Baby with Three Arms (Liu Junjie - China)

This 2-month-old baby named Liu Junjie from Anhui Province, China, was born with a third arm on 2006. Doctors successfully removed the extremely rare and well-developed third arm, but the baby required long-term physical therapy to gain function in his remaining hand, which has no palm and flexes in either direction. "We're hoping to exchange information with doctors who've dealt with similar cases anywhere in the world," said Chen, head of the orthopedics department at Shanghai Children's Medical Center. "This is so rare that we have virtually no information to go on."

World's Largest Hand (Lui Hua - China)

Lui Hua suffers from a rare condition known as macrodactyly. When he was hospitalized in Shanghai on July 2007, his left thumb measured 10.2 inches and his index finger measured close to 12. On July 20 surgeons undertook a seven-hour operation to reduce the size of Liu's fingers and thumb. Doctors removed 11 pounds of flesh and bone in the procedure. A second surgery is scheduled to take place. Enlarged limbs can be caused by a number of medical conditions. Lymphedema is perhaps the most common cause and results in some extraordinarily enlarged limbs.

Malaria - the disease

Published by Bupa's health information team, June 2008.

This factsheet is for people who have malaria, or who would like information about it. For information on how to prevent getting malaria, see Related topics.

Malaria is an infectious disease mainly found in tropical areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and the Pacific islands (these are known as malarious regions). It's caused by being bitten by a mosquito carrying a type of parasite called Plasmodium.

About malaria

There are two categories of malaria.

• Malignant malaria causes symptoms straight away and can be mild or severe. It's caused by one type of malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.
• Benign malaria is mild but may have a dormant stage and can cause relapses. This is caused by the other types of malaria parasite (for more information, see Causes).

Around 2,000 people a year in the UK get infected with malaria when abroad.

Causes

Malaria is caused by infection with a parasite called Plasmodium that is transmitted by mosquitos.

Symptoms

The first symptoms of malaria are like having the flu. You may have:

• a headache
• aching muscles
• tummy ache
• weakness or lack of energy

A day or so later, your temperature may rise (up to 40°C) and you may have:

• a fever
• shivers
• mild chills
• a severe headache
• a loss of appetite
• vomiting
• diarrhoea

National Cancer Control Programmes

Each year, cancer affects more than 10 million people worldwide and kills 6 million, even though many cases are preventable or treatable through early detection. Without effective control of the disease, these figures will...

Kids, Adults React Equally to Allergy Patch Tests

TUESDAY, Oct. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Adults and children who have allergy patch tests are equally likely to react to skin allergens, but they tend to react to different types of skin allergens, a new study finds.

Dr. Kathryn A. Zug, of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., and her colleagues found rates of positive tests for at least one allergen were about the same among children (51.2 percent) and adults (54.1 percent). They compared 391 children under the age of 18 and 9,670 adults aged 19 and older.

However, the study found "significant differences between the frequency of individual positive reactions to allergen patch tests in children and adults; children were more likely to have reactions to nickel, cobalt, thimerosal and lanolin, whereas adults were more likely to have positive reactions to neomycin, fragrance mix, M. pereirae (balsam of Peru [an extract from the balsam tree used as an alternative therapy]) and quaternium 15," the researchers wrote.

They found that some children reacted to supplemental allergens not included in common patch test series (15 percent) or in commercially available tests (39 percent). Compared to adults, children with a positive reaction were more likely to have atopic dermatitis (reactions on skin not directly in contact with an allergen) included as one of their final diagnoses -- 34 percent vs. 11.2 percent.

The study was published in the October issue of the Archives of Dermatology.

"Patch testing in children suspected of having allergic contact dermatitis is a valuable endeavor. Despite their limited back size, an expanded allergen series helps to identify important positive relevant allergens. Allergen concentration does not need modification for testing in children," the researchers concluded. "The top 45 allergens with the most frequent positive and relevant reactions reported in this study should serve as a guide to patch testing in children suspected of having allergic contact dermatitis in North America. Including supplemental allergens to the patch test materials based on clinical suspicion is also useful in some patients."

Researchers Identify Achilles Heel of Common Childhood Tumor

FINDINGS:
Researchers have, for the first time, found a mechanism for the rapid growth of the benign blood vessel tumor known as infantile hemangiomas, the most common tumor found in children. The findings implicate gene mutations that facilitate the abnormal activity of a hormone called VEGF, and suggest that anti-VEGF therapies—already approved for other conditions—may be an effective treatment.

