Study finds that coordinating care of chronically ill patients does not increase liability
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Conventional wisdom is wrong: primary care doctors who coordinate the care of their patients by specialists may actually have lower liability risk than primary care doctors who do not attempt care coordination. ...That is one finding from a study by Mark Hall, J.D., of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. But many doctors believe otherwise. "A representative nation...Primary care office strategies may increase colon cancer screening
CHICAGO Patients are more likely to receive colorectal cancer screening when primary care practices use an office systems approach, according to an article in the March 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ... ...Screenings for colorectal cancer (CRC) reduce its incidence and mortality from the disease, according to background information in the article....Health care report cards may increase racial/ethnic disparities in bypass operations
NEW YORK, March 15 Medical "report cards" intended to improve the quality of health care may sometimes reduce it for racial and ethnic minorities, according to a report in a special disparities themed issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. ...Several states began publishing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) report cards in the 1990s in an effort to improve the quality...Vitamin E may not prevent cancer or cardiovascular events, but may increase risk for heart failure
Patients who took vitamin E supplements for about 7 years did not have their risk of cancer or cardiovascular events significantly reduced, and in fact some had an increased risk of heart failure, according to a study in the March 16 issue of JAMA....... Experimental and epidemiological data have suggested that vitamin E supplementation may prevent cancer and cardiovascular events, according to b...Study shows acrylamide in baked and fried food does not increase risk of breast cancer in women
Boston, MA-- Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, have found no association between acrylamide intake in foods and risk of breast cancer among Swedish women. The findings appear in the March 16, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association....... In 2002, the Swedish National Food Administration first reported the...Postmenopausal breast cancer survivors at increased risk for bone fractures
CHICAGO Postmenopausal breast cancer survivors may be at increased risk for fractures (except for the hip) compared with other women in the same age group, according to an article in the March 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ... ...Previous small studies have found low bone density among postmenopausal breast cancer survivors and accelerated bone los...Obesity among African-American stroke survivors increases risk factors for recurrent stroke
CHICAGO Obesity may put African-Americans who have survived one stroke at risk for a second stroke by increasing their risk of hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes and high cholesterol, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ......Obesity has become epidemic in the United States and African-Americans have the highest rate o...Computerized order entry systems can increase risk of medication errors
A new study suggests that computerized order entry systems which are implemented in part to reduce prescribing errors can actually increase the risk of medication errors in certain situations, according to a study in the March 9 issue of ....... Adverse drug events (ADEs) are estimated to injure or kill more than 770,000 patients in hospitals annually, according to background information on the...Study suggests smoking while pregnant may increase chromosomal abnormalities in fetal cells
A preliminary report suggests that maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with increased chromosomal abnormalities in fetal cells, according to a study in the March 9 issue of ....... Maternal smoking during pregnancy has many consequences during and after pregnancy, such as infertility, coagulation problems, obstetric complications such as extrauterine pregnancy and placenta previa, an...Even mild depression increases long-term mortality in heart failure
DURHAM, N.C. Duke University Medical Center researchers have found a strong association between depression and a higher long-term risk of death for patients with chronic heart failure....... Additionally, and just as importantly, the researchers said even a psychological status previously considered to be sub-depressive puts these patients at higher risk of death. While it has been known that de...Current daily smoking may be associated with increased risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts
CHICAGO Suicidal thoughts or attempts are associated with daily smoking in current smokers, but not former smokers, according to an article in Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ... ..."A link between cigarette smoking and suicide has been reported in epidemiological investigations since the 1970s," according to background information in the article. However, the...Increasing physician volume requirement could improve mammogram accuracy, study concludes
Increasing the minimum number of mammograms a physician reads annually might improve the overall accuracy of screening mammography in the United States, according to a new study in the March 2 issue of the ...... Certain patient characteristics, such as age and breast density, are known to contribute to mammographic accuracy, but it is not known how the characteristics of physicians trained for...Studies address issues of risk and survival in rapidly increasing GI cancers
Bethesda, Maryland (Mar. 1, 2005) Studies published today by the American Gastroenterological Association shed new light on risk factors and predictors of survival associated with two types of cancer that are among the most rapidly increasing in the Western world esophageal and stomach cancer. ... ... ...(Demographic and Lifestyle Predictors of Survival in Patients with Esophageal or Gastric Ca...Hormone therapy increases risk of urinary incontinence
