Improvement still needed in HIV testing in high-risk groups
Since 2000, the rates of HIV testing have remained relatively low and constant in the United States, with about one third of Americans ever having had an HIV test, and less than a quarter of the people considered at high risk for contracting the virus that causes AIDS report having been tested in the past year.
The Duke University researchers who conducted an analysis of testing rates argue that while national HIV testing efforts have been expanded to include lower risk populations, there is still untapped potential to increase testing rates among high-risk individuals.
Transparent zebrafish help researchers track breast cancer
What if doctors could peer through a patient’s skin and see a cancer tumor growing? They’d be able to study how tumor cells migrate: how they look, how they interact with the blood system to find nourishment to grow and spread through the body.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine can’t look through human skin. But a small, tropical minnow fish common to aquariums has given UCSD researchers a window for viewing live, human cancer cells in action.
Educated People Who Develop Dementia Lose Memory at Faster Rate
People with more years of education lose their memory faster than those with less education in the years prior to a diagnosis of dementia, according to a study published in the October 23, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study included 117 people who developed dementia out of an original cohort of 488 people. Researchers followed the participants for an average of six years using annual cognitive tests. Study participants ranged in formal education levels of less than three years of elementary school to people with postgraduate education.
High-Risk Individuals Less Likely to Follow Through on HIV Testing Plans
One-fourth of individuals at high risk for contracting HIV report planning to be tested for the virus in the next year, but fewer appear to follow through on that intention than individuals who are at lower risk, according to a report in the October 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
About 1.1 million U.S. individuals are affected with the HIV virus, and 24 percent to 27 percent do not know they are infected, according to background information in the article. The HIV epidemic is increasingly affecting groups not perceived as being high-risk, including women, the poor and individuals living in rural areas. “Initiatives to increase the rates of HIV testing, particularly among groups not traditionally perceived as being at high risk, have been advanced as a primary strategy in the effort to combat the HIV epidemic,” the authors write.
