Scientists have already identified several schizophrenia biomarkers in the blood and are working with a company that plans to launch a blood test for diagnosing schizophrenia in 2010. The test could help confirm diagnoses made on the basis of psychiatric evaluations and allow earlier diagnosis so that patients can be treated earlier.
Bahn and her colleagues from Cambridge are investigating disease markers in tissues such as skin, immune cells, and blood serum to find samples that give a real-time picture of the disease.
Their studies of protein expression in fibroblasts (skin cells) on schizophrenia patients' arms have identified systemic problems such as cell-cycle abnormalities
see epigenomics
Many previous studies have
attempted to gain insight into the underlying pathophysiology of schizophrenia
by studying postmortem brain tissues of schizophrenia patients.
However, such
analyses can be confounded by artifactual features of this approach such as
lengthy agonal state and postmortem interval times.
As several aspects of
schizophrenia are also manifested at the peripheral level in proliferating cell
types, we have studied the disorder through systematic transcriptomic and
proteomic analyses [ field of science that seeks to specify all the proteins produced by a cell ] in all types of situations and environments and to
understand how they function of skin fibroblasts biopsied from living patients.
We
performed comparative transcriptomic and proteomic profiling to characterize
skin fibroblasts from schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls.
Transcriptomic profiling using cDNA array technology showed that pathways
associated with cell cycle regulation and RNA processing were altered in the
schizophrenia subjects (n = 12) relative to controls (n = 12).
Proteomic profiling led to identification of 16 proteins that
showed significant differences in expression between schizophrenia (n =
11) and control (n = 11) subjects.
Analysis in silico revealed
that these proteins were also associated with proliferation and cell growth
pathways.
To validate these findings at the protein level, fibroblast protein
extracts were analyzed by Western blotting which confirmed the differential
expression of three key proteins associated with these pathways.
At the
functional level, we confirmed the decreased proliferation phenotype by showing
that cultured fibroblasts from schizophrenia subjects (n = 5)
incorporated less 3H-thymidine into their nuclei compared to those
from controls (n = 6) by day 4 over an 8 day time course study.
Similar
abnormalities in cell cycle and growth pathways have been reported to occur in
the central nervous system in schizophrenia.
These studies demonstrate that
fibroblasts obtained from living schizophrenia subjects show alterations in
cellular proliferation and growth pathways.
Future studies aimed at
characterizing such pathways in fibroblasts and other proliferating cell types
from schizophrenia patients could elucidate the molecular mechanisms associated
with the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and provide a useful model to support
drug discovery efforts.
from Taiwan .. death most frequently occurred on the first day after leaving the hospital (16.1%).
The adjusted hazard ratios for committing suicide during the 90-day post-discharge period were
2.639 times greater for patients without previous psychiatric admission
than for those hospitalized more than 3 times in the year preceding the index hospitalization.
The adjusted suicide hazard for schizophrenia patients treated by male psychiatrists was significantly higher
than for patients treated by female psychiatrists, by a multiple of 5.117 (P = .032). The adjusted suicide hazard among patients treated by psychiatrists over age 44 years<
was 2.378 times (P = .043) that for patients treated by psychiatrists aged younger than 35 years.
Who is in charge , who is responsible, and how are they accountable
Phil Hope: MP Minister of State for Care Services:
Department of Health
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London SW1A 2NS
A wriiten Q: parliamentary answer.
"The responsibility for providing healthcare, including
specialist *mental* health care services, rests with primary care trusts
(PCTs). The Department provides funding for PCTs to commission, or
provide
healthcare for their local populations from national health
service or independent sector providers.
We are not prescriptive about
how individual PCTs spend their budgets and each PCT decides its own spending levels for specific healthcare treatments and services ....." like this sorry tale
[ Where is the evidence that PCT mental health leads know what is needed,
and know how to persuade their colleagues to fund it ? In the face of the other demands i.e. Sainsbury: Publications A-Z ...go to U nder Pressure; and ... S pending 2008 .... *** !!! NEW ... They are still at it it
[ What does 'not prescriptive' mean: ? we couldn't care less what they do with it ? Their blame, not ours ?
It sounds exactly like the excuses given for delivery failures ... their choice .. not ill as we saw them .. O tempora o mores ]
..."
Since 2001-02, total planned investment in adult mental health services has increased by 50 per cent.
(£2.0 billion), putting in place the extra services and staff needed to transform mental health services.
Nine consecutive years of increased spending by the NHS on mental health services has provided more staff,
and increasing numbers of people with a severe mental illness arereceiving treatment from community teams outside of hospital settings".
[ and Care ? { ed. the care and treatment for schizophrenia is worse... tragedy strikes ..
. not better
National Inquiry and Aftercare
Our significant investment in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (IAPT),
will see annual funding rising to £173 million, 3,600 extra therapists trained and 900,000 more people treated by 2011.
This investment in IAPT will help to add to the existing provision of psychological therapies,
increase capacity, reduce waiting times and drive up quality standards".
[ Ed. Following Layards nose ... to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy .....
CBT described
? where's the evidence for benefit compared with what Eysenck said years ago, just as good is letting time do it's thing, with their families, their friends. .
?