Medical Bulletin 3/April/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Risk of children developing lasting mental health problems increased by harsh discipline

In a study of over 7,500 Irish children, researchers at the University of Cambridge and University College Dublin found that children exposed to ‘hostile’ parenting at age three were 1.5 times likelier than their peers to have mental health symptoms which qualified as ‘high risk’ by age nine.

Hostile parenting involves frequent harsh treatment and discipline and can be physical or psychological. It may, for example, involve shouting at children regularly, routine physical punishment, isolating children when they misbehave, damaging their self-esteem, or punishing children unpredictably depending on the parent’s mood.

Reference:

Population Heterogeneity in Developmental Trajectories of Internalising and Externalising Mental Health Symptoms in Childhood: Differential Effects of Parenting Style,Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences,doi10.1017/S2045796023000094

Hope for treatment of lateral disc meniscus injuries in for youth

Researchers led by Lecturer Yusuke Hashimoto, and Professor Hiroaki Nakamura, from Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, conducted a 5-year study of cartilage degeneration, following up on 41 young patients (initially aged 15 or younger), with lateral disc meniscus injuries who received different treatments. The subtotal resection group, where more than half of the meniscus was removed; and the plastic suture group, in which the torn margin of the meniscus was sutured leading to a smaller resection.

Tearing their meniscus-a crescent-shaped piece of a soft cushion of cartilage located between the femur and tibia-can be devastating for young athletes. It is easily damaged in people with congenital lateral discoid meniscus or those that are physically active and once damaged, the meniscus cannot repair itself. The most common method has been to remove the damaged portion of the meniscus, but in recent years meniscus-sparing surgeries, that suture the margins of the meniscus at the tear, have begun to spread.

Reference:

Posterior subtotal meniscectomy revealed the worst scenario for the progression of osteocartilaginous damage in cases of juvenile discoid lateral meniscus with peripheral tear,Archives of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery,doi 10.1007/s00402-022-04747-0

Therapy that overcomes chemotherapy resistance in colon and rectal cancer validated in study

Oxaliplatin along with other medications is often used to treat advanced colon or rectal cancer.

A multidisciplinary team made up of doctors and scientists from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM-Hospital del Mar) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) has led a study, recently published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, which proposes a therapeutic approach for preventing the development of resistance to chemotherapy with oxaliplatin, one of the standard treatments for colon and rectal cancer. The work, which also involved doctors from the Pathological Anatomy and Medical Oncology departments at Hospital del Mar, as well as researchers from the University of Oviedo and the CIBER on Cancer (CIBERONC), is a further step towards personalising the therapeutic approach to cancer.

Reference:

Peptide-Platinum(IV) Conjugation Minimizes the Negative Impact of Current Anticancer Chemotherapy on Nonmalignant Cells,Journal of Medicinal Chemistry,doi 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.2c01717