Displaying items by tag: treatment

Doctors have reported a groundbreaking success in treating Huntington’s disease, a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder that combines symptoms of dementia, Parkinson’s, and motor neurone disease. A gene therapy trial at University College London slowed disease progression by an average of 75%. This means that a decline expected in one year would now take four, offering patients decades of improved quality of life. The therapy, delivered in a single dose through 12–18 hours of intricate brain surgery, permanently reduces production of the toxic huntingtin protein that kills brain cells. Early treatment may even prevent symptoms from developing. Among 29 trial participants, markers of brain cell death decreased instead of rising, and some patients regained independence: one returned to work after medical retirement. For families like Jack May-Davis’s, who lost his father to Huntington’s and carries the faulty gene himself, the breakthrough brings unprecedented hope. While the treatment will likely be costly, researchers call the results ‘spectacular’ and potentially life-changing.

Record numbers of patients spent more than four hours in accident and emergency units in England in January, figures leaked to the BBC suggest. It seems that January was the worst performing month since the four-hour target was introduced. The figures also suggest record numbers of people waited longer than twelve hours for a hospital bed once seen in A&E. The British Medical Association said the Prime Minister could no longer ‘bury her head in the sand’, and accused the Government of failing to grasp the seriousness of the situation. But a spokesman from the Department of Health said the vast majority of patients were seen and treated quickly, and busy periods in hospitals were supported by an extra £400 million of funding. The figures seem to show that of over 1.4 million attendances at A&E last month, only 82% - rather than the target 95% - were transferred, admitted or discharged within four hours. More than 60,000 people waited between four and twelve hours for a hospital bed after a decision to admit, known as a ‘trolley wait’.