Long-term damage seen from brain injuries: large study

Scientists say they can block melanoma spread

MIAMI, Aug 24, (AFP): Youths who suffer traumatic brain injuries such as concussions are more likely than their unharmed siblings of experiencing longterm psychological and social problems, a major study said Tuesday.

The study in the journal PLOS Medicine included some 100,000 children and adolescents in Sweden who were born between 1973 and 1985 and had sustained at least one traumatic brain injury, or TBI, before the age of 25.

They compared this group to their unaffected siblings, and followed them into adulthood, until age 41.

“We found TBI consistently predicted later risk of premature mortality, psychiatric inpatient admission, psychiatric outpatient visits, disability pension, welfare recipiency, and low educational attainment,” said the study said the study, led by Seena Fazel of the University of Oxford.

“The effects were stronger for those with greater injury severity, recurrence, and older age at first injury.”

TBI is the leading cause of injury and death among people under 45 around the globe, according to background informaunknown,

tion in the article.

About nine percent of youth are believed to suffer some sort of TBI in their lives, according the analysis which was based on Swedish health registries including more than one million people.

In an accompanying Perspective article, researchers Donald Redelmeier and Sheharyar Raza of the University of Toronto Department of Medicine cautioned that the relative risks described in the study are derived from comparing two

groups of people.

This is not the same as absolute risk which reflects an individual’s lifetime chance of developing a given problem or disease, and is often a far smaller percentage.

“Most individuals seem to recover fully,” and “most individuals do not experience adverse outcomes,” they wrote.

Furthermore, the study’s median follow-up period was only eight years, so longer term effects of brain injury remain

they added.

JERUSALEM:

Also:

Israeli scientists have uncovered how the most severe form of skin cancer spreads to other organs in a discovery that could revolutionise treatment of the disease, they said Tuesday.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University found that melanoma, the most aggressive of all skin cancers, was able to send out tiny vesicles — small cysts or blisters — containing the disease to other parts of the body. They were then able to develop substances to prevent the spread of the disease, which “may serve as promising candidates for future drugs” the researchers said in a statement.

“Our study is an important step on the road to a full remedy,” lead researcher Carmit Levy wrote.

“We hope that our findings will help turn melanoma into a non-threatening, easily curable disease,” she added.

“The threat of melanoma is not in the initial tumour that appears on the skin,” wrote Levy, of the university’s Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry.