BioMed Central Blog

Journal of Medical Case Reports publishes its 2000th case report

Journal of Medical Case Reports publishes its 2000th case report today. Since its launch in 2007, the journal has provided a venue for medically important case reports and case series, publishing articles on a range of conditions as diverse as liver toxicity associated with chemotherapy treatment, and acute paranoid psychotic behaviour arising from manganese exposure.

In this 2000th case report from Gahr et al., the authors hypothesize that melperone-augmented haloperidol can be considered as a possible treatment strategy in patients with schizophrenia who have CYP2D6 ultrarapid metabolization status and who experience an insufficient antipsychotic effect with amisulpride.

Editor-in-Chief, Professor Michael Kidd, says of the journal's 2000th case: 'The report is typical of many of the case reports published during the journal's first five years. It describes a therapeutic challenge and carefully outlines the approaches taken by the authors to provide a better clinical outcome for their patient. Publication of such case reports is important as it raises the possibility of new therapeutic approaches, prompting other clinicians to consider such approaches in their own clinical care and encouraging further research.'

In its five years, Journal of Medical Case Reports has supported innovation in case reporting. The journal has not only published 2000 reports, but also developed article collections, published editorials covering a range of topics, and, more recently, introduced research articles as a platform to analyse the impact of, and improve the reporting of, case reports and associated information. The journal is also supporting the development of Cases Database, BioMed Central's database of case reports to be launched later this year.

Journal of Medical Case Reports is a vital archive of case report literature, such as Garh et al.'s work, which contributes to the expansion of medical knowledge, development of diagnostic tools and enhancement of medical treatments. Increasing and improving the reporting of cases allows the medical and research community to build upon existing evidence and identify failing approaches.

To submit your case report to Journal of Medical Case Reports, visit the submission page. Alternatively, to follow the latest journal news, sign up for article alerts or register for the quarterly newsletter via the website, and follow the journal on twitter.

Posted by Angela Wipperman at 11:27    Comments (0)

European Journal of Medical Research has now fully launched

                                                                                                          Yesterday, European Journal of Medical Research published its first open access articles with BioMed Central having transferred from I. Holzapfel Verlag, where it began as a subscription journal in 1995.  Edited by Professor Deiter Häussinger of Düsseldorf University, European Journal of Medical Research publishes articles of international interest from all areas of medical research, with a strong focus on clinical research. The  journal has an Impact Factor of 1.09

Amongst the first open access articles to be published in the journal is a study from Fircke et al. investigating differences in periodontal damage in HIV patients receiving antiretroviral treatment compared to untreated patients. For further information about the journal, please see Professor Häussinger’s editorial or visit the “About” page.

In conjunction with the transfer of European Journal of Medical Research to BioMed Central, the past three years of archival content will be available online as open access articles soon after launch.

Posted by Georgina Giddens at 13:32    Comments (0)

Israel Journal of Health Policy Research – Promoting international interactions

Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, the official journal of The Israel National Institute for Health Policy and Health Services Research, launches today with BioMed Central, under the expert leadership of Editors-in-Chief Avi Israeli and Bruce Rosen.

"Israel Journal of Health Policy Research (IJHPR) seeks to promote intensive intellectual interactions among scholars and practitioners from Israel and other countries regarding all aspects of health policy, with particular attention to Israel", say the co-Editors-in-Chief in their inaugural editorial. The journal welcomes submissions from any country that are relevant to health-services and public-health policy, and have implications for health and healthcare policy in Israel. The journal aims to "foster wider communication between health scientists and policy analysts in Israel and their colleagues around the world".

Each article that focuses on Israeli healthcare is accompanied by a brief commentary by a leading non-Israeli scholar who explores the international implications of the reported research. For example, Mark Chassin provides an international perspective in his commentary 'Quality of Care: How Good is Good Enough?', which accompanies Dena Jaffe and colleagues research on the quality of community healthcare in Israel.

For further information about the journal’s scope, please visit the journal website, and to receive regular updates of the journal content sign up for article alerts.
 

Posted by Liz Hoffman at 14:24    Comments (0)

Globalization and Health set to move onwards and upwards in 2012

With the publication of three Thematic Series and with submissions to the journal up by more than a third compared to 2010, 2011 proved to be a great year for Globalization and Health. The journal is set to continue to move with momentum in 2012, with the recent news that it will receive its first official Impact Factor in the summer. The journal currently has an unofficial impact factor of 2.07.

