An in-depth review of randomised trials on screening for breast, colorectal, cervical, prostate and lung cancers, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, shows that the benefits of mammographic screening are likely to have been overestimated.

The HSE (Health Service Executive) launched its eHealth Ireland website. This site has been developed by the Office of the Chief Information Officer within the HSE. The information provided within the content of the site marks a milestone for the creation of the eHealth Ireland capacity. The team have set specific targets and goals for delivery of eHealth and this site will be transparent about these targets and achievements.

A new technique to study proteins, which does not require advanced equipment, specialized labs or expensive reagents, has been developed at Uppsala University, Sweden. The technique could be further developed to be used in point of care devices, for instance for diagnostic purposes. The possibility to identify and localize proteins in tissues is essential for understanding disease mechanisms and for diagnostics.

The results of a study presented today at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2015) demonstrated the value of a new interactive iPad app that helps young people with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) describe their pain. Almost all of the children preferred the new digital tool, aptly titled 'This Feeling', to other conventional methods and felt it was an interesting and engaging way to communicate about their experiences of pain.

Another step forward has just been taken in the area of synthetic biology. Research teams from Inserm and CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) Montpellier, in association with Montpellier Regional University Hospital and Stanford University, have transformed bacteria into "secret agents" that can give warning of a disease based solely on the presence of characteristic molecules in the urine or blood.

Elderly people with walking difficulties are often intimidated by busy public places. This led an EU research project to develop a robot walker to guide them around shopping centres, museums and other public buildings, thus enhancing their autonomy. Shopping centres, airports, museums and hospitals are the kind of complex and confusing environments where elderly people on the verge of cognitive decline could have difficulties walking around without help.

A method known as navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) has been gaining importance in neurosurgery for some time now. Among other applications, it is used to map brain tumors before an operation and to test whether important regions of the brain, for example motor and language areas, are affected. Doctors at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have now shown that preoperative nTMS analysis of motor areas improves the prognosis of patients with malignant brain tumors.