The explosive rise in use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a dangerous, unintended consequence: eye injuries among children. Using data from French poison control and a children’s hospital in Paris, researchers reported that accidental eye injuries to kids under age 18 shot up sevenfold during a five-month period last year, compared to 2019. Eye injury due to hand sanitizer exposure “is a known complication,” said Dr. Sonal Tuli, a clinical spokeswoman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) who reviewed the study findings. “This is a concern not just for children but also adults and health care workers,” Tuli said. “To my knowledge, there have been no recent similar studies in the U.S., but I suspect there are similar injuries occurring here, too.” The new study was published online Jan. 21 in JAMA Ophthalmology. Hand sanitizers consist mainly of ethanol or isopropyl alcohol (60% to 95%), which are toxic to delicate structures like eyes, noted Dr. Sonam Yangzes, a consultant in the division of lens, cornea and refractive services for the Grewal Eye Institute in Chandigarh, India. As such, exposure to sanitizers “may lead to blindness, due to development of corneal ulcer or melt,” said Yangzes, who co-wrote an editorial that accompanied the study. Increased use of the products during the COVID-19 pandemic has made “children more vulnerable to eye…  read on >  read on >

Giving melanoma patients a “personalized” vaccine can prompt an anti-tumor immune response that lasts for years, an early study finds. The study involved just eight patients with advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. But it builds on earlier work showing it is possible to spur the immune system to respond to an individual’s unique tumor. All eight patients underwent standard surgery for their melanoma, but were considered high risk for a recurrence. So researchers gave them an experimental vaccine called NeoVax. Unlike traditional vaccines, it is not a one-size-fits-all jab. Each patient’s vaccine was customized based on key “neoantigens” — abnormal proteins — that were present on their tumor cells. Even though those proteins are foreign, the immune system is not able, on its own, to generate a major response against them. “The problem is, the tumor itself doesn’t present enough of a danger signal,” said Dr. Patrick Ott, one of the researchers on the new study. Beyond that, tumors have various ways of eluding the body’s defenses, explained Ott, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The idea behind NeoVax is to present the immune system with the tumor neoantigens so it can generate a focused T cell response against them. T cells are immune system sentries that can find and destroy cancer cells. In earlier work, Ott and his colleagues found…  read on >  read on >

Giving melanoma patients a “personalized” vaccine can prompt an anti-tumor immune response that lasts for years, an early study finds. The study involved just eight patients with advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. But it builds on earlier work showing it is possible to spur the immune system to respond to an individual’s unique tumor. All eight patients underwent standard surgery for their melanoma, but were considered high risk for a recurrence. So researchers gave them an experimental vaccine called NeoVax. Unlike traditional vaccines, it is not a one-size-fits-all jab. Each patient’s vaccine was customized based on key “neoantigens” — abnormal proteins — that were present on their tumor cells. Even though those proteins are foreign, the immune system is not able, on its own, to generate a major response against them. “The problem is, the tumor itself doesn’t present enough of a danger signal,” said Dr. Patrick Ott, one of the researchers on the new study. Beyond that, tumors have various ways of eluding the body’s defenses, explained Ott, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The idea behind NeoVax is to present the immune system with the tumor neoantigens so it can generate a focused T cell response against them. T cells are immune system sentries that can find and destroy cancer cells. In earlier work, Ott and his colleagues found…  read on >  read on >

Researchers have found a way to track what your mind is doing when thoughts begin to wander. Using electroencephalograms (EEG) to measure brain activity while more than two dozen study participants did mundane attention tasks, the researchers identified brain signals associated with a daydreaming mind. They found that the participants had increased alpha brain waves in the prefrontal cortex when their thoughts skipped from one topic to another. Alpha waves are slow brain rhythms with frequency ranging from 9 to 14 cycles per second. The findings provide an electrophysiological signature for free, spontaneous thought, according to the researchers. They also found that the participants had weaker brain signals known as P3 in the parietal cortex when they weren’t paying attention to the task at hand. The study was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “For the first time, we have neurophysiological evidence that distinguishes different patterns of internal thought, allowing us to understand the varieties of thought central to human cognition and to compare between healthy and disordered thinking,” study senior author Robert Knight, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a university news release. The findings suggest that tuning out the outside world and letting your thoughts flow freely and creatively are necessary to promote mind relaxation and exploration, according to the…  read on >  read on >

Researchers have found a way to track what your mind is doing when thoughts begin to wander. Using electroencephalograms (EEG) to measure brain activity while more than two dozen study participants did mundane attention tasks, the researchers identified brain signals associated with a daydreaming mind. They found that the participants had increased alpha brain waves in the prefrontal cortex when their thoughts skipped from one topic to another. Alpha waves are slow brain rhythms with frequency ranging from 9 to 14 cycles per second. The findings provide an electrophysiological signature for free, spontaneous thought, according to the researchers. They also found that the participants had weaker brain signals known as P3 in the parietal cortex when they weren’t paying attention to the task at hand. The study was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “For the first time, we have neurophysiological evidence that distinguishes different patterns of internal thought, allowing us to understand the varieties of thought central to human cognition and to compare between healthy and disordered thinking,” study senior author Robert Knight, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a university news release. The findings suggest that tuning out the outside world and letting your thoughts flow freely and creatively are necessary to promote mind relaxation and exploration, according to the…  read on >  read on >