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Daily digest March 27 2015

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Daily digest

First non-beating heart transplant in Europe

Surgeons in Cambridge are hailing as a success the first heart transplant operation in Europe to use a non-beating heart, the Guardian reports.

Medical teams at Papworth Hospital spent more than a decade working on procedures to enable the operation before performing the transplant earlier this month.

Led by consultant surgeon Stephen Large, the work means that far more hearts can potentially be used to save patients’ lives.

Read more on the Guardian website: click here

Dementia patient died in ditch after walking out of hospital

An older patient with dementia who wandered out of Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire was found dead in a ditch the next day.

Mail Online reports that Violet Burton, 79, was discovered only one quarter of a mile from the hospital’s grounds. While the cause of death has not yet been made public, Ms Burton appears to have died from hypothermia.

The hospital has begun an urgent investigation into how Ms Burton – said to be a ‘known wanderer’ – was able to walk out of the hospital, wearing only a cardigan and trousers. A report from the Care Quality Commission’s inspection of the hospital in June last year said the hospital ‘required improvement’ in a number of areas, including in caring for those with dementia.

Read more on the Daily Mail website: click here

Overuse of steroid cream could be linked to child fractures

A family court judge has concluded that a mother’s overuse of a steroid cream prescribed for her daughter’s eczema could have affected the child’s bone health and led to fractures, the Times reports.

Judge Clifford Bellamy said that there was a remote possibility that excessive use of Eumovate on an infant could ‘lead to fractures’.

The judge had been asked by Leicester City Council to decide how the girl had experienced fractures to her legs at about ten months old. She had been prescribed Eumovate a few weeks after being born.

A specialist gave the judge his opinion that if enough Eumovate is applied, it is possible for sufficient to be absorbed to cause problems.

(£) Read more on the Times website: click here