CHICAGO What has been considered a treatment for urinary incontinence--estrogen alone or with progestin--has been found to increase the incidence of incontinence in postmenopausal women, according to a study in the February 23 issue of JAMA....... Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) consisting of oral estrogen plus progestin or estrogen alone has long been used to treat postmenopausal women and, un...Insurance incentives might help smokers quit, study says
Health insurance that pays the full cost of smoking-cessation treatments can increase quit rates, compared to benefit plans that pick up only part of the tab or that offer no cessation benefits at all, according to a new review of studies.... ...Smokers receiving full benefits were one-and-a-half times more likely to quit successfully and nearly one-and-a-half times more likely to try quitting th...Regular cannabis may increase risk of stroke in young users
Regular users of cannabis could be putting themselves at risk of stroke, while they are still young, indicates a case report, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry....... Illicit drug use is known to be associated with an increased risk of stroke in young users, with heroin, cocaine, and speed (amphetamines) the most frequently implicated. ...... The patient was a 36 y...'Marital strain' increases women's risk of death, heart disease
ORLANDO, Feb. 17 Married women who avoid conflict with their spouses have an increased risk of dying from any cause, researchers report today at the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease and Stroke.... Researchers also found that men whose wives' come home upset with work outside the home have an increased risk of developing heart disease.... Researchers examined information...Surgical skill increases survival for oesophageal cancer surgery
"Resection of the oesophagus for cancer should no longer be an operation with a high mortality rate provided experienced surgeons are involved as part of a multidisciplinary team", according to Mr Subhajit Dutta Roy, Clinical Research Fellow at the Surgical Research Unit, Leighton Hospital, Crewe in the United Kingdom. Mr Dutta Roy was speaking at the 12th Congress of the European Society of Surg...Increasing the body's good cholesterol may be a pill away
(Philadelphia, PA) An important clinical advance in the prevention of heart disease has been identified by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in collaboration with researchers at Tufts University and Pfizer. The study led by Daniel Rader, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Penn's Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine & Lipid Center, involved a novel...Post-traumatic stress disorder increases in children with extended ICU stays after cardiac surgery
New York, NY April 7, 2004 A study published in the April issue of The Journal of Pediatrics shows that the occurrence of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) increases significantly in school-age children who experience extended stays in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) following cardiac surgery.... ...The study, led by Dana Connolly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York Univer...Exposure to famine associated with increased breast cancer risk
Women who experienced a short but severe decrease in their food intake during the 19441945 Dutch famine have an increased risk of breast cancer compared with women whose caloric intake was not as greatly affected, according to a study in the April 7 issue of the . ...... Several animal studies have found that reducing caloric intake by one-third to one-half for the animals' lifetime prevents var...Ejaculation frequency not related to increased risk of prostate cancer
Ejaculation frequency, a measure of sexual activity, is not associated with a higher risk for prostate cancer, according to a study in the April 7 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). However, a high ejaculation frequency may be linked to a decreased risk of prostate cancer.... ...Sexual activity has been hypothesized to play a role in the development of prostate cance...Major NCI study finds increased risk of cancer in long-term Hodgkins survivors
An international study of more than 32,000 Hodgkin's disease patients has shown that long-term survivors of the disease have double the normal risk of developing a subsequent cancer later in life. Researchers led by the National Cancer Institute measured the risk of these "second cancers" among Hodgkin's disease survivors using data from cancer registries in the U.S., Canada, and four Nordic cou...Gene therapy may increase cancer cure rates, medical physicists show
Richmond, VA (August 13, 2002)--An innovative combination of two medical procedures-gene therapy and radiation therapy--can increase cancer cure rates by significant amounts compared to the cure rates offered by conventional radiation therapy alone, a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) team has concluded. The researchers presented their results last month in Montreal at the annual conference...High mental stress linked with increased risk of cardiovascular death
DALLAS, Aug. 13 Japanese women who report high levels of mental stress have double the risk for stroke-related and heart-related deaths than those reporting low stress levels, according to a study in today's rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association....... "This is the first report that set out to examine perceived mental stress in a large group of men and wom...Declining physical activity levels are associated with increasing obesity
The recent worldwide increase in obesity has been attributed to environmental factors such as more sedentary lifestyles and excessive food intake. In an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Lahti-Koski et al. conducted a series of cross-sectional surveys of Finnish men and women with the aim of assessing the relationship between lifestyle variables and increased obesity over a 1...UM outreach programs increase kidney transplants among African-Americans