Globalization and Health, which is affiliated with the London School of Economics, publishes high quality research on globalization and its effects on health, on such diverse topics as the politics of the tobacco industry and access to essential medicines. This year, co-Editors-in-Chief Emma Pitchforth and Greg Martin are looking forward to publication of a new Thematic Series entitled: ‘Climate Change and Global Health: Implications for Human Health and Health Systems’. This highly topical series aims to explore the resilience and flexibility of our health systems in the face of possible large-scale disasters linked to climate change. 

Globalization and Health welcomes a range of publications, including original research, commentaries, evidence reviews, debate articles and book reviews. To submit your manuscript to Globalization and Health, please click here.  

Posted by Ian Ward at 10:53    Comments (0)

A new tool in the fight against healthcare-associated infection

Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (ARIC) has launched with BioMed Central today.

Led by Andreas Voss, ARIC is a global forum for the scientific community working on the prevention, diagnosis  and treatment of healthcare-associated infections.

Healthcare-associated infections are on the rise because of changes in healthcare systems and the spread of antimicrobial-resistant strains of both new and well-known pathogens. With increasing numbers of people travelling nationally and internationally, borders to transmission of infections no longer exist and fighting healthcare-associated infections has truly become a global challenge.

Therefore, it is important to share knowledge in this field on a global scale. This was highlighted at the 1st International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control and consequently ARIC was born.

With the support of an internationally recognized Editorial Board, ARIC aims to become the leading resource for the dissemination of scientific knowledge on all aspects of healthcare-associated infections. Please visit the journal website to learn more about the ARIC and to submit your research.

Posted by Srimathy Sriskantharajah at 17:15    Comments (0)

An event to celebrate the launch of Flavour – a new journal from BioMed Central

BioMed Central is collaborating with the London Gastronomy Seminars and the Centre for the Study of the Senses, University of London, to host an evening exploring how flavour shapes our world.

Flavour and the New Nordic Cuisine is a seminar to celebrate the launch of Flavour, a new interdisciplinary journal from BioMed Central covering the psychophysical, psychological and chemical aspects of eating food, as mediated through all the senses. Flavour publishes peer-reviewed research on all aspects of eating food including contributions from neuroscience, genetics, psychology and sensory science.  

Flavour encourages contributions not only from the academic community but also from the growing number of chefs and other food professionals who are introducing science into their kitchens, often in collaboration with academic research groups.

Speakers Per Møller, Ole Mouritsen and Lars Williams will discuss how we perceive taste and flavour, whilst describing new food and flavourings developed by Noma and the Nordic Food Lab for the New Nordic Cuisine. 

Flavour and the New Nordic Cuisine is at 6.30 pm on Wednesday 28th March 2012 at Senate House, University of London, U.K. For further information and to purchase tickets, visit the London Gastronomy Seminars website.

Posted by Laura Winton at 14:00    Comments (1)

BMC-series journals on track for Impact Factor

BMC Biophysics, BMC Ecology and BMC Endocrine Disorders have all recently been accepted for indexing by Thomson Reuters and are on course to receive their first Impact Factors. We are delighted that these journals have been selected for indexing, joining the many other journals in the BMC series  to have an Impact Factor.

BMC Endocrine Disorders has been tracked from publications in 2009 and is due to receive its first Impact Factor in 2012. A recent blog post discusses one of the special thematic collections in BMC Ecology, which has likely contributed to the increased visibility and recognition of the journal.

This is great news too for BMC Biophysics, considering it is less than a year since the journal re-launched on the BioMed Central platform. Since re-launch the journal has recruited a new Editorial Board consisting of world-renowned experts in the field.

In 2011 we published many interesting articles, including one from our Section Editor, Gerhard Gompper, which is an important theoretical contribution to the field. In it, the authors introduce and analyze a discrete filament-motor protein model of subcellular microtubule self-assembly in fission yeast, which demonstrates spontaneous generation of a number of steady states, including spindles, nematics, and asters. We think this study highlights the power and flexibility of online open access publishing in biophysics, as the authors were able to directly link the article’s text to their video figures. View their hypnotic animations of microtubule vortices here.

