Experts zap voices from ‘schizophrenia sufferers’

Botched breast implant

PARIS, Sept 5, (Agencies): Scientists have pinpointed a part of the brain where “voices” torment schizophrenia sufferers, and partially muted them with magnetic pulse treatment, a team reported on Tuesday.

More than a third of sufferers treated with magnetic pulses in a patient trial experienced “significant” relief, the scientists said in a statement.

“We can now say with some certainty that we have found a specific anatomical area of the brain associated with auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia,” the team said.

“Secondly, we have shown that treatment with high frequency TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) makes a difference to at least some sufferers.”

Further research must be done to confirm the usefulness of TMS as a treatment in the longer term.

The results of the trial, not yet published in a scientific journal, were presented in Paris at a conference of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

The trial compared 26 schizophrenic patients who received active TMS to 33 patients who received dummy or placebo treatment.

The first group was given a series of magnetic pulses over two sessions a day for two days to the part of the brain’s temporal lobe associated with language.

Two weeks later, participants were evaluated on the voices they were hearing. Nearly 35 percent of the TMS patients reported a “significant” improvement.

“Hearing voices” can be one of the most disturbing symptoms for people with schizophrenia and those close to them.

According to the World Health Organization, schizophrenia affects more than 21 million people worldwide.

Breast

implant:

A Chinese tourist with no Australian medical license has been charged with manslaughter after police say she gave a woman an anesthetic during a procedure at a Sydney beauty clinic last week and the woman later died.

Shao Jie, 33, was not required to appear in Sydney’s Central Local Court on Tuesday when a prosecutor announced that charges against her had been upgraded. Manslaughter carries a potential maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

Shao allegedly administered drugs to Jean Huang, 35, during a breast procedure at Sydney’s Medi Beauty Laser and Contour Clinic last Wednesday.

Huang was taken to hospital in critical condition and died Friday, police said.

Shao had been charged last week with causing reckless grievous bodily harm and using poison to endanger life. Each charge carries a potential maximum of 10 years in prison.

Court documents allege Shao administered “an intoxicating substance,” tramadol and Lidocaine to Huang during the procedure. Lidocaine is a numbing agent, and tramadol is a painkiller. She also allegedly injected Huang with Hyaluronic acid, also known as hyaluronan. It is a restricted substance that is commonly used to the cosmetic industry as a soft tissue filler to smooth facial wrinkles.

Malaria:

A four-year old girl has died of malaria after apparently contracting the disease in northern Italy in a case that has perplexed the medical world, doctors said Tuesday.

“I’ve never seen a case like it, it’s a mystery. It shouldn’t have been possible for her to get malaria,” Claudio Paternoster, head of the infectious diseases department at the Santa Chiara hospital in Trento, told AFP.

The girl, named as Sofia Zago by the media, had not travelled to any at-risk countries but had spent her summer holiday with her family at the seaside in Italy’s Veneto region.

She had then been admitted for other health reasons to the paediatric department of the Santa Chiara, where she had come into contact with two children who had picked up malaria during a trip to Burkina Faso in Africa.

“But only some types of mosquito are able to transmit the disease from person to person, and they don’t exist in Italy,” said Paternoster, who was called to consult on Zago’s case over the weekend.

While there are a few cases of malaria in Italy a year, “they are so-called ‘suitcase’ cases, where someone has brought an infected mosquito back with them from Africa,” he said.

Zago was diagnosed with malaria on Saturday and transferred to intensive care, but rapidly deteriorated on Sunday.