The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for marketing a new genetic test that will help physicians assess whether a patient may be especially sensitive to the blood-thinning drug warfarin (Coumadin), which is used to prevent potentially fatal clots in blood vessels.
A review of six publicly available hospital comparison Web sites suggests that they display inconsistent results and use inappropriate or incomplete standards to measure quality, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The 15 minutes it took to remove Buffalo Bills player Kevin Everett off the field after he suffered a spinal cord injury may seem like a long time for someone needing acute medical care, but in fact, those minutes underscore how critical it is to carefully move a player with a suspected spinal cord injury off the field. It also highlights the challenges faced when needing to minimize any further movement to an injured spinal cord.
The most commonly used measure for pain screening may only be modestly accurate, according to researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina. In a study that appears in the October issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, they evaluate the usefulness of a scale that asks patients in primary care to rate their current pain from 0 (no pain) to 10 (worst pain).
A team of researchers led by Fei Hu, assistant professor of computer engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, is working to advance the integration of radio frequency identification technology, also known as RFID, into cardiac sensor networks, a new wireless technology for telemedicine delivery.
A University of Minnesota study of prostate cancer tumors from Caucasian and African-American men has shown no evidence that the cancer is more aggressive in black men. Lead investigator Akhouri Sinha, a professor of genetics, cell biology, and development and research scientist at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, said the belief that black men’s tumors are more aggressive is based on studies that failed to match patients properly and used only indirect means to measure tumor aggressiveness.
When it comes to washing with soap and water, some Americans seem be slipping up. In an observational study sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA), slightly over three-quarters of men and women (77%) washed their hands in public restrooms – a six percent decline from a similar study conducted in 2005.
A group of interns of the Teaching Maternity Unit of the University College of Health Care of the UGR has carried out a bibliographic review of the shaken baby syndrome. Many of the diagnosed cases which produce internal damage to the infant have been caused by mistreatment or abuse.
Although prescription medications that may increase the risk of birth defects are commonly used by women in their childbearing years, only about half receive contraceptive counseling from their health care providers, according to a large-scale study from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine reported in the Sept. 18 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Cancer Research UK funded a record £315m of research last year. The milestone marks nearly a doubling in research funding since the Charity was formed five years ago, according to its annual report and accounts published today (Friday 14 September 2007).