African-Americans more prone to higher heart weight than whites, study shows
...ociation. Elevated blood pressure seemed to be the best indicator of why African-Americans in the study had a higher rate of left-ventricular hypertrophy or LVH, the UT Southwestern research team found. "LVH is associated with every adverse cardiovascular outcome heart attacks, strokes and even heart fai...Breast cancer uses growth factors to lure stem cells
...the Peter J. Gingrass, M.D. Memorial Award for the best paper presented by a medical student or non-plastic surgery resident during the recent 50th anniversary meeting of the Plastic Surgery Research Council. "When you have a growing tumor, the tumor cells cannot stand alone," says Dr. Edmond Ritter, MC...Blood-based TB test matches up to old skin test in study among health workers in India
...enu so that health professionals can choose what's best for their target population," said Pai. "For high-burden, low-resource countries such as India, the skin test might still have value."...Zero increase in prescription drug spending with generic promotion programs
...Express Scripts' generic dispensing rate to 54% -- best among the nation's pharmacy benefit managers. "Step therapy programs are proven tools that lower prescription-drug costs for benefit sponsors and for patients in the form of lower copayments, without compromising health outcomes," said Brenda Mothera...Treatment helps in preventing TB among those at high risk
...community. Further work is needed to determine how best to use available interventions to minimize TB morbidity in areas where both HIV and TB are highly prevalent," the researchers conclude....Mayo Clinic case series illuminates connection between welding, brain damage
...e, not reversible," says Dr. Josephs. "I think the best option is removal from welding."...Johns Hopkins team finds 'ancestral' hepatitis-C virus at the root of evolution in infections
...that a hepatitis-C consensus sequence could be the best practical option for a vaccine," says infectious disease specialist David Thomas, M.D., a professor of medicine at Hopkins who served as senior author of the study of Irish women. "If we can focus vaccine development on the common genetic element in...Johns Hopkins AIDS expert says global strategy needed to combat 'feminization' of HIV/AIDS
...Quinn. "If medical progress is to continue on how best to prevent and treat the disease, then developing specific strategies that empower women will be key to its success."...Digital mammography does not improve breast cancer detection rates, study finds
...ing reasons to position themselves as offering the best women's care services. Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women and the third most frequent cancer throughout the world. More than 1 million new cases were diagnosed worldwide in 2002, and incidence rates are increasing at about 5 percen...Tobacco linked to 63 percent of cancer death burden among African-American men
...g lives prematurely. This study clarifies that the best explanation for most premature cancer deaths for African-American males is tobacco smoke exposure, whether from secondhand or active smoking. It helps estimate regional and previously overlooked burdens of tobacco smoke inhalation," Leistikow said. "...Search for bipolar gene, toll of disease topics of conference call briefings June 16, 17
... nearly half of all suicidal deaths each year. How best to prevent these suicides? One study finds lithium, one of psychiatry's oldest drugs, the most effective solution. Participants: Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School, Ross J. Baldessarini, M.D., Harvard Medical School Moderator: Ellen F...Obese women with breast cancer may be undertreated
...herefore become increasingly important in defining best practices for the care of overweight and obese women."...Homeless prefer aggressive medical treatment
... and consistent decisions are made that are in the best interests of the patients who do not have surrogate decision-makers. In addition, organizations assisting homeless persons should consider options for encouraging advance directives for the individuals they serve." "Advance directives are an import...Can't serve an ace? Could be muscle fatigue
...dge of how much effort is required to maintain the best position, to get the ball where it needs to go. "However, if the limbs are fatigued the brain must activate them harder and this leads to errors about where the different body parts are located." Professor Proske said the research could also offer in...Better early diagnosis of relapsed prostate cancer
...a. She was speaking on receiving the award for the best scientific work at the XXVI National Congress of the Spanish Society for Nuclear Medicine (SEMN), held recently in Maspalomas (the Canary Islands). The study, entitled, "Value of PET with FDG and 11C-Choline in early diagnosis of relapsed treated pro...Doctors argue for new ways to resolve health treatment choices
...s also exist in other countries to try to make the best use of available healthcare resources. Recommendations all focus on how effective any new treatment is compared to the existing standard of care and on its value-for-money. Currently, none of these organisations adjust their value-for-money assessmen...Research: Noise, visual cues affect infants' language development
...'s face, the results emphasize that children learn best when they are gathering information with their eyes and ears," Hollich says. "The second and third experiments show that a second source of sound can interfere with that method, and now we know being able to see something along with the audio in a no...Design of neonatal intensive care units critical to infant health
...nds. Individualized lighting, she explains, is the best compromise to meet the needs of the infant and the staff because lighting needed by infants may not be comfortable to staff. Reduced lighting also has been shown to significantly reduce conversation levels among staff, the primary contributor to nois...MRI can help predict breast cancer recurrence
...cisco, of 58 breast cancer patients found that the best way to predict a patient's recurrence-free survival is to review the initial MR examination (before the patient has chemotherapy) and the final MR examination (after chemotherapy has been completed). "Initial tumor volume was a strong predictor of re...Cancer patients do better with surgeons, hospitals that treat higher volume
...ralizing services to larger medical centers is the best policy. "Volume outcome of certain procedures don't always hold up when comparing one hospital or one surgeon with one other hospital or one other surgeon who treat higher volumes," says Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and patient policy at ...