F1000 medicine reports最新文献

Cataract surgery is one of the oldest and the most frequent outpatient clinic operations in medicine performed worldwide. The clouded human crystalline lens is replaced by an artificial intraocular lens implanted into the capsular bag. During the last six decades, cataract surgery has undergone rapid development from a traumatic, manual surgical procedure with implantation of a simple lens to a minimally invasive intervention increasingly assisted by high technology and a broad variety of implants customized for each patient's individual requirements. This review discusses the major advances in this field and focuses on the main challenge remaining - the treatment of presbyopia. The demand for correction of presbyopia is increasing, reflecting the global growth of the ageing population. Pearls and pitfalls of currently applied methods to correct presbyopia and different approaches under investigation, both in lens implant technology and in surgical technology, are discussed.

Free light chains are proteins produced by B lymphocytes during the process of antibody synthesis. Their production, as a reflection of B cell activation, can give insight into the activity of the adaptive immune system. In recent years, an automated immunoassay that provides quantitative measurement of free light chains in the serum has been developed. This assay has not only revolutionised the investigation of monoclonal light chain overproduction in plasma cell diseases, but has also allowed for the quantification of polyclonal free light chains in serum. The discovery of high levels of polyclonal free light chains in a number of inflammatory and auto-immune conditions has led to the examination of their value as a biomarker of disease activity. Research into their bio-activity has also highlighted their potential role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory disease, making them an attractive target for novel therapies.

Converging lines of evidence suggest that cannabinoids can produce a full range of transient schizophrenia-like positive, negative and cognitive symptoms. Cannabinoids also produce some psychophysiological deficits also known to be present in schizophrenia. It is also clear that, in individuals with an established psychotic disorder, cannabinoids can exacerbate symptoms, trigger relapse, and have negative consequences on the course of the illness. Increasing evidence suggests that early and heavy cannabis exposure may increase the risk of developing a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia. The relationship between cannabis exposure and schizophrenia fulfills some, but not all, of the usual criteria for causality. However, most people who use cannabis do not develop schizophrenia, and many people diagnosed with schizophrenia have never used cannabis. Therefore, it is likely that cannabis exposure is a "component cause" that interacts with other factors to "cause" schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, but is neither necessary nor sufficient to do so alone. Further work is necessary to identify the factors that underlie individual vulnerability to cannabinoid-related psychosis and to elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying this risk.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating but poorly understood condition with very few known modifiable risk factors. Cannabis use can acutely induce psychotic experiences, but its causal relationship to schizophrenia is less well understood. Longitudinal cohort studies suggest that the association between cannabis and psychotic outcomes is not due to chance or reverse causation. However, the association could be due to bias or residual confounding. Methods that can test alternative explanations in greater depth are required. This is especially important as ecological studies have found little association between the increase in cannabis use over recent decades and incidence of psychotic disorders; public health models suggest that cannabis use may need to be treated and prevented in many thousands of users in order to prevent one case of schizophrenia. We believe that, while such uncertainty exists, there is a scientific duty to continue to investigate the role of cannabis in the aetiology of schizophrenia and that the policy case for considering cannabis exposure as a critical target for preventing schizophrenia is yet to be made. However, due to other evidence of the harms of cannabis use, this should not affect the public health message that cannabis can be harmful and that cannabis dependence should be prevented.

COPD is characterized by lung inflammation, which intensifies with disease progression. Recent studies suggest that COPD has multiple phenotypes, each with a distinct molecular pathway. Proteolytic enzymes may have a prominent role in the emphysematous phenotype, while nitric oxide pathways may be more relevant for pulmonary vessel remodelling in COPD. This article provides a synopsis of the possible role that lung inflammation plays in the pathogenesis of COPD.

Cases of sight onset after extended periods of congenital blindness provide windows into visual development and brain plasticity. Such cases are extremely rare in the developed world. Here, we make the argument that in meeting a public health challenge in the developing world, that of providing treatment to curably blind children, we have the opportunity to have a beneficial impact on science and society simultaneously. A recent initiative, Project Prakash, is motivated by these twin goals. We briefly describe this effort, some of its early results, and also the caveats that need to be kept in mind when interpreting the findings.

Over the last 30 years dermatological approaches to diagnosis and management of melanocytic lesions have been revolutionized by the introduction of dermoscopy. Continuous improvements are being made in applying the technique, mostly in melanoma diagnosis, follow-up of melanocytic lesions and nevogenesis. Identification of new dermoscopic criteria, such as the dermoscopic island and the blue-black color for thin and nodular melanoma, respectively, further add two new weapons in the dermoscopical armamentarium for diagnosis of otherwise featureless melanoma. Recent advances show that short-term, 3-month, follow-up is the optimum time interval to identify minimal changes in initially featureless melanomas. Nevertheless, long-term follow-up is still useful for the recognition of changes in melanomas with a very low-rate of growth. Dermoscopy greatly improves diagnosis and early excision of melanomas and reduces the number of unnecessary excisions.

Tuberculosis (TB) has been a leading cause of death for more than a century. While effective therapies exist, treatment is long and cumbersome. Tuberculosis control is complicated by the overlapping problems created by global inadequacy of public health infrastructures, the interaction of the TB and human immunodeficiency virus epidemics, and the emergence of drug-resistant TB. After a long period of neglect, there is now significant progress in development of TB diagnostics and therapeutics. Focusing on treatment for active TB, we review the new pathways to TB regimen development, and the new and repurposed anti-TB agents in clinical development.

The recent advances in technology and the promise of cheap and fast whole genomic data offer the possibility to revolutionise the discipline of pathology. This should allow pathologists in the near future to diagnose disease rapidly and early to change its course, and to tailor treatment programs to the individual. This review outlines some of these technical advances and the changes needed to make this revolution a reality.