Rectal cancer treatment gaps, especially for African Americans, seen in new study
...olleagues examined surgery and radiation treatment patterns for 52,864 rectal cancer patients -- 3,851 of them...y, hospital system, surgeon experience or referral patterns have on the rates of sphincter-sparing surgery and adjuvant radiation, but further research should h...Unsafe injections rejected as major source of HIV infection in Africa
...en (who are not sexually active) is uncommon, that patterns of injection use do not correlate well with HIV incidence, that individuals who are initially HIV-negative but at a later date are found to be HIV-positive do not have substantially different histories of injections than those who did not become HIV-...Large-scale analysis of women with androgen excess: thorough treatment can reduce symptoms
...ertility. Hirsutism the growth of coarse hair in patterns similar to those of men has long been considered the key marker for androgen excess. Physicians have had difficulty providing a firm diagnosis and identifying underlying causes, however, because a number of disorders can cause hirsutism, not all wom...Behavior patterns of some nursing home residents may provoke other residents, resulting in injuries
...s who are injured by other residents have behavior patterns that may provoke injury-causing physical contact, whether unintentionally, unknowingly, or otherwise, according to a study in the February 4 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). According to background information provid...Intervention program helps reduce television viewing in preschool children
...ldren younger than two years. Television watching patterns develop during the preschool years, and although intervention programs exist to reduce television viewing in older children, there are none for younger, preschool children. Barbara A. Dennison, M.D., of the Research Institute, Bassett Healthcare, Coo...Mad cow has confidence stirred, but not shaken
... While confirming the drop in stated consumption patterns found in other recent polls, the Rutgers study suggests this reduction is likely temporary for most. Only about 1 percent of Americans say they have given up beef for good. Nearly 40 percent of those who have stopped eating beef said they will resu...Optic nerve disease may cause sleep disorders
...ther treatment with melatonin helps regulate sleep patterns in children with optic nerve disease. Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone that helps regulate the circadian clock. Its release is related to the eye's light meter function. But even before he learns whether it's possible to help these patient...Black tar heroin use explains lower HIV levels among injection drug users in the Western US
...nd data from the DEA on the types and distribution patterns of heroin. This data is valuable to public health authorities. Consider that if powder heroin were to become more widely available on the West Coast, public health agencies would need to prepare for the possibility that currently successful interven...Brain reverberations during sleep
...l the forebrain areas examined the neuronal firing patterns recorded when the rats initially explored the new objects reappeared for up to 48 hours after these objects were removed. This reverberation of neuronal activity that they recorded was most significant during slow-wave sleep (a state that accounts fo...Evidence that memories are consolidated during sleep
...evealed "reverberations" of distinctive brain wave patterns across all the areas being monitored for up to 48 hours after the novel experience. According to Ribeiro, "We found that the activity of the brain when the animal is in a familiar environment does not 'stick' -- that is, the brain keeps moving from o...Novel technique may help detect certain head and neck cancers
... by testing for newly discovered signature protein patterns found in patients with this cancer, according to a... smokers or control patients. Using these protein patterns to develop a classification system, the researchers were able to distinguish between patients with H...Beta blockers cost effective to society for heart failure treatment
...rt increased beta blocker use. Changes in practice patterns could be encouraged, however, by linking reimburse...g reimbursement for improved discharge prescribing patterns could motivate hospitals to encourage physicians to optimize discharge medications," Califf said. ...Understanding nerve degeneration in spastic paraplegia
...d by progressive weakness, spasticity, and diverse patterns of inheritance, which is caused by degeneration of nerve axons. Elena Rugarli and colleagues from the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine in Naples, Italy, developed a mouse model for studying HSP due to mutations in the Spg7 gene, which enco...New method of distinguishing Alzheimer's from Lewy body dementia
...on. These differences may be related to different patterns of damage to the brain. In addition, patients with DLB may have fully formed hallucinations, Parkinson-like movement problems and/or fluctuating cognition. These symptoms may be present in late-stage AD, but one or all of them are present in early ...Hospital volume may not be best criteria for selecting hospital for coronary bypass surgery
...e not only of tracking risk-adjusted surgical care patterns and outcomes, but also of improving them," the authors conclude.(JAMA. 2004;291:195-201. Available post-embargo at JAMA.com )...Cancer markers news backgrounder: Future of cancer diagnosis, treatment lies in tumor 'barcode'
...ovarian cancer. "Our goal is to find and classify patterns of protein changes that we can use to detect and predict cancer and other diseases," Mills says. Subtypes of colon, lung cancer As more and more subtypes of cancer are discovered, the need for biomolecular markers has become clearer and more urgen...Trials on hormone therapy and hypertension treatment change practice, medication usage of patients
...d office-based physician alpha-blocker prescribing patterns reported in the National Disease and Therapeutic Index, a random sample of about 3,500 physician offices. The researchers found that there were steady increases in alpha-blocker new prescriptions, dispensed prescriptions, and physician drug use fr...Kids exposed to violence have more behavioral problems
...ians should be vigilant in recognizing maladaptive patterns of behaviors in children exposed to violence," he concludes....Tip sheet for the December 23, 2003 Neurology journal
...nd provide an opportunity for researchers to study patterns of brain activity that may precede dementia. Watch for a news release from the University of CaliforniaIrvine, or contact Tom Vasich, 949-824-6455, tmvasich@uci.edu . More evidence that gabapentin effective in treating headache Gabapentin was foun...Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Mount Sinai researchers are making sense of episodic memory
...ippocampus can support episodic memory by creating patterns of cellular activity for events within a temporal context. "The pattern of cell firing suggests a model of how the hippocampus helps form episodic memories," suggests Dr. Shapiro. "When you park your car, hippocampal neurons fire in a pattern that...