In 2005, the overall cost of patients’ time spent on cancer care was $2.3 billion in the first year after diagnosis, according to a new study in the Jan. 3 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The time costs for the 11 cancers studied and for different phases of cancer care varied widely, they write.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dutch research institute TNO Quality of Life and Wageningen University, the Netherlands, found that, among hypertensive men, moderate alcohol consumption was associated with a decreased risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attack.
A comprehensive review published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep finds that, as with other diseases characterized by selective cell loss, narcolepsy may be caused by environmental exposures before the age of onset in genetically susceptible individuals.
As Americans continue to live longer with chronic disease, palliative care medicine is gaining a new appreciation. While advances in modern medicine have benefited countless people and added years to peoples? lives, a new focus includes enhancing the quality of life.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered that a previously unexplained fatal form of Osteogenesis Imperfecta — a disorder that weakens bones and which may cause frequent fractures — results from a genetic defect in a protein involved in the production of collagen.
A 15-year-old girl became the ninth fatal victim of the avian influenza virus and the first minor to lose her life to the disease in Egypt, said health ministry media official Sayyid Al-Abbasi.
Egyptian health ministry reported that a 15-year-old Egyptian girl has died of bird flu. Nine people in Egypt have died from the H5N1 strain of avian flu since the virus first appeared in the country’s poultry in February.
Pregnant and nursing women who eat generous amounts of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage could help protect their children from cancer, both as infants and later in life. A new study done with laboratory mice found that phytochemicals found in certain vegetables provided a very high level of protection against leukemia and lymphoma in young animals, and also significantly protected against lung cancer during the rodent’s equivalent of middle age.
UC Berkeley scientists Jill Banfield and Brett Baker have found some of the smallest organisms known in a sample of slime from a California mine. Their discovery proves the value of a technique called “shotgun” sequencing to identify all organisms in a microbial community, particularly those too small to see in a microscope, those very low in abundance, or those too novel to be picked up by PCR.
Piergiorgio Welby, 60 years old, an advocate for euthanasia, suffered from muscular dystrophy for 40 years, died in Italy, after being taken off a respirator.