Sources: Choosing Wisely.org (An Initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation) Press Release; NY Times Health Blog Under the "educational initiative" of Choosing Wisely, led by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation and involving 8 other specialty boards are recommending less routine testing for their patients. The thought process is that unnecessary [...]
Source: NJ Department of Health and Senior Services (NJ DHSS) What are Ambulatory Surgery Centers? Ambulatory Surgery Centers or "Same Day Surgery Centers" are facilities where patients can undergo certain types of surgery or medical procedures, recover and go home the same day. Eye, knee and shoulder surgery, cosmetic surgery, and procedures such as colonoscopy screening for [...]
Sources: US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Cancer.org Other than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer Amercian men will face. 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The American Cancer Society 2012 estimates for prostate cancer in the United States are: 241,740 new cases of prostate cancer will [...]
Sources: The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), the Dartmouth Health Atlas, the U.S. Census Bureau The 2012 County Health Rankings report, the third annual, is out today and measures each of the 3,005 counties in the U.S. The report, which draws on data from the CDC, the Dartmouth Health Atlas, the U.S. [...]
Sources: The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), the Dartmouth Health Atlas, the U.S. Census Bureau The 2012 County Health Rankings report, the third annual, is out today and measures each of the 3,005 counties in the U.S. The report, which draws on data from the CDC, the Dartmouth Health Atlas, the U.S. [...]
Sources: The Lancet online, BBC Health They aren't entirely new, however, in one of the first radomised and controlled studies, women with a short cervix (identified by transvaginal ultrasound at 20-23 weeks) had a simple silicon pessary device inserted to determine if this might reduce the risk of preterm labor. A Brief Background Being born [...]
Sources: US Food & Drug Administration; Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons A recent report of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons focuses upon the link between bisphosphonates (Fosomax, Boniva, Actonel, Reclast) and osteonecrosis of the jaw. Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a disease in which bone tissue in the jaw does not heal after minor traumas, [...]
Source: US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) The FDA has issued an update warning doctors and patients of the dangers of transvaginal mesh placement. This follows years of dramatic increases in reports of adverse events over the use of surgical mesh for the transvaginal repair of POP (pelvic organ prolapse). POP occurs when the internal [...]
Sources: Harvard School of Public Health, Annals of Internal Medicine online, BBC Health News Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) research suggests that routine mammography screening, the current essential tool in detecting early breast cancers, may lead to a significant amount of overdiagnosis of disease that would otherwise have proved harmless. The researchers analyzed data from [...]
Source: BBC Health Early clinical trials of a manufactured hepatitis C vaccine has shown what researchers at Oxford Univesity are calling "promising" results. The study involved only 41 patients and was complicated by the fact that the virus alters its appearance. Designing a vaccine has been difficult as the virus changes its appearance, making it hard to [...]