Transplant surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center say they have successfully reduced barriers to kidney transplantation for African-Americans to cut the median waiting time for transplant in half. Their achievement stems from a comprehensive program that includes patient education and efforts to increase living donation and improve overall kidney graft survival. Results of the...Hormone therapy for prostate cancer causes weight gain and increased body fat
Prostate cancer patients often receive androgen-deprivation therapy to reduce their levels of the hormone testosterone, but the side effects have not been well studied. A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) study published in the February issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism reveals that unwanted weight gain, particularly increased fat body mass, is a common occurrence.........Savannah, GA, Feb. 20, 2002Since nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) became available as a nonprescription treatment to help Americans stop smoking, the number of adults attempting to quit smoking significantly increased to nearly 40 percent, according to a study of U.S. census data scheduled for presentation on Friday at the Eighth Annual Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in Sav...Sustained use of anti-depressants increases cell growth and protects cells in the brain
.New Haven, Conn. Continued use of anti-depressants leads to new cell growth in an area of the brain known to suffer cell death and atrophy as a result of depression and stress, a study by Yale researchers shows.. .Depression affects an estimated 12 percent to 17 percent of the population at some point during their lifetime. Anti-depressants are commonly prescribed for depression and other affe...Study Finds Incidence Of Stroke Over 40 Percent Higher Than Previously Stated Figures
.CONTACT: .Brian Henry or Trish Moreis . AHA News Media Relations . Omni Rosen Hotel . (407) 370-6151 . NR 98-4855 (Stroke/Broderick). ORLANDO, Feb. 6 -- The number of Americans afflicted with a stroke each.year is estimated to be about 500,000 -- but that number is too low, according.to a report in today's Stroke: A Journal of the Americ...Survey Finds Increasing Popularity Of Acute Stroke Teams In U.S. Hospitals
. ORLANDO, FLA. -- In the past, the brain and heart have received different.treatment, at least when it comes to emergencies.. When "code blue" teams rush to someone having a heart attack, their goal.is to jump-start the heart to re-establish blood flow to the brain. Such teams.have been hospital staples for years; however, the emergence of similar teams to.help patients sufferi...Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory collaborates with USDA in development of pasteurization process
Plainsboro, New Jersey -- A small group of fusion researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is focusing its attention on an innovative pasteurization process through a collaboration with the Agriculture Department. PPPL, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed by Princeton University, is a collaborative national center for plasma science and technology lea...Can genes help prevent cancer or increase your risk?
...Knowledge about cancer genetics is rapidly expanding, with implications for all aspects of cancer management, including prevention, screening, and treatment. Please join us for an in-depth look at the latest scientific discoveries about cancer and your genes. The seminar will provide perspective on timely issues such as genetic counseling and related ethical issues, risk of cancer due to o...Mayo Clinic study finds obese kidney donors face few increased risks
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have found that obese individuals in otherwise good health who donated a kidney had outcomes similar to their non-obese counterparts. The study is published in the March issue of the American Journal of Transplantation. ...... In a retrospective study of more than 500 patients, at an average of eleven months after kidney donation, Mayo doctors found obe...No increase in C-sections when epidural analgesia given early in labor
Injecting spinal-epidural analgesia in early labor does not increase cesarean delivery rates and provides better pain relief and a shorter duration of labor than systemic opioid analgesia, according to an article by Northwestern University researchers published in the Feb. 17 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.... Epidural injections are administered into the space between the wall of...Small increases or 'blips' in HIV levels do not signal mutations leading to drug-resistant HIV
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have concluded that sudden, temporary spikes in the amount of HIV in the body, commonly called "blips," generally do not mean the virus is developing resistance to AIDS drugs and gaining strength in numbers. ...... "These results should provide relief to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive patients in the United States currently taking drug therapy, called highly a...No increase in sexual risk taking among gay men in HIV-study
Canadian gay men participating in the world's first test of a vaccine to prevent HIV did not appear to become more risky sexually out of false hope that the vaccine being tested would protect them from infection. ......The study, authored by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver and co-investigators in Toronto and Montreal , found that 21% of participants engaged in the riskies...Study casts doubt on increased mobility among US population
A great deal of public policy advocacy has been influenced by the notion that the United States is becoming an "increasingly mobile society" - that the population is changing residence at increasing levels. However, a new study provides empirical evidence in favor of an opposite trend....... (Vol. 45, No. 1)....... Authors Douglas A. Wolf of Syracuse Univers...Boosting HIV screening can increase survival and is cost effective
Expanded HIV screening can increase patient life span, prevent the spread of the disease, and is cost effective, researchers at Yale, Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital report in the February 10 issue of the (NEJM). ...... The study's findings are part of a two-paper series in NEJM on the value of expanded HIV screening in the United States. The Yale/Harvard study used different da...