The family of a 31-year-old warehouse worker will never know what caused him to suffer bleeding on the brain in the hours before his death. Relatives of Abubakir Abdullah had heard a report hed been assaulted a week or two earlier on a night out in Hanley. But police investigated this line of inquiry and could find no evidence of an attack after speaking to several clubs, viewing CCTV footage and checking their own incident logs Continue reading →

The plan sets out steps that will be taken to improve understanding, awareness, prevention and treatment of concussion in sport in grassroots, educational and elite settings. This will be through a combination of improved research and the use of new technologies. These include creating new protocols for sporting bodies, convening a research forum and bringing together tech companies to find new technological solutions designed to mitigate both the effects of concussion in sport and instances of it happening Continue reading →

Introduction Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a severe form of stroke accounting for 1525% of total stroke incidents,1 with affected patients exhibiting a 1-year survival rate of under 40%.2 Despite being a major cause of human morbidity and mortality, the mechanisms whereby ICH induces widespread neurological damage remain incompletely understood. During the acute phase of ICH immediately following the initial hemorrhage, hemoglobin undergoes rapid degradation which yields large volumes of iron within the extracellular space, together with biliverdin and carbon monoxide.3 There is evidence that this resultant iron overload can drive consequent edema in the perihematomal region, contributing to the accumulation of peroxide and widespread cellular death.4 Ferroptosis is a recently identified form of iron-dependent programmed cell death that can be induced in response to lipid peroxidation.5 Recent studies demonstrated that ferroptosis plays an integral role in the pathology of ICH,6 and targeting this cell death pathway may thus represent an effective means of treating this deadly form of stroke.7 Surgical hematoma evacuation can achieve some level of therapeutic efficacy in ICH patients, but this approach is very expensive and associated with substantial risk, limiting its utility for most patients.810 There is currently a lack of effective pharmacological treatments approved for the treatment of ICH,11 and the development of drugs to treat this condition is hampered by limited oral bioavailability and the difficulties associated with delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB).12,13 To overcome these challenges, many researchers have sought to derive novel pharmaceutical compounds from traditional herbal medicines.14 Curcumin (Cur) is a widespread phenolic compound that is extracted from the rhizome of Curcuma longa and that reportedly exhibits robust antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective activity when employed in pharmacological contexts.1517 When employed to treat ICH model mice, Cur was able to effectively reduce the hematoma volume and associated neurological injury in these animals.18 However, the efficacy of Cur is profoundly hampered by its unwanted water solubility, poor oral bioavailability, and inability to efficiently transition across the BBB and other physiological barriers.19 Prior studies have sought to improve the therapeutic utility of Cur by encapsulating it within polymeric micelles,20 liposomes21 and solid lipid nanoparticles.22 While these approaches were able to enhance Cur bioavailability to some degree, the associated Cur pharmacokinetic profiles and the ability of these particles to efficiently cross physiological barriers remain to be clarified. As such, there is a clear need for the development of new therapeutic approaches to improving the oral bioavailability and brain accumulation of Cur as a means of improving ICH patient outcomes. Continue reading →

Cheryl Gibson was in pain as she drove. Eight months earlier, Gibson had begun an at-home breathing treatment for her emphysema when the mild headache shed felt at the base of her skull exploded into debilitating pain. Continue reading →

This study showed that the use of NIR-ICG tended to associate with the lower incidence of CD gradeIII complications (p=0.076). No CD gradeII intestinal complications were observed in the NIR-ICG group. When limited to the group that underwent intestinal resection, the use of NIR-ICG significantly associated with the lower incidence of postoperative complications (p=0.009). Continue reading →

This year in Hamilton County, 15 juveniles have been charged with murder, more than were charged in the last four years combined. Why the increase? 'Kids Who Kill,' The Enquirer's series on juvenile violence, continues with this conversation. Continue reading →