Maternal Screening Solutions Showcased at ISPD

Healthcare News | May 21, 2013 The International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis (ISPD) consists of physicians, laboratorians, and researchers interested in prenatal diagnosis and therapy. Visit Siemens at booth #10 at the th 17 International Conference in Lisbon, Portugal from June 2-5, 2013, to learn how Siemens partners with clinicians to achieve our joint mission of fighting the most threatening diseases. Siemens broad menu of diagnostic tests provides prenatal care with confidence, with a wide range of systems to assist the needs of any size hospital or laboratory. With a unique combination of assays, instruments, and software for maternal screening, clinicians can get total fertility testing solutions from a single source. Our maternal screening program includes a comprehensive test menu used in conjunction 1 with specialized PRISCA software to help doctors make more informed decisions about prenatal risk.

Reaction: Siemens Healthcare, a global leader in clinical diagnostics, imaging, and healthcare IT,
offers a comprehensive portfolio of products helping clinicians manage patients throughout the continuum of care.

New Aid to Diagnose Diabetes and Identify At-Risk Patients

Healthcare News | May 06, 2013 Practice preventive healthcare with trusted technology 1 Of the 371 million people living with diabetes in 2012, half were undiagnosed . Convenient, in-office HbA1c testing can help physicians fight this epidemic on the front lines. The DCA HbA1c test kit, used for more than two decades to monitor patients, can now be used as an aid to diagnose diabetes and identify patients at risk for developing the disease. The dual use kit, for both monitoring and diagnosing, will be available for sale in EU countries and countries not requiring any local regulatory clearances under part #10698915 after May 2013. Siemens commitment to fighting the most threatening diseases includes efforts targeting chronic diseases like diabetes. Early detection and tight glycemic control help mitigate the serious conditions that accompany diabetes: heart and kidney disease, limb neuropathy, retinopathy, and stroke. More importantly, patients identified as being at risk can stop or reverse disease progression through lifestyle adjustments and/or pharmacological treatment. Availability of results at the time of visit provides healthcare providers and educators the opportunity to have meaningful, face-to-face discussions regarding treatment options. From a convenience and scheduling standpoint, it eliminates multiple visits for pre-visit blood draws or post-testing follow-up consultation.

Reaction: The expanded utility of the DCA HbA1c test kit builds on Siemens track record of proven
peformance. Featuring technology that has been highlighed in more than 140 clinical articles, DCA 2 systems are used by three out of four phyisicians who peform HbA1c testing in the office . The DCA Vantage Analyzer is just one of two point-of-care HbA1c analyzers that meet NGSP

Vitamin D showcased at 2013 Endocrine Society

Healthcare News | May 30, 2013 Clinical and Analytical Factors Impacting Vitamin D Results Paul E. Sibley, PhD Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Vitamin D research continues to cover a broad spectrum clinically and analytically. Siemens is pleased to present an educational seminar that will discuss how clinical and analytical factors such as C3-epimer, vitamin D binding protein (DBP), and D2 supplementation may impact vitamin D values, and how this may impact clinical decisions. It will also discuss how initiatives like the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements Vitamin D Standardization Program (VDSP) will improve standardization of results.

Take your endocrinology practice to the next level. Siemens is here to provide answers. Visit our booth. Attend our educational workshop. Stop by the poster sessions. At ENDO 2013, you will find answers that help you transform your hospital and laboratory operations and set new standards in patient care.

Reaction: Our comprehensive product portfolio includes fully coordinated laboratory diagnostics, pointof care testing, and imaging technology. Siemens solutions can help you thrive

Practical Automation for the Hematology Workflow

Healthcare News | Jan 11, 2013 Introducing CellaVision Digital Cell Morphology Systems The easy-to-use CellaVision analyzers save time, streamline labor-intensive processes, and enhance cell analysis and classification to support optimum patient care. Models to Suit Both High- and Mid-Volume Labs The systems are available in two models: The CellaVision DM1200 System analyzes up to 20 slides/hour, while the CellaVision DM96 System is capable of analyzing 35 slides/hour with a continuous feed. Both systems easily integrate with Siemens ADVIA hematology products and adapt to any hematology workflow. . Proven, Easy-to-Use Technology The CellaVision systems produce high-quality, consistent slide images, which can be viewed on a single digital screen and magnified for additional detail. The easy-to-use software allows users to define reference cells and compare individual cells simultaneously, while adding pre-coded or free text comments to any slide, cell class, or specific cell. The Next Level in Practical Automation Capable of automating cell location and pre-classification processes, the systems reduce the time required for experienced laboratory technologists to screen each blood smear, allowing them to use that time more efficiently. The systems' continuous feed of slides also enables the escalation of workloads without increasing labor. Improved Networking and Collaboration Additionally, the CellaVision systems boost networking and collaboration capabilities through a shared database. This allows an organization to store cell images centrally and engage experts from anywhere in the network, collaborating in real time to speed decision-making. The shared database enables users to build expertise, trend and compare patients' progress over time, and access historical patient images and information. The Partner of Choice for Any Hematology Workflow As the partner of choice for a highly-automated hematology workflow, Siemens is proud to pair marketleading digital cell morphology systems from CellaVision with the service, support, training, and educational resources customers have come to expect from us. Learn how the CellaVision Digital Cell Morphology Systems can help streamline and accelerate blood cell differentials. Reaction: Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics is pleased to announce the introduction of the CellaVision Digital Cell Morphology Systems. Now widely available, these analyzers utilize proven digital image analysis technology to locate and examine cells in blood and other body fluids, automating the time-consuming, manual effort associated with traditional microscopy.