The journal has already had a strong start to 2012 by publishing an exciting article by Qin et al. describing the structural determination of the EphA4 ligand binding domain, providing the first experimental and computational evidence that intrinsic dynamics are most likely to be responsible for the observed high conformational diversity that mediates binding affinity and specificity. An accompanying commentary by Ruth Nussinov and Buyong Ma in our flagship biology journal BMC Biology says: “These snapshots of multiple conformations of the free EphA4 LDB provide a unique insight into the conformational dynamics of EphA4 and the Eph-ephrin signaling pathways.”

After such a great start we are looking forward to what 2012 has in store for these journals and would invite you to submit your next research article to BMC Biophysics, BMC Ecology and BMC Endocrine Disorders.

Shane Canning

Journal Development Editor

Simon Harold

Executive Editor

Posted by Shane Canning at 12:36    Comments (0)

Gut Pathogens making a positive impact in 2012

The year has started positively for Gut Pathogens with the news that the journal will receive its first Impact Factor in June 2012. Gut Pathogens is aiming to be ranked in the first quartile of Gastroenterology and Hepatology journals.

Gut Pathogens, an internationally recognized journal, boasts an Editorial Board consisting of leading researchers from around the world. A key factor in the journal’s success has been its commitment to publishing articles that are topical and relevant to researchers in this field. In particular, Gut Pathogens has consistently published highly popular articles on probiotics, and is becoming a key journal for researchers in the field to submit their research. The journal will continue to publish high quality articles on probiotics in the future. (Image credit: Probiotic Lactobacillus salivarius. Sleator, Gut Pathogens 2010 2:5)

There has been an increasing interest in pathogens such as Clostridium difficile, E. coli and Salmonella because of the significant emerging health problems they are causing in western countries. Gut Pathogens would like to invite scientists to submit their research on these and similar themes to the journal for publication in 2012.

Posted by Srimathy Sriskantharajah at 15:54    Comments (0)

PCE exposure in early life may affect mental health in later life

Whilst the adverse effects of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and other solvents on mental health are well documented in exposed adults, there are limited data linking early-life exposure to mental health issues later in life. In the present study, published in Environmental Health, Ann Aschengrau and colleagues show that early-life exposure to PCE-contaminated drinking water is  associated with a greater risk of developing both bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

From the late 1960s to early 1980, public water companies in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts, USA, installed vinyl-lined (VL) asbestos-cement (AC) water pipes to help combat alkalinity problems. More than a decade passed before the authorities became aware that PCE was leaching from these pipes into drinking water, with levels of PCE ranging from 1.5 to 7,750 μg/L. Today, the maximum contaminant level for PCE is set at 5 μg/L. 

The problem had stemmed from the way the VL/AC pipes were manufactured. The liner was applied by spraying a mixture of vinyl resin and PCE onto the inner pipe surface, and given 48 hours to dry. It was assumed that this would allow sufficient time for the PCE to evaporate. However, large quantities of PCE had remained in the liner of the approximately 660 miles of VL/AC pipes in Massachusetts, and was leaching into public drinking water supplies.

To assess how drinking PCE-contaminated water in early life might have affected the mental health of adults in subsequent years, Aschengrau and colleagues studied a total of 1,512 subjects born between 1969 and 1983, including 831 subjects with both prenatal and early childhood PCE exposure, and 547 unexposed subjects. Questionnaires were used to gather information on mental illnesses, demographic and medical characteristics, other sources of solvent exposure, and residences from birth until 1990. Water distribution system modeling software that incorporated a leaching and transport algorithm was used to quantify PCE exposure originating from VL/AC pipes.

The authors found elevated risks of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder that increased further for the highest exposures in individuals with early-life exposure to PCE. Conversely, exposed subjects were not at increased risk of developing depression. 

Aschengrau emphasizes the importance of replicating these findings in other studies before any firm conclusions can be drawn: “Because this is the first study to examine the risk of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder following early life exposure to PCE, its results must be corroborated among other similarly exposed populations.”

The same authors also recently published a study in which they found that risky behaviors, especially drug use, are more frequent among adults with high PCE exposure levels during early life. Given that PCE remains a common contaminant of drinking water supplies it is important that further studies are performed to shed more light on the impact of early-life PCE exposure on the health of vulnerable populations.

