A study published in BMC Medicine this week by Lai and colleagues sought to determine how well hospital staff and medical students were able to interpret systematic reviews (SRs), and also to what extent they were influenced by their prior beliefs and the direction (i.e. beneficial or not) of the study results. SRs are reviews… Read more »
Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe psychotic disorder that affects around 1% of the population. There is currently no physical or clinical test that can diagnose schizophrenia, and the condition is usually recognized and treated on the basis of patient symptoms. A new study performed by Matej Orešič and colleagues from the VTT Technical Research… Read more »
George P. Chrousos is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at Athens University Medical School, and was recently appointed to the Chair in Technology and Society in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress; he is one of the most prestigious researchers working in the endocrinology field. In his role… Read more »
Today marks the 29th World Tuberculosis Day, which is designed to raise public awareness of tuberculosis (TB) and efforts to eliminate the disease through its Stop TB campaign. Around one-third of the world’s population is infected by TB, and more than one and a half million people are killed by the illness each year, mostly… Read more »
1Autoimmune diseases affect more than 50 million people in the USA alone and are estimated to be among the ten leading causes of death among women under the age of 65. They occur when an overactive immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue, thus leading to chronic inflammatory conditions. Coinciding with National Autoimmune… Read more »
In recent years, genome-wide association studies have been widely used for predicting genes that are associated with common complex diseases, fueling interest in the potential application of genetic risk models for clinical and public health practice. With an increasing amount of data being generated, a concern being raised is that valid interpretation of findings may… Read more »
1With important healthcare policy decisions depending on the results of clinical trials and new evidence suggesting that fast trial recruitment can even help reduce carbon emissions, a good patient recruitment plan is imperative to the success of a trial. However, many trials fail to reach their target size leading to time extensions and increased costs…. Read more »
Following its recent move to online-only publication, Arthritis Research & Therapy is the latest journal to relaunch on BioMed Central’s new website platform. The new website is an improved look for the journal, providing an enhanced user experience for our authors and readers. New features include: Tabbed style browsing – navigate as you would in… Read more »
The stem cell field is a highly exciting area for both basic and translational research. In light of this, Genome Medicine, with Guest Editor Stuart Orkin, is launching a series of review and comment articles highlighting the most important and topical issues – the recent breakthroughs, controversies, challenges and medical implications – in stem cell research…. Read more »
PMC Biophysics has this week re-launched in its new format as BMC Biophysics with an expanded scope and Editorial Board. The ‘P to B’ transition is the consequence of integrating PhysMath Central journals into existing Springer and BioMed Central portfolios which has resulted in this very welcome addition to the BMC series. As part… Read more »