NEWS BRIEFS for April 2008 edition

By Susan Williams

 

Girl’s Blood Type Changes After Liver Transplant

 

In the first known case of its kind, an Australian girl’s body changed blood types after undergoing a liver transplant at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

The nine-year old was very ill with liver failure when she received the transplant from a deceased male donor several years ago. Nine months later, doctors discovered that her blood type had changed and her body had switched over to the donor’s immune system.

Her doctors are comparing the extremely unusual event to a bone marrow transplant, occurring as stem cells from the new liver migrated to her bone marrow. She is now a healthy 15-year-old.

An article on the case was published in the January 24^th edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The article reported that the patient had been experiencing severe hemolysis (abnormal breakdown of red blood cells), which resolved after all immunosuppressive therapies were discontinued.

Michael Stormon, a hepatologist treating the girl, indicated that a "sequence of serendipitous events", including a post-transplantation infection, may have allowed stem cells from her donor's liver to proliferate.

Researchers now hope to find out whether this unusual occurrence can be repeated in other transplant patients in order to avoid organ rejection and increase rates of transplant success.

 

Childhood Abuse May Lead to Migraines

Women with a history of childhood abuse may be at increased risk of depression and migraine headaches, according to a recent study in the journal Neurology.

Researchers reported that women with migraines and major depression were four times more likely to have a history of childhood maltreatment, while women with migraines and less severe depression were twice as likely.

Abusive treatment, according to researchers, may actually alter neurobiological systems and thus make a person more vulnerable to multiple adult chronic disorders, including depression, mood syndromes, and pain disorders.

Medical experts encourage people with headaches to tell their doctors if they have experienced abuse so that they can be referred to appropriate counselors or psychiatrists for therapy and increase their chances of success at treating migraines.

 

Proteins in Skin May Be Cause of Rosacea

New findings could aid researchers in developing an effective treatment for rosacea, a disease which affects approximately 14 million people in the United States.

Researchers have discovered that an abundance of abnormal skin proteins is likely the cause of the inflammatory skin disease.

Scientists from the University of California in San Diego found that rosacea sufferers have an excess of a protein known as cathelicidin, most of which was abnormal. There was also an abundance of an enzyme that processes cathelicidin, causing the protein to be processed incorrectly in their bodies. Their research was reported in the August 2007 journal Nature Medicine.

Rosacea causes redness, visible blood vessels, swelling, bumps, and pimples on the face. Although it typically affects more women, generally between the ages of 30 and 60, men often have more severe symptoms.

 

Study Finds That Honey Is Better For Children’s Cough

A recent study has concluded what fans of natural healing methods have known all along: That a teaspoon of honey before bed seems to soothe children’s coughs and help them sleep better. The findings were published in the December 2007 Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

In the partially double-blinded randomized study, children between the ages of 2 to 18 years of age with upper respiratory infections were given either a dose of buckwheat honey, a dose of honey-flavored dextromethorphan (DM), or no treatment. The treatments were administered 30 minutes before the children’s bedtime.

After analyzing parents’ reports of their children’s symptoms, researchers concluded that there were “significant differences in symptom improvement” between treatment groups, with honey consistently scoring the best and no treatment scoring the worst.

Honey may help children’s symptoms by coating and soothing an irritated throat, study authors said. However, they noted that honey should not be given to children under one year of age because of a risk of botulism.