra cost.”