A mobile clinic for kids in Korea

Healthcare News | Oct 08, 2012 . Siemens Korea has launched Siemens Mobile Clinic, a mobile free healthcare check -up service for underprivileged children available across the country. First full-integrated free medical diagnosis service for children Siemens Mobile Clinic checks childrens height and weight, eyesight, blood, urine, and hearing and offers electrocardiogram and ultrasound examinations in order to check childrens growth and the status of their health. For this purpose, the Mobile Clinic is equipped with an ACUSON X300 PE ultrasound system, a CLINITEK Stratus + Urine Analyzer and the audiometer Unity 2. Indeed, the main priority of the campaign is to help children improve their health and growth by reducing the possibility for diseases to occur and providing necessary medical services at the right time. Thanks to positive medical support from KSR Volunteer Group, an electrocardiogram examination has been included in the program to provide a high-quality health check-up service for all children. Siemens offered the first free health check-up service to 50 children in Youngeun Evergreen Community Childrens Center located in Gunpo, Gyeunggi Province. Following this first service, Siemens is planning to take its Mobile Clinic to nine child welfare centers in eight regions across the country, including in Gwangju, Daegu, Iksan, and Jeonju, every month on a regular basis until the end of 2012. Comic book to teach children in healthcare Along with free health check-up, Siemens is distributing a free cartoon healthcare booklet, entitled Go MediKids! Adventure Inside Human Body, to help children take an interest in their health and encourage them to become more healthy. Through this campaign, Siemens in Korea has shown how it continues to take the initiative in helping children, our future, receive regular essential health check-ups regardless of their economic status and thus protect their right to health. Siemens will continue to run the Mobile Clinic and do its best to brighten the future of the Korean society through implementing social responsibility activities such as the Mobile Clinic Reaction: Siemens Mobile Clinic, operated jointly with social welfare organization Kids & Future Foundation, the medical volunteer group of the Korean Society of Radiology (KSR Volunteer Group), and the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine, is a campaign in which a volunteer team composed of healthcare professionals and Siemens employees visits communities and provides free healthcare checkup service using a large-sized bus equipped with Siemens ultrasound equipment and diagnostic medical devices from Hearing Aids and Diagnostics Divisions.

Research data on tau protein

Healthcare News | Oct 01, 2012 Colleagues at Siemens Healthcare's Molecular Imaging team recently published research data on a compound that selectively targets neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of tau protein, one of two prominent hallmark of Alzheimers disease. Tau as Alzheimers hallmark NFTs of hyperphosphorylated tau protein are one of two critical protein abnormalities, Amyloid and Tau, associated with Alzheimers disease and are considered to be target for therapeutic intervention, in addition to being imaging biomarker for diagnostic in vivo imaging agents. The severity of tau abnormalities and NFT burden consistently correlates with the degree of cognitive impairment and neuronal circuitry deterioration associated with Alzheimers disease dementia, whereas the presence of senile brain plaques lack that correlation. For this reason, NFT can potentially be an additional imaging biomarker for Alzheimers-related dementia, in addition to the recently released and in clinical use Amyloid imaging biomarker.

Research on the compound A research team led by Hartmuth C. Kolb, PhD, vice president of Molecular Imaging Biomarker Research at Siemens Healthcare, designed, synthesized, and tested more than 900 compounds in an effort to identify [18F]-PET tracers that possess strong binding affinity and selectivity toward tau protein tangles. Researchers created a competitive autoradiography assay to test compounds that would bind to native tau tangles and beta-amyloid plaques on sections of postmortem human brain tissue. In in vitro assays, the compound [18F]-T808 displayed a high level of binding affinity and good selectivity for tau aggregates. The compound demonstrated rapid uptake and washout in rodent brains. The researchers in vivo and in vitro studies suggest that [18F]-T808 possesses suitable properties and characteristics to be a specific and selective Tau PET tracer for the imaging of paired helical filament tau in human brains. [18F]T808 is the first highly selective and specific PET tracer with potential for in vivo neurological imaging of tau pathologies. Reaction: The [18F]-T808 compound is used in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and is being developed as a potential agent for commercialization. The data appeared in the study A Highly Selective and Specific PET Tracer for Imaging Tau Pathologies and was published in the August 2012 issue of the Journal of Alzheimers Disease.

