Health care articles from across Nature Portfolio

A study advances our understanding of how different flood events affect direct and indirect causes of mortality — providing useful insights for disaster response and preparedness.

In a phase I clinical trial, nine adults with kidney cancer were treated with a personalized cancer vaccine that targets neoantigens (mutant proteins expressed by tumour cells). The vaccine generated immune responses in all nine individuals, and although all of them were at high risk of disease recurrence, none experienced a return of their cancer during the study.

Electronic health records and tumour-genome profiling offer promising real-world data with which to model cancer outcomes. Models built by using artificial intelligence (AI) to annotate clinical reports from more than 20,000 individuals with cancer can predict survival, as well as identify genomic features associated with metastasis and response to immunotherapy.

The biochemist introduced the first heel-prick tests for newborn babies in Spain, protecting infants from life-changing metabolic conditions.

Humanitarian surgical missions provide substantial benefits to the involved surgeon and to the recipient communities. These missions should be planned and executed with the final aim to train local teams to implement innovative or standard surgical techniques.

The path to become a urological surgeon is full of obstacles. Historically, individuals with a physical disability have faced substantial barriers in their training and practice. However, the development of the right environment can ensure that these challenges do not hinder the progress of surgeons.

Tissue engineered heart muscle implanted on to the epicardium can structurally and functionally remuscularize the failing hearts of rhesus macaques, with no major adverse effects; a clinical trial of this approach is now underway in patients with heart failure.