Posted by Ian Ward at 11:12    Comments (0)

Behavioral and Brain Functions announces new Editors-in-Chief

Professor Vivienne Russell and Professor Rosemary Tannock have been announced  as the new Editors-in-Chief of Behavioral and Brain Functions.  They will continue the work of the founding editor, Professor Terje Sagvolden, who sadly passed away last year.

Vivienne Russell is a Professor of Physiology at the University of Cape Town, her research projects focus on the neuroscience of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and neurodegenerative disorders.  Professor Russell has also had a major role in promoting neuroscience training in Africa, by organising international neuroscience schools for postgraduate students.

Rosemary Tannock is a Senior Scientist in the Neurosciences and Mental Health Research Program at the Research Institute of the Hospital for Sick Children, and a Professor of Special Education and of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.  In addition she holds a Canada Research Chair in Special Education at the University of Toronto.  Professor Tannock’s research interests include ADHD, neurodevelopmental disorders, cognitive function, clinical trials and developmental neuropsychology.

Their aim for the journal is ‘to provide an effective, peer-reviewed, and open access forum for the rapid dissemination of neuroscientific and clinical research, using a variety of methods to interrogate brain and behavior relationships in humans or animals to advance our understanding of typical or atypical functioning.  In addition to basic human and animal studies, we are particularly interested in publishing novel concepts and hypotheses on behavioral and brain dysfunction.  We also aim to promote publication of top quality papers on the neurobiology of brain and behavior.’

This is an exciting time for Behavioral and Brain Functions and we welcome Vivienne and Rosemary to their new roles.

Posted by Sian Jones at 13:49    Comments (0)

Environmental Evidence now accepting submissions

The official journal of the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence is now accepting submissions. Environmental Evidence will specialize in publishing systematic reviews, in the hope of providing rigorous and transparent methodology to assess the impacts of human activity and the effectiveness of policy and management interventions on the environment.  

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Pullin (Bangor University, UK) believes the journal represents an opportunity to create a solid evidence base from the literature: ‘we need to do more than just accumulate data, fragment it among a multitude of publications with varied levels of access, and frankly, let much of it disappear into obscurity…The central purpose of the journal is to provide an incentive for scientists to fully engage in the development of evidence-based environmental management by providing a publication outlet for systematic reviews and their associated materials such as protocols and systematic maps.’

With a worldwide emphasis and its unique focus on systematic reviews Environmental Evidence is set to become an essential resource to support environmental decision making. To submit your manuscript to Environmental Evidence, please click here.

Posted by Ian Ward at 11:15    Comments (0)

Social audit: building the community voice into planning

Enabling health services in developing countries to address the needs of the intended beneficiaries is difficult. In most of these countries health services don’t yet work efficiently, especially for the most disadvantaged members of the population with the greatest need for these services. In an attempt to involve the public, and to provide evidence that planners and policy makers can use to improve services, social audits are used.

Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency (CIET) has developed, applied, and refined methods of social audit over the last 25 years and a new supplement entitled ‘Social audit: building the community voice into health service delivery and planning’ published in BMC Health Services Research contributes to clarifying the concepts and practice of social audit. The supplement brings together in one place a collection of articles about social audits that have been carried out in a wide variety of settings over the last 25 years.

Articles range from detailed methodological articles, the practicalities and pitfalls of undertaking social audits for those who want to use this approach, to country-specific articles. Social audits are set in context by articles about the philosophy and development of the methods, from the early days to the present and future developments.

In the present global economic recession, funding for health services in all countries, not least in developing countries, is under threat. Governments struggle to cope and funding agencies and officials of donor countries are increasingly requiring evidence that their money is having an impact. Social audits can help to answer questions about effectiveness and impact of services and interventions, at the same time allowing the voice of the ordinary people concerned to be heard and incorporated into how services are delivered.

Readers are invited to join the discussions by using the ‘comment’ option below each individual article.

Posted by Liz Hoffman at 11:41    Comments (0)

Putting malaria on the MAP

After decades of neglect, the war against malaria has entered an unprecedented era; the disease is high on the policy agenda, international funding is beginning to translate into real increases in populations protected by key interventions, and a growing body of evidence points towards important reductions in morbidity and mortality.