When Children Give Birth to Children

by Mallika Aryal (Champi, Nepal)Thursday, July 11, 2013Inter Press Service

CHAMPI, Nepal, Jul 11 (IPS) - Radhika Thapa was just 16 years old when she married a 21-year-old boy three years ago. Now, she is expecting a baby and is well into the last months of her pregnancy. This is not the first time she has been with child her first two pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

Teen mothers give birth to 81 out of every 1,000 children in Nepal. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS "The first time I conceived I was just 16, I didn't know much about having babies, nobody told me what to do," Thapa tells IPS in between assisting customers at the vegetable store she runs with her husband in the small town of Champi, some 12 km from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. 3"The second time I wasn't ready either, but my husband wanted a baby so I gave in," she admitted.After the second miscarriage, Thapa's doctors urged her to wait a few years before trying again, but she was under immense pressure from her in-laws, who threatened to "find another woman for her husband if she kept losing her babies". What might seem like a horror story to some has become an accepted state of affairs in Nepal, the country with the highest child marriage rate in the world.

According to the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), 17 percent of married adolescent girls between 15 and 19 years are either pregnant or are mothers already. In fact, research shows that adolescent mothers give birth to 81 out of every 1,000 children in Nepal.The survey also shows that 86 percent of married adolescents do not use any form of contraception, meaning that few girls are able to space their births."You are talking about a child giving birth to another child," Giulia Vallese, Nepal's representative for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS.

Disturbed by trends in countries like Nepal, the UNFPA spotlighted teen pregnancy as the theme for this year's World Population Day, observed annually on Jul. 11."Globally there are 16 million girls aged 15-19 who give birth each year - they never had the opportunity to plan their pregnancy. It is a developmental issue that goes beyond health," Vallese stressed.

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Whether the teenage girls are married or unmarried, sex education plays a major role in decreasing the number of pregnancies.Sex education is a part of the national school curriculum from Grade 6 upwards, but teachers are not trained, and are uncomfortable talking about it. When the subject comes up in a classroom, most teachers simply skip that chapter, or defer to a health worker to explain the process of reproduction."There's a general (perception) that teaching about sexual health makes girls promiscuous, but we have found it to be exactly the opposite,

What are the Health Benefits of Brown Rice?

Molly Carter
Brown rice is a healthy fiber and vitamin rich food with a multitude of health benefits. Unlike white rice, brown rice only has the outermost layer of the rice kernel removed, the hull, leaving much of the nutritional value of the rice in tact. In fact, white rice is required to be enriched by the FDA with vitamins B1, B3 and iron because when it is milled, 67% of vitamins B3, 80% of B1, 90% of B6, half of the manganese , half of the phosphorous and 60% of the iron, and all of the fiber are destroyed. One especially beneficial substance in brown rice is manganese. One cup of brown rice provides us with 88% of our daily intake of manganese which helps produce energy from proteins and carbohydrates contributing to a healthy nervous system, helps produce sex hormones, and offers a multitude of antioxidant capabilities. Brown rice, and the consumption of whole grains has been medically proven to help women keep weight off. In fact, in a Harvard Medical School/ Brigham and Women's Hospital study, women eating whole grains were 49% less likely to gain weight than women eating refined grains. Brown has reduces the risk of colon cancer. Brown rice is packed full of fiber. One cup supplies 14% of our suggested daily intake of fiber. By preventing cancer causing substances to remain in our colon, colon cancer risks are drastically reduced. Brown rice also contains Selenium which has also been shown to reduce the rist of colon cancer. In addition to helping to prevent colon cancer, brown rice's large dose of fiber also helps prevent gallstones by speeding up how long food remains in our colon and preventing increased bile secretion.

