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Symptoms Are A Poor Screening Tool For Ovarian Cancer

February 7th, 2010 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Research

Tags: Bloating, Feeling Full, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Ovarian Cancer, Pelvic Pain, symptoms

Thanks to Toni Brayer for pointing out this new study on ovarian cancer symptoms published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

This study confirms previous studies which found that ovarian cancer, long thought to be a silent disease in its early stages, does indeed have symptoms. The problem is that those symptoms – bloating, urinary frequency, pelvic pain, early satiety – are common, non-specific and, according to this new study, 99% of the time not due to an underlying ovarian cancer.

That’s good news, of course, for women with these symptoms. But bad news for those hoping for a means of early detection for ovarian cancer, since early symptom recognition is neither sensitive nor specific enough to be useful as a screening test on a population basis. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*

Health Tweeder: Culturing Health Dialogs On Twitter

February 7th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, News

Tags: Disease Specific Discussions, Health Tweeder, Petri Dish, Pixels and Pills, Technology, Twitter

The number of health-related Twitter users or discussions is still growing and while it’s easy to find Twitter messages focusing on a medical condition or specialty (search.twitter.com), visualizing these tiny bits of information is incredibly hard. Health Tweeder, managed by Pixels&Pills, aims to fill this gap.

Using the laboratory that is social media and Twitter, we’re visually and metaphorically using petri dishes to culture cells of dialogue on specific disease states. Each cell in a Petri dish represents a distinct tweet that has been gathered using relevant disease search terms, hashtags, and people we’ve identified. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Early Puberty Linked To Aggression in Women

February 5th, 2010 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research

Tags: Aggression, Childhood Development, Early Puberty, Pediatrics, Peer Pressure, Psychiatry, Psychology, puberty, Women

Interesting title, eh? A University of Queensland study has reported in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology that females who experience puberty before the age of 12 may be more aggressive, which seems perfectly expected to me!

Young girls who experience puberty are frequently the tallest kids in their classrooms, the first ones to have breasts, and are likely to be teased and approached in a sexual manner by older males! This context means they are more likely to date earlier, have opportunities to drink, smoke and become sexual earlier, etc.. In fact, these girls, although they get in more trouble at teens, tend to grow up to be very strong and resilient women – characteristics frequently correlated with aggression!

I am simply not surprised by these results but do hope that the results encourage schools, medical professionals and others who work with preteens to notice pubertal changes and help young girls deal with the pressure and changing peer and social status that comes with puberty.

Photo credit: xinem

This post, Early Puberty Linked To Aggression in Women, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..

Cognitive Impairment Often Goes Undocumented In Hospital Charts

February 5th, 2010 by JessicaBerthold in Better Health Network, News

Tags: Anticholinergics, Cognitive Impairment, Delirium, Hospital Staff, ICD-9 Codes, Neurology, Primay Care, Psychiatry

A recent JHM study found that hospital staff often don’t recognize cognitive impairment in patients age 65 and older. This was especially true for patients on the younger end of the spectrum, and those with more comorbidity.

Of the 424 patients (43%) in the study who were cognitively impaired, 61% weren’t recognized as such by ICD-9 coding. Interestingly, there was no significant difference between patients with documented and undocumented cognitive impairment as far as mortality, length of stay, home discharge, readmission rates, incidence of delirium, or receipt of anticholinergics. One troubling finding: a significant number of patients with cognitive impairment received anticholinergic medication, even though it’s not recommended for patients with any type of CI. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

Once You Have Lung Cancer, Should You Bother To Quit Smoking?

February 4th, 2010 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research

Tags: Addiction Medicine, BMJ, Lung Cancer, Never Too Late To Quit, Oncology, Quit Smoking, smoking cessation

Most smokers dread lung cancer. They are aware that by continuing to smoke the chances of developing lung cancer are increased 20 times, and that once it has developed the treatment is unpleasant and prognosis poor. Many patients (and unfortunately many clinicians) assume that once you have lung cancer it is too late to quit.

This week a new report was published in the BMJ, based on a review of the evidence that smoking cessation after diagnosis of a primary lung tumour affects prognosis. The study, by Drs Parsons, Daley and Aveyard at the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, combined the data from 10 studies. They found that those who quit smoking after diagnosis were significantly less likely to develop another tumor and significantly more likely to still be alive 5 years later. Read more »

This post, Once You Have Lung Cancer, Should You Bother To Quit Smoking?, was originally published on Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..