There is Lots of Ongoing Research on Meniere's Disease
(Rumors to the contrary are totally unfounded.)
Some misinformed patients have taken to
criticizing the medical community for a lack of research done on
Meniere's Disease, attributing this supposed lack of research to the
lack of a celebrity spokesperson for Meniere's Disease and the belief
that Meniere's Disease is an orphan disease that attracts little
attention or sympathy. This is completely untrue, and these
misinformed patients have apparently never researched the world's
largest depository of medical research,
PubMed, at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health (NIH). In fact, there is much ongoing
research on Meniere's Disease. Here is the proof:
151 medical journal articles concerning
Meniere's Disease were added to PubMed in a recent year.
On May 19, 2010, we searched
PubMed for all medical journal
articles in the database containing the term "meniere's OR meniere"
added within the previous year. There were exactly 151
articles, almost all of them relevant.
That's one article every 2.4 days! You can repeat this search
right now:
click here.
678 medical journal articles concerning
Meniere's Disease were added to PubMed in a recent five year period.
On May 19, 2010, we searched
PubMed for all medical journal
articles in the database containing the term "meniere's OR meniere"
added within the previous five years. There were exactly 678
articles, almost all of them relevant.
That's one article every 2.7 days! You can repeat this search
right now:
click here.
1,373 medical journal articles concerning
Meniere's Disease were added to PubMed in a recent 10 year period.
On May 19, 2010, we searched
PubMed for all medical journal
articles in the database containing the term "meniere's OR meniere"
added within the previous ten years. There were exactly
1,373 articles, almost all of them relevant.
That's one article every 2.7 days! You can do repeat this search
right now:
click here.
Over 6,609 medical journal articles concerning Meniere's Disease
are listed in PubMed.
On May 19, 2010, we searched
PubMed for each and every medical
journal articles in in PubMed containing the term "meniere's OR
meniere" ever added. There were 6,609 articles, almost all of them
relevant. You can do this search right
now, yourself, as of today:
click here.
In addition, there are numerous medical
associations whose members practice and study Meniere's Disease, and these
societies often hold symposiums at which experts present current papers
describing their studies. A few of them:
This group conducts
International Symposiums every two years or so, with workshops on Inner Ear Medicine
and Surgery, most of which concern Meniere's Disease.
This is an
international society for otological surgery. The Society holds periodic
conferences..
This is not to say that we can ever have enough
awareness and research, just that we are not so ignored as some folks
would have us believe. Meniere's Disease is still hardly a
household term (contributing to the discrimination against Meniere's
patients by employers and many others), and despite the current
research efforts, the cause and cure of Meniere's Disease are still
unknown. Much more needs to be done. But we have *not*
been "blown off" by the research community. No matter who tells
you otherwise.
How to Use PubMed and the Internet
To Conduct Your Own Medical Research on the Web Be sure to discuss your research with your
physician.
Research Medical Journal Articles
at PubMed
Those of us who are interested in medical
research on Meniere's Disease (or any other medical subject) can
research PubMed at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the U.S.
National Institutes of Health (NIH). PubMed includes over 15
million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's.
You will be prompted with an
opportunity to have alerts of new articles that result from your
search emailed to you, as often as you select -- perhaps daily.
Note: your email system may treat the
messages as spam, so check your spam folder.
Find the Full Text of Medical
Journal Articles
PubMed may have only a citation to a medical
article, but usually it also has an "abstract" (short summary).
It is always best to get the full text of an article.
PubMed. Sometimes there is a link to
the full text article in the PubMed record, but there may be a high
fee charged by the medical journal publisher to access the full text.
Findarticles.com. The full text of some
medical articles may be found at Findarticles.
Local libraries.
Check out local public libraries, medical school libraries, and
hospital libraries. ASK what they have to offer in the way of
medical research.
Most medical school libraries and hospital medical
libraries permit public access, although public access is sometimes
restricted to certain hours.
Even if these libraries do not have the full text
article on hand, they will be able to obtain the journal in which the
article appears through an inter-library loan at no or low cost.
Do not be shy!
In some places, by special arrangement of your
public library or your state government, you may get access to private
databases (such as Infotrac) from the comfort of your own home (or
your library computer stations) via the Internet using your library
card number.
Consumer health libraries.
U.S. National Institutes of Health have a
listing
of consumer health libraries in the U.S. and Canada providing services to local
residents -- a possible resource to finding the full text of articles.
Authors. Most authors of published
articles will send reprints to you upon request; call, write, or email
their offices.
Your doctor. You might ask your own
physician for a copy of an article; she might happen to have it on
hand, and in any event will have a means of obtaining the article; it
would be fair to reimburse her for any fees she will incur in
obtaining copies of articles for you.
Commercial services. There are
services that will copy and send medical journal articles to you.
Loansome Docat PubMed can get the full text for you via a local library;
charges vary.
Medscape.Medscape is another source
for full-text copies of articles. Registration is required to
use Medscape but is immediate and free. After registration,
search PubMed using Medscape. When you view an abstract at
Medscape, you will be offered a link by which to order the full text
of an article by paying a fee, which is likely to be US$35 or more,
plus shipping.
How to Search PubMed
Go to
www.pubmed.gov to search
anything at PubMed at NIH/NLM. You will find links to help and
to a tutorial. PubMed recognizes Boolean
logic. Quick tip: connectors must be in all capitals
("and" and "or" must be "AND" and "OR") to be recognized as
connectors.
Search for every Meniere's Disease medical
journal article. Click
here to search the entire PubMed database for "meniere's OR
meniere."
Use Our Pre-formatted PubMed
Searches
Search using our preformatted searches. We
have preformatted popular searches for you. Be sure that
"limits" is unchecked; if it isn't, uncheck it and search again.
The following links will take you to the latest research at PubMed on
the following topics:
Arrange for the
after-death donation of your temporal bones for research through the
(U.S.) National Temporal Bone
Donor Program. The temporal bones contain the organs of
hearing and balance in the inner ear.
The U.S. government has a website for
information on clinical trials:
www.clinicaltrials.gov.
These clinical trials are usually conducted by the NIH (National Institutes of Health). In the usual clinical
trials, there are two groups, the test group and the control group.
The test group is treated in some way. The control group is
"pretend-treated," usually with a placebo ("fake") drug. Studies
may last one year, more or less. The results of both groups are
compared to see whether patients in the test group improved
significantly compared to the control group. You might or might
not like to participate in a study. Remember, one group
will always be given placebo ("fake") treatment. However,
control groups are necessary in research and patients in the control
group make very useful contributions to medical science. If you
are interested in participating in a clinical trial, talk to your
doctor.
The International Federation of
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) has a website
for searching for clinical trials:
http://clinicaltrials.ifpma.org/
This website searches the U.S. NIH
site,
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, and in addition searches other
information sources at the same time, providing all the results
together.
You will be prompted with an
opporunity to have alerts of new articles that result from your search
emailed to you, as often as you select -- perhaps daily.
Note: your email system may
treat the messages as spam, so check your spam folder.
Findarticles. A
great website to find medical articles -- and the full text of
many medical articles, provided free. Click
here to search Findarticles for all of its free medical
articles on Meniere's Disease.
