As people get older, their risk of developing polyps and colorectal cancer increases. Currently, there is no clear evidence or established guideline for the upper age limit for colorectal cancer screening by colonoscopy. Two new studies presented at the American College of Gastroenterology’s 72nd Annual Scientific Meeting suggest continued colorectal cancer screening among healthy elderly Americans.
Patients have on average a 71 percent lower chance of dying at the nation’s top-rated hospitals compared with the lowest-rated hospitals across 18 procedures and conditions analyzed in the tenth annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study, issued today by HealthGrades, the healthcare ratings company. The study, which documents a wide variation in the quality of care between the highest-performing hospitals and all others, also found that if all hospitals performed at the level of hospitals rated with five stars by HealthGrades, 266,604 Medicare lives could potentially have been saved over the three years studied.
Household cleaning and home spray cleaners increase the risk of developing asthma by more than fifty percent, revealed by European researchers, first to investigate the effects of cleaning products on occasional users rather than occupational users, in a new study in Europe.
A new technology developed by scientists at Emory University will allow researchers to more easily discover subtle and overlooked genetic variations that may have serious consequences for health and disease. Called Microarray-based Genomic Selection (MGS), the research protocol allows scientists to extract and enrich specific large-sized DNA regions, then compare genetic variation among individuals using DNA resequencing methods.
A team of international researchers reported they have identified a group of cell-signaling proteins found in blood that serve as a unique “voiceprint” that can not only be used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, but also classify and predict presymptomatic individuals who will eventually develop the memory-robbing disorder.
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) will release results of its landmark research study, HORIZONS AMI (Harmonizing Outcomes with Revascularization and Stents in Acute Myocardial Infarction) at the nineteenth annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium in Washington, D.C.
Using a model to predict reductions in death from colorectal cancer, epidemiologists and clinical researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering looked at the relative effect of an initial screening colonoscopy which clears pre-cancerous polyps from the colon versus surveillance follow-up colonoscopy.
Persons with multiple sclerosis who smoke risk increasing the amount of brain tissue shrinkage, a consequence of MS, and the subsequent severity of their disease, new research conducted at the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center (BNAC) at the University at Buffalo has shown.
Glutaric acidemia type I (GA-I) is an inherited disorder similar to Huntington disease. Individuals with GA-I are unable to breakdown completely the amino acids lysine and tryptophan and the intermediates of lysine and tryptophan breakdown accumulate in the brain. In most, but not all, affected children, a period of normal development is followed by an irreversible brain injury triggered by a nonspecific illness.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease one characteristic of which is the deposition of the protein fibrin in the joints, where it forms a matrix that contributes to the loss of joint mobility and function.