The high doses of fiber have also been suggested to prevent childhood asthma. One study suggested eating high doses of whole wheat and fish can reduce childhood asthma by 50%. There is 27.3% of our daily allotment of Selenium in brown rice, which helps thyroid hormone metabolism, immune function and antioxidant defense systems. Selenium helps our bodies remain cancer free, reduce the risk of heart disease, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis . Brown rice contains oils that also have been medically proven to lower cholesterol . Health benefits increase for post menopausal woman who ate whole grains, including brown rice at least six times a week by slowing the build up of plaque in blood vessels. The American Institute for Cancer Research suggests that in studies of brown rice, phytonutrients , may produce results the same of higher in that of fruits and vegetables to prevent cancer. One of these phytonutrients is lignans , found in brown rice which lowers the risk of heart disease and breast cancer. Premenopausal women who ate an adequate amount of whole grains reduced their cancer risk by half. Studies of brown rice have shown that it lowers the risk of Type 2 Diabetes significantly. Because of it's high levels of magnesium, it aids in the body's use of glucose and insulin secretion. Magnesium has also been proven to help reduce symptoms of asthma, lower high blood pressure, risk of stroke and heart attack and help lesson the frequency of migraine headaches. Magnesium in addition to all it's other beneficial qualities is also necessary for bone strength. One cup of brown rice supplies 21% of your daily magnesium needs to help replenish our bones. For such a small grain of rice, the health benefits are astounding. The next time you are at your favorite Chinese restaurant, and the waiter asks brown rice or white, take a moment and think what a vast difference one cup of brown rice can make. Reaction: For such a small grain of rice, the health benefits are astounding, aside from preventing colon cancer, brown rice's large dose of fiber also helps prevent gallstones by speeding up how long food remains in our colon and preventing increased bile secretion. Thus, brown rice must be preferred than white rice not only for its appearance and taste but also for its health benefits.

How to Create Useful Knowledge from Pure Data

by Philipp Grtzel von Grtz April 9, 2013 | Imagine a hospital where patient data from numerous sources is made accessible to ward physicians with the help of hyperlinks and intelligent indexing. Imagine a healthcare system that hands its patients not an envelope or a CD-ROM but an integrated dataset that allows them to truly understand their illness, and even use the Internet to obtain additional information. Imagine a radiologist who uses semantic technologies to navigate smoothly through the myriad imaging data. Welcome to the future of semantic technologies in health information retrieval. Professor Alexander Cavallaros vision of the educated lymphoma patient of the future is very different from todays patient, who carries the computed tomography (CT) images of his lungs and abdomen home on a CD or DVD after a routine radiological examination. In Caval laros vision of the future, the lymphoma patient would open his radiological report on a tablet-PC to find a document with the relevant hyperlinks much like a webpage. The patient would learn, for example, that his spleen is enlarged. After clicking on

spleen, the corresponding radiological image would appear. It would show exactly where the spleen is located and what it looks like. The patient would also learn that, although his spleen is still larger than normal, it is in fact considerably smaller than it was at his last radiological examination: a sign that the chosen cancer therapy is working.

Reaction: Another click would open a window listing hyperlinks to additional, context-specific patient
information; for example, to the lymphoma pages of the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, to a patient selfhelp website or a drug database with patient information on the side effects and the importance of drug adherence.

DNA test helps doctors avoid false positive cancer diagnoses

By Amanda Woerner Published July 12, 2013

DNA-Entnahme bei einer weiblichen Patientin / DNA-Test from a human mouth (Peter Jobst) Imagine being told you have cancer only to learn that your biopsy had been contaminated or mixed-up with someone elses. This scenario happens to approximately 3,000 women who undergo breast biopsies every year or one out of every 100 cases. And for every false positive theres a false negative, Dr. Andrew Kenler, an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Yale Medical School, told FoxNews.com. When you tell a woman she doesnt have breast cancer but she does, 6,000 patients a year (could) be under or over treated. So how exactly do these errors occur? The process of taking a biopsy, sending it to a lab for analysis and then getting the results back can be complex, often comprised of as many as 15 to 20 different steps. Because of these intricacies, specimens have the potential to be mislabeled or contaminated along the way. Pathology labs may do 40 or 50 breast cancer (tests) a day and they will use these kind of vats where they place the slides all together, Kenler said. So there is the opportunity, as these cases are being analyzed, for cells and tissue from one patient to contaminate cells and tissue from another patients slides. Fortunately, Kenler said there is an easy method available to prevent these often devastating mistakes: DNA testing. The way we prevent these errors now is using this kit called the Know Error system where at the time of the core biopsies a swab is taken from the patients cheek, Kenler said. We use that swab as a reference sample. Its basically a DNA fingerprint of the patient. Using the Know Error test each patients biopsy can be compared to their DNA sample to ensure that the results are 100 percent accurate. Kenler saisIf theres a mismatch we now know, based on this sophisticated, intelligent and fairly inexpensive test, that there must have been an error or contamination,

Reaction I actually like this because for a woman like me I dont want surgery until I know I truly have breast cancer. This test is easy and stress-free.