Why patients need to be advised about washing hands

A new study suggests that hospitals need to disseminate the idea of washing hands, to their patients too, apart from their staff. 

The study gathered data from 399 hospitals, in which it was revealed that fourteen per cent of the hospital patients had 'superbug' antibiotic-resistant bacteria on their hands or their nostrils.

Another six per cent of the patients who didn't have multi-drug resistant organisms, or MDROs, on their hands at the start of their hospitalization tested positive for them on their hands later in their stay. One-fifth of the objects tested in their rooms had similar superbugs on them too.

However, researchers cautioned that the presence of MDROs didn't necessarily mean that patients would fall sick.

"Hand hygiene narrative has largely focused on physicians, nurses and other frontline staff, and all the policies and performance measurements have centred on them, and rightfully so," said the leader of the research.

The author notes that the study suggests that many of the MDROs seen on patients are also seen in their rooms early in their stay, suggesting that transmission to room surfaces is rapid.

She added, "But our findings make an argument for addressing transmission of MDROs in a way that involves patients, too."

Using genetic fingerprinting techniques, they looked to see if the strains of MRSA bacteria on the patients' hands were the same as the ones in their rooms. They found the two matched in nearly all cases - suggesting that transfer to and from the patient was happening.

They reported that six patients in their study who developed an infection with a superbug called MRSA while in the hospital; all had positive tests for MRSA on their hands and hospital room surfaces.

"This study highlights the importance of hand washing and environmental cleaning, especially within a healthcare setting where patients' immune systems are compromised," says the lead author.

When these germs are not washed off, they pass easily from person to person and objects to person and make people sick," he added.

She advised, "This study is a good reminder to clean your hands often, using good techniques--especially before and after preparing food, before eating food, after using a toilet, and before and after caring for someone who is sick-- to protect yourself and others."

"Infection prevention is everybody's business," she concluded.  

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/    

                                                                                                                                                     FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                  https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/  

         

                   FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                                                                                                                  https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com 

Researchers Successfully Turn Breast Cancer Cells Into Fat to Stop Them From Spreading

Researchers have been able to coax human breast cancer cells to turn into fat cells in a new proof-of-concept study in mice.

To achieve this feat, the team exploited a weird pathway that metastasising cancer cells have; their results are just a first step, but it's a truly promising approach.

When you cut your finger, or when a foetus grows organs, the epithelium cells begin to look less like themselves, and more 'fluid' – changing into a type of stem cell called a mesenchyme and then reforming into whatever cells the body needs.

This process is called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and it's been known for a while that cancer can use both this one and the opposite pathway called MET (mesenchymal‐to‐epithelial transition), to spread throughout the body and metastasise.

The researchers took mice implanted with an aggressive form of human breast cancer, and treated them with both a diabetic drug called rosiglitazone and a cancer treatment called trametinib.

Thanks to these drugs, when cancer cells used one of the above-mentioned transition pathways, instead of spreading they changed from cancer into fat cells – a process called adipogenesis.

"The models used in this study have allowed the evaluation of disseminating cancer cell adipogenesis in the immediate tumour surroundings," the team writes in their paper.

"The results indicate that in a patient-relevant setting combined therapy with rosiglitazone and trametinib specifically targets cancer cells with increased plasticity and induces their adipogenesis."

Although not every cancer cell changed into a fat cell, the ones that underwent adipogenesis didn't change back.

"The breast cancer cells that underwent an EMT not only differentiated into fat cells, but also completely stopped proliferating," says senior author of the study.

"As far as we can tell from long-term culture experiments, the cancer cells-turned-fat cells remain fat cells and do not revert back to breast cancer cells."

So how does this work? Well, as a drug trametinib both increases the transition process of cells - such as cancer cells turning into stem cells - and then increases the conversion of those stem cells into fat cells.

Rosiglitazone was less important, but in combination with trametinib, it also helped the stem cells convert into fat cells.

"Adipogenic differentiation therapy with a combination of rosiglitazone and [trametinib] efficiently inhibits cancer cell invasion, dissemination, and metastasis formation in various preclinical mouse models of breast cancer," the team said.



 The image above shows this process, with the cancer cells tagged with a green fluorescent protein and normal red fat cell on the left. The cancer-turned-fat cells display as brown (on the right) because the red of the fat cells combines with the green of the protein cancer cell tag.

What's exciting is that these two drugs are already FDA-approved, so it should be easier to get this type of treatment into clinical trials for actual people.
 
That's exciting even despite the fact that we know many mouse-tested treatments don't actually make it to, or fail, the clinical trial stage. The fact this worked on human cancer cells gives a little extra hope.

In the meantime, the team is investigating whether this therapy would work combined with chemotherapy, and whether it would apply to other types of cancers.

"In future, this innovative therapeutic approach could be used in combination with conventional chemotherapy to suppress both primary tumour growth and the formation of deadly metastases," the author said.

"The clinical evaluation of the treatment's repressive effect on experimental breast cancer metastasis and, thus, of its potential in treating stage IV breast cancer will require adjuvant combinations with chemotherapy in advanced preclinical models," the researchers said.

"Since we have used FDA-approved drugs to study the preclinical effect of the treatment, a clinical translation may be possible."

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                                                                
 PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                                                                             FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                               
     https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/                                                                                     
  FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                                                                                                                  https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com