Hey VeinViewer fans and victims of poorly trained phlebotomists, if you live near the Memphis-based Methodist Le Bonheur Hospitals you're in luck. In February, they became the first institution to begin wide-spread use of this new technology.
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Doctors hoping to minimize chest pains associated with heart disease and perhaps even prevent heart attacks have long treated patients with stents, hollow tubes surgically implanted into blocked artery to prop them open.
Now a landmark study shows that while stents may improve blood flow, using them along with conventional drug therapies is no more effective at preventing heart attacks and other cardiac events than drug therapy alone. The findings, announced today at the American College of Cardiology conference, could have profound effects for patients and device manufacturers, since a staggering 800,000 Americans receive stents each year.
From SooToday:Smokers clock up almost eight additional days of sick leave every year.
Smokers take an average of almost eight days more of sick leave every year than their non-smoking colleagues, suggests research published in Tobacco Control.
A device that zaps the airway with radio waves cuts moderate-to-severe asthma symptoms, a clinical study shows.
The device, the Alair System from Asthmatx Inc., is a radio-wave generator attached to a specially designed probe. During three procedures -- called bronchial thermoplasty -- the device is inserted into the airway. It zaps the smooth muscle of the airway, making it harder for the airway to spasm and close.
Computer-based therapy should be available to all patients in England from April, says the government. Patients with mild depression or anxiety should receive therapy instead of drugs, but there are long waiting lists around the country.
A trial of one computer programme - 'Beating the Blues' - found it more cost-effective than other treatments.
But experts warned computer-based therapy was not for everyone and access to therapists also needs to improve.
Faster emergency room care for you and your family.Imagine visiting an Emergency Room where they already know you! Your name, primary care physician, even insurance information is there ahead of time. That’s the idea behind ER pre-registration at Einstein at Elkins Park.
From AHN:New findings suggest that drinking any type of soft drink - even diet sodas - poses a risk to the health of your teeth, and dentists have recommended that people should restrict their soft drink intake to mealtimes.
According to new research by the Academy of General Dentistry, soft drinks and other sugary drinks are bad for the teeth because they harm the enamel, causing dental erosion that leads to loss of tooth structure.The researchers added that the phosphoric acid and/or citric acid content in diet drinks can also cause dental erosion, albeit significantly less damage than their sugary counterparts. They found that citric acid, which is the main ingredient in non-cola drinks, can be especially erosive.
When Janet Fredrick got breast cancer in 1998, she never thought she would face bankruptcy because of medical bills: She had insurance.
But her illness dragged out, then her income plunged when she went on disability. By 2005, her co-payments for treatment, including surgery, medications, doctor visits and hospital care, totaled about $8,000.
Such co-payments and deductibles, along with difficult-to-understand policies and complex hospital billing issues, are among the main reasons even people such as Fredrick who have health insurance can face devastating financial costs, says a report out today from The Access Project, an advocacy group that researches medical debt.
New "landmark" research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.
In research published Friday in The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain's Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society. Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.
New Canadian research shows delaying the oldest intervention in medicine - cutting the umbilical cord - is better for babies and that the benefits extend into the first year of life.
The tendency now in North America is to clamp and cut the cord within the first five to 10 seconds of birth.
But the new study says putting off clamping for a minimum of two minutes in full-term newborns reduces by nearly half the risk of anemia and boosts iron stores in infants for as long as six months.
The superbug outbreak that has shut down an Alberta hospital is just one example of a phenomenon that is happening more and more frequently in Canada, says an Ontario-based infectious disease specialist.
Vegreville's St. Joseph's General Hospital, in east-central Alberta, has halted all admissions, cancelled out-patient day surgery and closed the sterilization room amid the outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and the discovery of improper equipment sterilization procedures.
Dr. Donald Low, chief microbiologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, says there wouldn't be a single hospital open in Canada if they all shut down over superbug outbreaks.
Evidence from national databases suggests that both acute and chronic sinus inflammation (sinusitis) is being overtreated with poorly chosen medications, researchers report.
Data from 1999 and 2002 collected by the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey suggests that there were roughly 14 million visits annually because of chronic sinusitis and 3 million because of acute sinusitis.
According to the Sinus and Allergy Health Partnership, acute sinusitis lasts for up to 4 weeks, while chronic cases last at least 12 weeks.
Hadley J. Sharp and associates at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha report that 83 percent of visits for acute sinusitis resulted in a prescription for an antibiotic, as did 70 percent of visits for chronic sinusitis.
"Prescription antibiotic drugs are being used far more than bacterial causes studies would indicate," the authors warn.
Minnesota and Vermont require pharmaceutical companies to disclose payments of $100 or more to physicians and other health care providers, but both states have been accused of failing to deliver on that promise of transparency.
The two states are not living up to their pledges to make it clear to patients whether pharmaceutical company largess and gifts of various kinds might be influencing physicians unduly in the choice of drugs they prescribe, said geriatrician Joseph S. Ross, M.D., M.H.S., of Mount Sinai Medical School, in the March 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The Vermont and Minnesota laws requiring disclosure of payments do not provide easy access to payment information for the public and are of limited quality once accessed," wrote Dr. Ross. "However, substantial numbers of payments of $100 or more were made to physicians by pharmaceutical companies."