As the international community seeks to build on this momentum there is an increasing requirement for robust monitoring and evaluation to answer questions such as: how is malaria distributed globally, which populations remain at the highest risk, where is transmission most intense? To address this need, the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) has developed sophisticated geospatial models that use all available data on malaria to generate maps detailing levels of risk in each endemic country. In an article published this week in Malaria Journal, MAP presents a series of maps describing the global distribution and intensity of Plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly of the malaria parasites, for the year 2010. The maps provide a robust and detailed estimation of risk for every country that can help support decision-making from the international to the local level.

Biological models were used to generate maps of different transmission metrics such as infection prevalence, which is the standard metric for disease control planning. In addition, more elaborate measures such as entomological inoculation rate and reproductive number (needed by the malaria modelling community to translate theoretical findings into real-world settings) were generated.

The article is accompanied by the launch of a new web portal at www.map.ox.ac.uk. Here, all maps presented in the study, along with a wide range of other resources, can be freely accessed and downloaded. Those wishing to analyse the outputs can download the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) surfaces, and soon a new data explorer will allow the underlying survey data to be accessed.

Posted by Srimathy Sriskantharajah at 10:18    Comments (0)

Weather forecasting models could predict brain tumor growth

Meteorologists predict the weather through complex mathematical models, monitoring changes in state in a given time and space.  Today, an innovative study published in Biology Direct shows that state estimation schemes, applied operationally for weather forecasting, can be utilised in principle to predict the growth and spread of malignant brain tumors.

In an effort to demonstrate the potential utility of spatiotemporal models of biological processes, Kostelich et al. focused on the possibility of creating clinically useful forecasts of glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and aggressive type of human brain cancer.

Glioblastoma has a poor prognosis, with an average survival time of approximately 14 months from diagnosis, and it is largely resistant to conventional therapies such as chemo- and radiotherapy. The location and density of the glioblastoma tumor cell population influences patient symptoms and treatment planning. This, combined with the complex geometry of the tumor, made it an important cancer against which to test this mathematical methodology.

A modern state estimation algorithm previously used for numerical weather prediction, referred to as the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETK), was applied to two different mathematical models of glioblastoma. Data assimilation techniques were then employed for updating the state vector, that is the initial condition of the glioblastoma growth model, via a combination of new observations with one or more prior forecasts.

The feasibility of this approach for making short-term (60 day) forecasts of glioblastoma spread and growth was successfully demonstrated, in individual patient cases, using the synthetic magnetic resonance images of a hypothetical tumor.

Although preliminary, this intelligent forecasting method for glioblastoma progression could prove useful in a clinical setting, with potential to aid treatment planning and patient counseling. On a wider scale, it also shows much promise in being applicable to the modeling efforts of other cancers and diseases in the future.

Posted by Elizabeth Bal at 09:23    Comments (0)

Browsing by subject with Journal of Medical Case Reports

We have introduced  a new feature for Journal of Medical Case Reports, which will enhance readers’ experience and make it easier to identify cases of interest in a rapidly-growing, broad-scope medical journal.

Visitors to the journal website can now find articles of interest using the browse by subject tab, within the ‘Articles’ section of the site. Browsing by subject will help our readers to quickly find case reports that are most relevant to their specific clinical and research areas. In grouping articles into broad subject areas, such as surgery, oncology and paediatrics, we hope to save the time spent manually searching through all of the interesting reports published in the journal, and instead highlight those more specific cases. This will also prove useful for those researchers, medics, students and other Journal of Medical Case Reports readers without a specific report in mind, but who are looking for more information about the wide range of conditions that the journal has documented.

The new browsing tool also offers insight into the most popular subject areas in Journal of Medical Case Reports by number of case reports published. The most prolific area for case reporting, for example, is surgery, with over four hundred published reports. The journal also sees a high number of reports on cancer, gastroenterology and medical imaging.

A second new addition to the Journal of Medical Case Reports website is the introduction of research articles as a new type of submission. We hope the introduction of research as an article type will encourage our authors to submit their work covering N of 1 trials, meta-analyses of published case reports, research addressing the use of case reports and the prevalence or importance of case reporting in the medical literature and retrospective studies that include case-specific information. Case reporting research allows wider conclusions to be drawn from a collation of individual reports and identification of trends in treatments, while research into the way case reports are conducted can contribute to improvements in case reporting itself.

Posted by Angela Wipperman at 17:59    Comments (0)