Psychological interventions for chronic low back pain are effective, a new review of studies has found. Not only do these approaches improve psychological outcomes such as depression and health-related quality of life, they also reduce patients’ experience of pain.
The belief that mistletoe can help treat cancer is a myth which can cause harm, warn doctors in this week’s Christmas issue of the BMJ. The warning follows the case of a cancer patient who attended hospital with a tumour-like growth under the skin induced by mistletoe.
Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have developed the first gene chip to use in the early diagnosis of at least five hereditary liver diseases, to detect genetic causes of jaundice in children and adults, and potentially to lead to personalized treatment options.
A study led by a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago compares the safety, effectiveness and reliability of the two most common types of laser eye surgery, laser epithelial keratomileusis (LASEK) and laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) in the December 2006, issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology.
Mice with neuroblastoma tumors have been successfully treated with genetically modified cells that sought out the cancer cells and activated a chemotherapy drug directly at those sites, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and their colleagues at City of Hope National Medical Center (Duarte, Calif.) and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). Neuroblastoma is a solid tumor that arises in the part of the nervous system outside the brain.
Babies deprived of oxygen during birth may now be treated with a cap that cools the head to prevent or reduce brain damage, U.S. health officials said.
Research by the Human Pain Research Group at the University of Manchester suggests that people’s responses to placebo or “dummy” pain relief varies according to their way of thinking.
A new study reveals that the cumulative cost of prostate cancer is, on average, $42,570 over five years. Watchful waiting was the least expensive treatment while radiation and androgen deprivation therapy were the most expensive.
A study reveals that differences in utilization of screening tests and surgical treatment may contribute to poorer colorectal cancer survival rates in African-Americans.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved Invega (paliperidone) extended-release tablets for the treatment of schizophrenia. Paliperidone is a new molecular entity, which means this medication contains an active substance that has never before been approved for marketing in any form in the United States.