Hospitals may now be more willing to partner up with former adversaries
... Health Services Research is one the few published evaluations of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Quality Improvement Organizations (QIO). Focusing on patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction, researchers found an overall positive perceived impact of QIOs on the quality of hospital ...Study finds indoor allergen levels vary, cockroach allergens cause more asthma symptoms
...on use. Later, researchers performed baseline home evaluations by visually inspecting and collecting dust from each child's sleeping area. The project was part of the Inner-City Asthma Study, a multicenter study comprising seven medical centers including UT Southwestern and a statistical center. Centers includ...Diagnosis of prions in patients should utilize novel strategy, team says
...suggests that the CDI be used in future diagnostic evaluations of prion disease, particularly for single-site brain biopsies during life" "If the traditional techniques are used at autopsy, they must be applied to many cortical and subcortical samples," says co-author Stephen J. DeArmond, MD, PhD, UCSF professor...Use of cell phone images appears feasible for visualizing leg wounds
... face-to-face evaluation of leg wounds with remote evaluations to address the feasibility of taking images with c... the agreement between the remote and face-to-face evaluations was very good, with values of up to 0.94," the authors state. "In this study, we were able to show...Using the internet's power and anonymity to reduce problem drinking
...roven effective in college trials. Recent program evaluations offer evidence that the e-CHUG may compare favorably to more lengthy prevention programs and may increase the impact of educational or skill-based prevention efforts. "The e-CHUG is an intervention that provides information about personal consumption...Gender bias in child growth evaluations may miss disease in girls
...owth Center at Children's Hospital in 2001 for new evaluations of short stature or poor growth. Because the definitions of short stature use percentage cutoffs, rather than actual heights, roughly equal numbers of boys and girls would be expected among the referrals. Instead, the research team found that boys ou...Over-the-counter supplement appears effective in treatment of midlife-onset depression
...as second- or third-line treatments but controlled evaluations of these potential therapeutic agents are needed, the study's authors suggested. DHEA has been previously reported to have antidepressant-like effects. The current study was designed to evaluate DHEA as a treatment for depression with a midlife onset...Other highlights in the February 2 JNCI
... Results (SEER) program. They looked at lymph node evaluations from nearly 117,000 adults who had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer between 1988 and 2001. Only 37% of patients had received adequate lymph node evaluation--i.e., 12 or more lymph nodes examined. However, the proportion of patients who received ...More studies on risks and benefits of COX-2 inhibitors published in Archives of Internal Medicine
... this trial from May 2001 to April 2002. Patient evaluations were conducted at the start of the study and 1, 2, 6, and 12 weeks after randomization. "Reductions in osteoarthritis symptoms, including pain, mobility, and stiffness, were similar in all treatment groups," the researchers found. "The mean (aver...Discovery of pathway in learning impairment caused by liver disease may lead to drug treatment
...antly enhanced the function of this pathway. These evaluations were also performed on rats with hyperammonemia. Results showed that chronic hyperammonemia significantly reduced the rats' ability to learn, but that treatment with sildenafil restored their learning ability. While sildenafil treatment restored leve...Reduced progression of atherosclerosis tied to statin drugs lowering fats, protein
...s of atorvastatin. Doctors repeated the ultrasound evaluations 18 months later. In the group as a whole, the mean LDL cholesterol level dropped from 150.2 milligrams per deciliter to 94.5 milligrams per deciliter. Both cholesterol and C-reactive protein levels correlated with progression of patients' disea...Two self-fulfilling prophecies are stronger, and more harmful, than one
...ormation, perceived as more useful, and influences evaluations more. In addition, people also weigh costs more than rewards when making important decisions. Thus, the greater power of unfavorable versus favorable beliefs may reside in how people process negative versus positive information. These results could ...Women seeking treatment for even minimal 'male-type' hair growth need endocrine evaluation
...nthosis nigricans) and other symptoms. The patient evaluations were completed between Jan. 1, 1995 and June 30, 2002 at UAB, where Dr. Azziz served as Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and in the Department of Medicine before joining Cedars-Sinai. Participants completed a medical history f...Increased suicide rate is possibly linked to chemicals released from nearby asphalt plants
... Between 1994 and 2003, death certificate evaluations for the two Salisbury neighborhoods showed a three-fold statistically significant increase in the suicide rate, the study found. Four deaths by suicide in adults were reported from the 687 residents in the census tract block group 1. Two deaths by su...Little evidence to link mercury fillings to human health problems
...provide independent expert scientific opinions and evaluations for the health, biosciences and food industries, as well as the federal government. The report was prepared at the request of the federal Trans-agency Working Group on the Health Effects of Dental Amalgam. This ad hoc body is composed of represen...Brain activity reflects complexity of responses to other-race faces
...te - they may interact in more dynamic ways during evaluations of our social environment," says lead author William A. Cunningham, assistant professor of psychology at Toronto. "Even for non-prejudiced individuals, early perceptual processing may result in an automatic emotional response that may direct attentio...New marrow transplant method developed at Stanford may eliminate fatal side effects
...patients' spleens or lymph nodes-Lowsky said their evaluations of the blood and marrow samples suggest that is the case. Now that the method is proving to be a viable therapy for humans, the team will be testing it with other cancer centers. Others involved in the clinical trial are Robert Negrin, MD, professor ...Endocrine Society calls for clinical guidelines on androgens for women
... a year thereafter is recommended. Other possible evaluations include hematocrit or hemoglobin determination, lipid measurement, yearly mammography and endometrial ultrasound. Some experts also suggest that free testosterone should be measured before treatment and monitored during treatment. Testosterone ther...Dairy Council of California program receives high marks from teachers & students
...d groups increased. Results from the second grade evaluations showed that after completing the Healthy Choices, Healthy Me! program, students greatly improved their knowledge of classifying foods into food groups and retained this knowledge up to two months later. In addition, knowledge in regards to the funct...Methylphenidate improves attention, behavior of children surviving leukemia, brain tumors
... Mulhern said. "Our future plans include follow-up evaluations of children who continue MPH treatment for three, six and 12 months. In addition to improvements in learning and behavior, we would also like to know if such treatment results in structural changes in the brain, as hypothesized by other researchers."...