RELEVANCE:
The cause of infantile hemangioma tumor growth has been a mystery until now, and invasive treatments have been the norm. This study is the first to describe a mechanism that impacts tumor growth, and the therapy it suggests would be a non-invasive alternative to current methods, which can cause permanent scars.

Dr. Bjorn Olsen

BOSTON, Mass. (Oct. 19, 2008) — Researchers have discovered a mechanism for the rapid growth seen in infantile hemangioma, the most common childhood tumor.

The tumors, which are made up of proliferating blood vessels, affect up to 10 percent of children of European descent, with girls more frequently afflicted than boys. The growths appear within days of birth—most often as a single, blood-red lump on the head or face—then grow rapidly in the ensuing months. The development of infantile hemangioma slows later in childhood, and most tumors disappear entirely by the end of puberty. However, while the tumors are benign, they can cause disfigurement or clinical complications. This new research offers hope for the most severe of these cases, pointing at a potential, non-invasive treatment for the condition.

These findings, the result of a collaboration between scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Children’s Hospital Boston, and the de Duve Institute at the Catholique University of Louvain in Brussels, will be published October 19 in Nature Medicine.

In this study, researchers looked at tissue isolated from nine distinct hemangioma tumors. They found that the endothelial cells that lined the affected blood vessels were all derived from the same abnormal cell. Like other tumors, hemangiomas are caused by the abnormal proliferation of tissue. Since no other type of cell within the tissue displayed the same self-replicating tendency, the scientists concluded that the endothelial cells were the source of the tumors’ growth.

Looking further, the team discovered that the endothelial cells behaved as if they were activated by a hormone called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). VEGF usually binds to a specific receptor, one that sits on the outskirts of the cell and prevents VEGF from telling the cell to proliferate. However, the researchers found that at least two gene mutations were capable of setting off a chain of events that ultimately stymied those receptors. That allowed VEGF to trigger unchecked growth in the endothelial cells.

These findings open up new treatment options, according to study leader Bjorn R. Olsen, the Hersey Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Developmental Biology and Dean for Research at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. “What the data suggests is that any therapy that is directed against vascular endothelial growth factor—anti-VEGF therapy—is the rational therapy to use in these tumors,” says Olsen.

This will be good news to the many children and families affected by the disorder. Though most cases have little impact on children’s lives and many cases even go unnoticed, Olsen estimates that 10 percent of infantile hemangioma sufferers experience significant side-effects. These can include psychological stress brought on by the social challenges of disfigurement, as well as physical complications caused by large, badly-placed tumors that obstruct vision, respiration, or other bodily functions.

Anti-VEGF therapies have already been approved for other conditions, including macular degeneration and certain types of cancer. The next step for Olsen’s team is to get approval to test these therapies in clinical trials.

Meanwhile, Olsen and his colleagues continue to mine these tumors for more answers. “After finding out why these tumors grow, we are now starting to direct our research at understanding why they regress,” he said. “Knowing that and being able to induce that regression in the rapidly growing tumors, or induce regression of the blood vessels in malignant tumors, would be very effective.”

This research was supported by the John B. Mulliken Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Written by Veronica Meade-Kelly

CITATION:

Nature Medicine, Online October 19, 2008.

“Suppressed NFAT-dependent VEGFR1 expression and constitutive VEGFR2 signaling in infantile hemangioma”

Masatoshi Jinnin (1), Damian Medici (1), Lucy Park (1), Nisha Limaye (2), Yanqiu Liu (1), Elisa Boscolo (3), Joyce Bischoff (3), Miikka Vikkula (2), Eileen Boye (1) & Bjorn R. Olsen (1)

(1) Department of Developmental Biology, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA
(2) Human Molecular Genetics, de Duve Institute, Catholique University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
(3) Vascular Biology Program, Department of Surgery, Children’s Hospital Boston, MA

CONTACT:
Alyssa Kneller
public_affairs@hms.harvard.edu
617.432.0442

Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 18 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Immune Disease Institute, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.

Is there a cure Aids/HIV?

There is no cure for HIV. HIV is a virus, and no cure has been found for any type of virus. Recently, doctors have been able to control the virus once a person is infected, which means that a person with HIV can stay healthy for longer, but they have not managed to get rid of the virus in the body completely.